Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize certain entities. I should protest of course that he is wrong in his formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognize; (...) but my finding him wrong in his formulation of our disagreement is unimportant, for I am committed to considering him wrong in his ontology anyway. When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century American analytic philosophy. Although he wrote predominantly in English, in Brazil in 1942 he gave a series of lectures on logic and its philosophy in Portuguese, subsequently published as the book O Sentido da Nova Lógica. The book has never before been fully translated into English, and this volume is the first to make its content accessible to Anglophone philosophers. Quine would go on to develop revolutionary (...) ideas about semantic holism and ontology, and this book provides a snapshot of his views on logic and language at a pivotal stage of his intellectual development. The volume also includes an essay on logic which Quine also published in Portuguese, together with an extensive historical-philosophical essay by Frederique Janssen-Lauret. The valuable and previously neglected works first translated in this volume will be essential for scholars of twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century American analytic philosophy. Although he wrote predominantly in English, in Brazil in 1942 he gave a series of lectures on logic and its philosophy in Portuguese, subsequently published as the book O Sentido da Nova Lógica. The book has never before been fully translated into English, and this volume is the first to make its content accessible to Anglophone philosophers. Quine would go on to develop revolutionary (...) ideas about semantic holism and ontology, and this book provides a snapshot of his views on logic and language at a pivotal stage of his intellectual development. The volume also includes an essay on logic which Quine also published in Portuguese, together with an extensive historical-philosophical essay by Frederique Janssen-Lauret. The valuable and previously neglected works first translated in this volume will be essential for scholars of twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

The lectures conclude with Quine’s reflections on significance or insignificance of ontology. He develops his arguments for the relativity of ontology and explains how this relativity emerges from an appreciation of the looseness of fit between reception and perception and the further recognition that all reification is theoretical. Given the kind of freedom that comes with the specification of an ontology, Quine concludes that the importance of theory is not to be found in the objects (...) that it posits. Rather it is found in the structural relations between its terms and sentences and observation sentences. The links between theory and observation are found in the recurrence of observation sentences or their parts in theoretical sentences. What these sentences refer to, in their capacity as terms, becomes unimportant. (shrink)

The text is translated from W.V.O.Quine: From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press. Second Edition, 1980. pp. 130-139.

Throughout this systematic analysis, the author questions basic assumptions on which the Quinean edifice rests. The book argues that Quine's notion of ontology is riddled with inconsistencies and singles out examples for discussion.

In this paper I defend a Quinean view on ontological commitment against some recent challenges. I outline the virtues and limitations of the Quinean approach before considering two different theories. Thomas Hofweber argues that commitment in natural language is ambiguous and that Quine’s canonical notation is incapable of representing the two functions of natural language quantifiers. Truthmaker theorists argue that Quine’s approach is based on a fallacious view of the relation between true sentences and the truthmaking domain (the (...) world). In response I argue that both objections are aimed at a particularly strong version of the Quinean approach, and that rather than abandon it we can use these challenges to understand its true value. (shrink)

Dilman conjures up a memorable vision of two great twentieth-century dragons at war. Each takes a turn at stimulating the other with its blue breath of naturalist hellfire. Each responds like a venomously programmed beast with a cold douche of quotations. Quine is provoked to repeat famous statements—mainly from “On What There Is,” “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” “Epistemology Naturalised,” and The Web of Belief. Wittgenstein is induced to hurl back commentaries from a great many works, up from the Tractatus. (...) Wittgenstein, of course, is said to triumph. (shrink)

W. V. Quine assumed that in _Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology Rudolf Carnap was attempting to dodge commitment to abstract entities--without either renouncing quantification over them or demonstrating their dispensability--by wielding the analytic/synthetic distinction against ontological issues. Quine's interpretation of Carnap's intent--and his criticism of it--is widely endorsed. But Carnap objected, I argue, not to abstract entities, but to his critics' suggestion that empiricism implies nominalism. Quine's and Carnap's views are therefore more akin than Quine ever (...) suspected. Unfortunately, Quine's misinterpretation of Carnap's position has led to a misunderstanding of the implications of Quine's own naturalistic turn for contemporary ontology. (shrink)

I make a Quinean case that Quine’s ontological relativity marked a wrong turn in his philosophy, that his fundamental commitments point toward the classical view of ontology that was worked out in most detail in hisWord and Object. This removes the impetus toward structuralism in his later philosophy.

