Repository | Journal | Volume | Article
A model-theoretic criterion of ontology
pp. 1-18
Abstract
My aim has been to adapt Quine's criterion of the ontological commitment of theories couched in standard quantificational idiom to a much broader class of theories by focusing on the set-theoretic structure of the models of those theories. For standard first-order theories, the two criteria coincide on simple entities. Divergences appear as they are applied to higher-order theories and as composite entities are taken into account. In support of the extended criterion, I appeal to its fruits in treating the various examples considered above and to the healthy intuitions of the non-noneists among us. Don't O(m) and E(m) comprise just the things we should have though existed according to a particular interpretation m of a language or a theory? Whatever the answer (and it will hardly be unanimous), I hope to have pointed the way towards a recognition of ontology as a worthwhile branch of modern theory.
Publication details
Published in:
(1987) Synthese 71 (1).
Pages: 1-18
DOI: 10.1007/BF00486433
Full citation:
Bacon John (1987) „A model-theoretic criterion of ontology“. Synthese 71 (1), 1–18.