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THE FUTURE OF ONTOLOGY AFTER ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY by Jennifer Leslie Torgerson submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Philosophy Chair: John Shosl -rr?r ^ Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences 2000 American University Washington, D.C. 20016 ■ V . > r. w.ery-M.. i i t . »«-»•* - Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number 1401046 UMI* UMI Microform 1401046 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE FUTURE OF ONTOLOGY AFTER ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY by Jennifer Leslie Torgerson ABSTRACT "You cannot step into the same river twice for different and again different waters flow This fragment of Heraclitus demonstrates the problem of identity Since all things are in an universal flux, nothing can be the same from moment to moment. Every moment, there is a new river, and the waters continue to flow. Order and regularity were explained by Heraclitus as a result of the Logos, the cosmic ordering principle. Hence, changes are measurable. The problem of identity that is present within Heraclitus’ statement is that the river is a succession of entities, each a new river, yet still river-like. Heraclitus had an ontological commitment to the Logos, the ordering principle, and hence escaped total chaos and confusion. Ontological commitments are very important. Ontological commitment influences one’s entire philosophy. Ontological commitment influences one's entire philosophy This paper will Heraclitus. 12: K 217. All Heraclitus quotes come from Merrill Ring. Beginning with the Pre- Sr>crancs. (Mountain View. CA. Mayfield Publishing Company. 1987). ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. examine the ontological commitment o f W. V. Quine. He is the most influential analytical philosopher of the twentieth century. His view of ontological commitment changed throughout his career, unfolding in three distinct periods. I will examine the essays "On What There Is" and "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" as examples of his early period; Word and Object is the example used to illustrate the second; Web o f Belief and Ontological Relativity for the third. In his early period he claims that experience counts against our beliefs and that nothing can be systematically said about sentences. He abandons the analytic-synthetic distinction. In his middle period, this denial leads him to the indeterminacy of translation. There are no objective facts about which the words, descriptions, or sentences have the same meaning. The ontology of a theory is the range of things that must exist if that theory is true. Quine holds that we can state a theory of ontology only relative to a translation manual and a background language In his later period he mixes this with a hint o f physicalism, which conflicts with his earlier view of nominalism and his lack of dependence upon empirical dogmas. It is in his earlier view that we see the most valuable Quine. I hope to make the river stand still. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT n - in Chapter 1 THE RIVER STOOD STILL 1 -9 Ontology: A Brief Historical Overview 2 QUINE ON ONTOLOGY 10-45 Meaning and Naming Realism. Conceptualism, and Formalism Four Kinds of Nominalism. Predicate, Concept. Class, and Resemblance Phenomenalism and Physicalism 3 QUINE ON ANALYTICITY 46-67 Meaning is not Naming Definition and Meaning The Grounding of Analyticity in Semantic Rules Radical Reductionism in Empiricism and the Problems with the Theory of Verification The Two Dogmas of Empiricism 4 PREDICATION, MEANING, .AND ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY 68-87 Proxy Functions and Indifference of Ontology Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 CAN PHILOSOPHY OVERCOME ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY OR WILL ONTOLOGICAL RELATIVITY ELIMINATE PHILOSOPHY9 ............................................................................ 88-90 The River Revisited BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................... 91-95 v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 THE RIVER STOOD STILL My art of midwifery' is in general like theirs; the only difference is that my patients are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that is in travail of birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove by every test whether the offspring of a young man’s thought is a false phantom or instinct with life and truth. I am so far like the midwife, that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom; and the common reproach is true, that though I question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no wisdom in Philosophy has for more than two thousand years debated the issues of substance and knowledge, and there is yet a concrete view regarding reality and how this reality is known.2 There are several different uses of the term substance. It can be the essence, the matter, or the universal concept, just to name a few Origin, or as the ancient Greeks called it. arche, the basic “stuff’ of reality', is that which causes the things in the universe. Substance is what makes them real The question about substance is whether or not it is of one cause, or several. Accordingly, is there one kind of stuff, or several stuffs out of Plato Theaetetus 150 B - C. All Theaetetus quotations from Walter Kaufmann. Philosophical C 'lassies: Thales to Ockham. (Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prenticc-Hall. Inc.. 1968) This is evident by reading the texts of philosophers of the tw entieth century I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. which objects are composed? This ontology is concerned with the being of objects, and the understanding of their true natures. Reality, it seems, is not so obviously known. Essence can be known in two primary ways in the epistemological philosophical tradition, namely a priori, and a posteriori A priori knowledge is knowledge which is apprehended, at least to some extent, prior to sense experience, and a posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is known after sense experience. It would seem that knowing the essence (if it does exist, or can be known) of the stuff of reality takes some blending of both ways of knowing. Primarily most philosophers have chosen one method or the other.1 Hence, in order to try to really know reality, not only must one investigate stuff and knowledge, but the very way in which we convey this knowledge. If language and knowledge of reality, are so transparent, why has there been such a long debate9 ONTOLOGY A BRIEF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW2 The main metaphysical debate, to be discussed in this paper, is between the realists, or those that hold the view that universals exist and are not mind dependent, and nominalists, or those that hold the view that universals do not exist but that concepts are merely names for things. The realistic perspective will be demonstrated by briefly The way our ideas about what we know is conveyed to others through language. W.V Quine. From Stimulus to Science. (Cambridge. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1995). 1 Quine did something similar in his essay entitled 'Days of Yore" in the collection Aristotle actually set the form for such