Much of the ontology made in the analytic tradition of philosophy nowadays is founded on some of Quine’s proposals. His naturalism and the binding between existence and quantification are respectively two of his very influential metaphilosophical and methodological theses. Nevertheless, many of his specific claims are quite controversial and contemporaneously have few followers. Some of them are: (a) his rejection of higher-order logic; (b) his resistance in accepting the intensionality of ontological commitments; (c) his rejection of first-order modal (...) logic; and (d) his rejection of the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. I intend to argue that these controversial negative claims are just interconnected consequences of those much more accepted and apparently less harmful metaphilosophical and methodological theses, and that the glue linking all these consequences to its causes is the notion of extensionality. (shrink)

Ontology played a very large role in Quine’s philosophy and was one of his major preoccupations from the early 30’s to the end of his life. His work on ontology provided a basic framework for most of the discussions of ontology in analytic philosophy in the second half of the Twentieth Century. There are three main themes (and several sub-themes) that Quine developed in his work. The first is ontological commitment: What are the existential commitments (...) of a theory? The second is ontological reduction: How can an ontology be reduced to (or substituted by) another? And what is the most economical ontology that can be obtained for certain given purposes? The third is criteria of identity: When are entities of some kind (sets, properties, material objects, propositions, meanings, etc.) the same or different? In this paper I discuss Quine’s development of these three themes and some of the problems that were aised in connection with his work. (shrink)

We aim to show from a new perspective that Quine’s ontological relativity, based largely on his so-called “proxy-function argument”, falls short of being a rigorously coherent philosophical conception, as it exhibits significant formal defects. This new perspective enables exposing the shortcomings of Quine's position and suggests a possible reformulation of the original position. Moreover, we argue that his ontological relativity is inconsistent with the empirical data associated with some of our best physical theories, such as quantum mechanics. We (...) refer to fundamental concepts of philosophy and the foundations of mathematics in order to clarify our critique of Quine’s position concerning the relation between formalized theories and both what we can know about the real world and how we come to know it. (shrink)

Let “explanationism” be the view that ontology is fundamentally an explanatory enterprise. What it does is “on a par” with natural science, as Quine put it. Carnap appears to offer a “lighter weight” alternative in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology”: ontology is concerned with semantics and language choice. This paper argues that Carnap’s account of the internal/external distinction is of less use than Carnap suggests for diagnosis of disputes in ontology. But he largely agrees with (...) class='Hi'>Quine about explanationism. I propose that explanationism is an attractive metametaphysical position between “heavy weight” and “light weight” views. Its method is abductive inference, which is broader than “light weight” methods. Since it is “on a par” with natural science, ontology contributes nothing beyond the claim that what there is, is what our best theories say there is. Hence, it is not “heavy weight”. (shrink)

Does Carnap’s treatment of philosophical questions about existence, such as “Are there numbers?” and “Are there physical objects?”, depend on his analytic–synthetic distinction? If so, in what way? I answer these questions by clarifying, defending, and developing the reading of Carnap’s paper “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” that W. V. Quine proposes, with little justification or explanation, in his paper “On Carnap’s Views on Ontology”. The primary methodological value of studying Quine’s reading of “Empiricism, Semantics, and (...) class='Hi'>Ontology” is that it prompts us to look for, and helps us to see the significance of, passages by Carnap that reveal the logical foundations of his views on ontology. Guided in this way by Quine’s reading, I show that (1) in “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” Carnap’s preferred treatment of philosophical questions relies on paraphrasing them so that their answers are immediately obvious elementary logical truths, and are therefore, by his standards, trivially analytic; and (2) in its most general form, Carnap’s treatment of philosophical questions about existence depends on his controversial view that the analytic truths of a language L may include sentences that are not elementary logical truths, but that are nevertheless, by Carnap’s standards, analytic-in-L simply because we have stipulated that they are to be among the “meaning postulates” of L. (shrink)

W.V.O. Quine and A.N. Whitehead shared a dualistic ontology of concrete and abstract objects but differed sharply on the status of properties. In this essay, we explore Whitehead’s reasons for admitting properties into his ontology and Quine’s objections. In the course of examining Quine’s position we demonstrate some deficiencies in his position and conclude that in spite of his claims, neither space-time coordinate systems nor classes can do all the ontological work of properties.

