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Philosophia Mathematica Advance Access published online on April 28, 2007
Philosophia Mathematica, doi:10.1093/philmat/nkm018
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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.

Ontology, Commitment, and Quine's Criterion{dagger}

Yvonne Raley*

* Philosophy Department, Felician College, 262 South Main Street, Lodi, N.J. 07644, U.S.A.

Correspondence: raleyy{at}felician.edu

For Quine, the ontological commitments of a discourse are what fall under its (objectual) quantifiers. The recent literature, however, is beginning to move away from this picture. There are direct challenges to Quine's criterion, and there are also attempts to provide alternatives. Azzouni suggests that the ontological commitments of a discourse should be determined by an existence predicate instead. The availability of this alternative forces an adjudication between Qune's criterion and the predicate approach to ontological commitment. I argue that to adjdicate between these criteria for ontological commitment, we need first to adjudicate between criteria for what exists.

{dagger} My thanks to Jody Azzouni and an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions.


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