Summary |
For Quine, 'to be is to be the value of a variable': serious theoretical claims about what there is, or what exists, are most perspicuously articulated using the quantifier of first-order logic. On this view, one incurs ontological commitment to whatever one's first-order theory quantifies over. Others have different attitudes towards the relationship between ontological inquiry and first-order quantification, including: those who claim that being is distinct from existence; those who hold that other expressions (e.g. predicates) can incur ontological commitment; those who reject the idea that all serious talk about being and existence can be captured by the first-order quantifier, and those who deny that first-order languages are the best vehicles for articulating metaphysical theories. |