Quine on Ethics: The Gavagai of Moral Discourse is the first comprehensive treatment of Quine’s brief yet memorable foray into ethics. It defends him against his most formidable critics, corrects misconceptions in the reception of his outlook on morality as a social institution and ethics as a philosophical enterprise, and restores emphasis on observationality as the impetus behind his momentous intervention in ethical theory. The central focus is on Quine’s infamous challenge to ethical theory: his thesis of (...) the methodological infirmity of ethics as compared with science. The ultimate aim is to demonstrate that the challenge is not only valid but also valuable insofar as it identifies opportunities for reformation in moral justification. (shrink)

This paper elaborates on the relation between Quine’s notion of ontological commitment and his philosophy of science. I distinguish and present Quine’s solutions to two problems of existence, a semantic problem, roughly amounting to asking how existence can be expressed within a certain language, and an epistemological problem, roughly amounting to how the members of the scientific community can decide which theories are warranted. The gap between these problems is filled by noticing that existence is equated by (...) class='Hi'>Quine with reference, and that the principle of context imposes the epistemological primacy of truth over reference. Truth, in its turn, albeit given a purely semantic account along the lines of Tarski, is coextensive with the notion of warranted belief. (shrink)

QUINE'S PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS are for the most part contained in two collections of essays, From a Logical Point of View and recently The Ways of Paradox, and in an important book, Word and Object. The present survey will be restricted to views expressed in these three volumes, although Quine's work in logic is continuous with his work in philosophy. The present Part One describes and defends Quine's views about meaning. The following Part Two does the same for (...) his views on other subjects, especially ontology and epistemology. The two parts are related in a way to be explained in Part Two. (shrink)

Davidson has always been explicit in his faithful adherence to the main doctrines of Quine’s philosophy of language, among which the indeterminacy of translation thesis is significant. For Quine, the indeterminacy of translation has considerable ontological consequences, construed as leading to a sceptical conclusion regarding the existence of fine-grained meaning facts. Davidson’s suggested reading of Quine’s indeterminacy arguments seems to be intended to block any such sceptical consequences. According to this reading, Quine’s arguments at most yield (...) the conclusion that there are always different ways of representing the facts about meaning, rather than the sceptical conclusion that there are no such facts. It is, however, puzzling how Davidson can endorse the main premises of Quine’s arguments, i.e. his general physicalistic view and his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation, and yet resist the arguments’ sceptical outcome. I will argue that Davidson’s construal of Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation is unjustified and faces a problematic dilemma. (shrink)

W.V. Quine is a well-known proponent of naturalism, the view on which reality is described only in science. He is also well-known for arguing that our current scientific theories commit us to the existence of abstract objects. It is tempting to believe that the naturalistic philosopher should think scientists outside of philosophy are in the best position to assess the merits of revising our current commitment to abstract objects. But Quine rejects this deferential view. On the reading of (...) Quine’s philosophical methodology that I defend in this paper, the naturalistic philosopher not only may assess the merits of revising the commitments of our scientific theories, but also will recommend we make such revisions if doing so simplifies and clarifies our science. To develop my reading, I will examine John Burgess and Gideon Rosen’s naturalism in ontology that includes the deferential view Quine rejects. By explaining how Quine’s naturalism differs from the anti-revisionist, deferential naturalism in philosophy of mathematics that Burgess and Rosen advance, I seek to clarify and advance contemporary debates on naturalism. (shrink)

