The Intensionality of Ontological Commitment

Abstract

The attempt to provide a criterion of ontological commitment is made frequently in the writings of W. V. Quine. His numerous inequivalent formulations have spawned much discussion as to which, if any, provides a satisfactory treatment of the notion. Although Quine's work provides the stimulus for the present discussion, it will not be considered in detail in what follows. The concern here is more general: I try to show that any criterion of commitment which can be interpreted as defining a two-place relation between theories and other things is either inadequate or intensional. The idea of intensionality has been raised in this connection before. In 1954 Richard L. Cartwright [1] advanced what he considered good reasons to believe that Quine's criterion is either inadequate or intensional (in the sense of making unavoidable use of notions from the theory of meaning). This would be a very damaging outcome in view of Quine's well-known antipathy for the

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