W. V. Quine describes himself as a “robust realist” about physical objects in the external world. This realism about objects is due to Quine's naturalism. On the other hand, Quine's naturalistic epistemology involves a conception of objects as posits that we introduce in our theories about the world. This conception of objects can be seen as anti-realist rather than realist. In this article, I discuss the questions whether there is a tension between Quine's realism and his (...) epistemological conception of objects, and how Quine's conception of objects should be understood if he is also to be regarded as a realist. I also address the question whether Quine should be placed on the realist or the anti-realist side of the current realism debate. I argue that Quine's conception of objects as posits is a general account of the nature of objects, and that this account does not conflict with Quine's realism as long as this realism is properly understood. I also argue that Quine cannot be placed on either side of the contemporary realism debate, since his realism is not metaphysical realism and his conception of objects is not an anti-realist doctrine according to which objects would be less than real. (shrink)

Dagfinn Føllesdal: “Developments in Quine's Behaviorism”: Quine insisted throughout his life that he was a behaviorist. He began briefly as an “ontological behaviorist,” that is, he held that there is nothing mental. However, very early he switched to evidential behaviorism: the view that behavior provides the only evidence we have for the mental and its properties. Ultimately, Quine's behaviorism springs from his empiricism. All knowledge about the world around us and about other people reaches us through our (...) senses: “Behaviorism, as far as I'm concerned, is only an intersubjective empiricism.” Quine applied this to language and communication. His acute problem awareness led him from the discussion of stimuli in Word and Object to a much more refined behaviorism in his latest works, in which full‐fledged perception and the individuation of the world into objects play a crucial role. (shrink)

This paper traces the development of Quine's ontological ideas throughout his early logical work in the period before 1948. It shows that his ontological criterion critically depends on this work in logic. The use of quantifiers as logical primitives and the introduction of general variables in 1936, the search for adequate comprehension axioms, and problems with proper classes, all forced Quine to consider ontological questions. I also show that Quine's rejection of intensional entities goes back to his (...) generalisation of Principia Mathematica in 1932. (shrink)

Discussion piece on a book of the same name: Quine on Ethics: The Gavagai of Moral Discourse. Published online as part of the “Book in Focus” program of Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2021).

In this paper, I reconstruct Quine’s arguments against quantified modal logic, from the early 1940’s to the early 1960’s. Quine’s concerns were not technical. Quine was looking for a coherent interpretation of quantified-in English modal sentences. I argue that Quine’s main thesis is that the intended objectual interpretation of the quantifiers is incompatible with any semantic reading of the modal operators, for example as expressing analytic necessity, unless the entities in the domain of quantification are intensions, (...) i.e. definitional entities. The difficulty is that it makes no sense to say of an ordinary object that it bears a property necessarily or contingently when the necessity or contingency in question is analytic. However, starting in 1960, Quine claims that quantified-in modal sentences can be coherently interpreted only as essentialist predications. When we say about an object that it necessarily F ’s, we can only coherently mean that it essentially F ’s. In the paper, I argue that adequately qualified the thesis is plausible. Two important qualifications are needed. The first is the assumption that satisfaction is an irreducibly predicative notion, making any explication of satisfaction in terms of truth inadequate. The second is the ontological rejection of purely semantic, i.e. merely definitional, entities. With these qualifications in place, Quine’s rejection of the combination of objectual quantifiers and semantic modalities can be upheld. In this way, we vindicate a qualified version of Quine’s conjecture that quantified modal logic is committed to essentialism. (shrink)

Gary Ostertag: Quine and Russell: The chapter provides a selective overview of themes common to Russell and Quine, focusing on Russell's theory of descriptions and the notion of contextual definition. It begins by discussing Russell and Quine on modality, along the way highlighting the following topics: how C.I. Lewis's metalinguistic understanding of the modal operators shaped the subsequent debate about modality – in particular, how it rendered the very idea of de re modality unintelligible; how Quine's (...) inattention to matters of scope led him to conclude, somewhat misleadingly, that he had derived a modal paradox; how the failure of the reductionist program provided the basis for a challenge to a cornerstone of the understanding of modality – the idea of analytic truth. I then turn to Russell and Quine on the semantics of attitude reports, where the issue of scope takes center stage again. A final section discusses Russell's influence in the shaping of Quine's ontological criterion. (shrink)

In Quine's philosophy stance, the most clearly is not his "real" view. Perhaps he is most concerned about the experience and the theoretical relationship between the content of experience, evidence, and the wide expanse between scientific theories associated. "True," this concept in his theoretical philosophy, it seems to swing in between different stance. For example, speaking, Quine's theory of experience equal to what is really home and country-style stance , Davidson is the support that the coherence theory of (...) truth management results. On the other hand, Quine seems to think that Tarski's truth language management frame, the true theory should provide management In order to meet reasonable description. Of course, Quine is also abbreviated true doctrine of the early advocates of management theory, one clear description of the "truth is quoted to eliminate ". This will be Quine's own theory, based on digestion of Quine quotes for "real" coherence "true" symbol should be "true" or inner "true" of諸-like ideas. I want regardless permit, we must take seriously Quine's digestion quotes "true" theory, so in order for him above on the "real"諸as of speech, proposed the same explanation. In my opinion, not in the digestion Quine quotes "real," but also suggested that regardless of any knowledge or ontology of "true." All his report on the "real" considerations, are can and should to counteract quotes "true" interpretation of the theory as a starting point. "Real" word in the context of the emergence of many, should be regarded as a collection of words, abbreviations or the expression is a common feature associated with the "real" language sentence only. Among Quine's philosophy, his account on truth is probably the mistiest part. Perhaps what concerns him most is the relation between experience and scientific theories, is the relation between empirical content, evidence, and scientific theories in the broad sense. His attitude toward the conception of truth seems to vacillate between different theories, due to his various philosophical positions. For instance, regarding Quine's sectarian position of which empirically equivalent theories should be taken as true, Davidson thinks that it is the consequence of holding the coherence theory of truth. On the other hand, Quine appears to consider Tarski's T schema as giving the correspondence theory of truth a sensible account. Moreover, Quine is one of the trail-blazers of the deflationary theory of truth, stating specifically "Truth is disquotation". This paper is based on Quine's own theory, discussing his multiple claims regarding disquotational truth, coherent truth, correspondence truth, or immanent truth. What I would like to argue is that, in order to consistently explain his various claims concerning truth, we have to take Quine's disquotational theory of truth seriously. I think that, except his disquotational account, Quine does not make any claim of epistemological truth or ontological truth. All of his consideration regarding truth can be and should be explained in terms of his disquotational theory of truth. The appearance of the word 'true' / 'truth' in many contexts should be seen as playing a collective term, as abbreviating or expressing true sentences with the same feature. (shrink)

The idea of there being “no fact of the matter” (NFM) features centrally in Quine’s indeterminacy theses. Yet there has been little discussion of how exactly Quine understands this idea. In this paper I identify, develop and then critically evaluate Quine’s conception of NFM. In Sects. 3–4 I consider a handful of intuitive semantic and ontological conceptions of NFM and argue that none is workable from within Quine’s philosophy. I conclude that the failure of each of (...) these proposals is due to the immanent status of truth and existence for Quine. In Sect. 5 I then present Quine’s official conception of NFM. Briefly, Quine’s idea is that there is NFM between two theories of translation iff those theories are physically equivalent. I develop this idea in detail. Finally, I raise two independent problems for this conception of NFM. In Sect. 6 I argue that Quine’s definition is too strong: given what he means by NFM, his arguments for indeterminacy—even granting all their premises and internal reasoning—simply cannot support his claim that there is NFM regarding translation; instead they establish a strictly weaker conclusion. In Sect. 7 I argue that Quine’s conception of NFM is in significant tension with his thesis of physicalism, and that he must give up one or the other. (shrink)

A detailed analysis of Quine's paper on ontologicalreduction shows that the proxy-function requirement, in hischaracterization of the concept of ontological reduction,is superfluous for blocking Pythagoreism and inappropriate for a generalblockade of ontological monism.

In 1950, Quine inaugurated a strange new way of talking about philosophy. The hallmark of this approach is a propensity to take ordinary colloquial sentences that all of us utter routinely when we are not thinking about philosophy, or (more often) other sentences that very directly and obviously logically entail such sentences, and treat those sentences (i) as having a clear content, calling for little or no elucidation, and (ii) as proper objects of philosophical controversy. Questions like ‘are there (...) numbers?’ and ‘are there tables?’ were now placed on a par with questions like ‘are there immaterial souls?’ and ‘are there sense-data?’. Of course philosophers have always had a propensity to say things that sound odd to vulgar ears. What was new with Quine was a systematic policty of privileging these kinds of formulations over more distinctively philosophical idioms. Jargon which had been central to the practice of metaphysics—’logical construction’, ’nothing over and above’, ‘reduce’, ‘ground’, ‘in virtue of’, ‘fundamental’, ‘consist in’...—were shifted to a much more peripheral role. The tradition inaugurated by Quine raises some hard interpretative questions for anyone who, like me and Dave, thinks that there is a range of different propositions that people brought up as English-speakers might be tempted to try to get across by uttering one of these sentences. On the one hand, Dave and I agree that the propositions that any ordinary, unphilosophical use of a sentence like ‘there are some free tables at the back of the café’ would be intended to get across are (in many cases) extremely obvious. The idea that when ontologists assert ‘there are no tables’, or treat this claim as calling for serious debate, they are intending to call into question propositions as obvious as that seems implausibly uncharitable. On the other hand, it is also a hallmark of the Quinean tradition that it claims to be using words in their ordinary sense, at least to the extent that (unlike its founder) it is willing to traffic in talk of meanings at all.. (shrink)

This paper compares two basic approaches to “ontology”. One originated within the analytic tradition, and it encompasses two diverging streams, philosophy of language and (contemporary) philosophy of mind which lead to “reduced ontology” and “neo-Aristotelian ontology”, respectively. The other approach is “phenomenological ontology” (more precisely, the Husserlian, not the Heideggerian version).Ontology as a theory of reference (“reduced” ontology, or ontology dependent on semantics) is presented and justified on the basis of some classical thesis (...) of traditional philosophy of language (from Frege to Quine). “Reduced ontology” is shown to be identifiable with one level of the traditional, Aristotelian ontology, which corresponds to one ofthe four “senses of Being” listed in Aristotle’s Metaphysics: “being” as “being true”. This identification is justified on the basis of Brentano’s “rules for translation” of the Aristotelian table of judgements in terms of (positive and negative) existential judgments such as are easily translatable into sentences of first order predicate logic.The second part of the paper is concerned with “neo-Aristotelian ontology”, i.e. with naturalism and physicalism as the main ontological options underlying most of the contemporary discussion in philosophy of mind. The qualification of such options as “neo-Aristotelian” is justified; the relationships between “neo-Aristotelian” and “reduced” ontology are discussed. The third part presents the basic claim of “phenomenological ontology”: the claim that a logical theory of existence and being does capture a sense of “existing” and “being” which, even if not itself the basic one, is grounded in the basic one. An attempt is done at further clarifying this “more basic” sense of “being”. An argument making use of this supposedly “more basic” sense is advanced in favour of “phenomenological ontology”. (shrink)

Spontaneously, one might want to object that it is essential to ordered pairs that they can contain the same members and yet be different: ≠. Hence, it may be argued, no set-theoretical substitute can fully capture the sense in which ordered pairs are ordered. Quine, however, rejects all such talk of essences and senses. As I will show, this anti-essentialist attitude is intimately related to his view of the ontological import of explication procedures. According to Quine, an explication (...) should help us reform our established theory of the world so that the resulting scheme assumes an ontology that is as sparse as possible. Allegedly, what Wiener and Kuratowski show is simply that whatever good is accomplished by talking of ordered pairs can be accomplished by talking of sets. And, Quine adds, ‘[a] similar view can be taken of every case of explication: explication is elimination’. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to work out Quine's account of explication. Quine does not provide a general account, but considers a paradigmatic example which does not fit other examples he claims to be explications. Besides working out Quine's account of explication and explaining this tension, I show how it connects to other notions such as paraphrase and ontological commitment. Furthermore, I relate Quinean explication to Carnap's conception and argue that Quinean explication is much narrower (...) because its main purpose is to be a criterion of theory choice. (shrink)

[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces (...) of nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second. (shrink)