Summary: On What There Is by Quine
A student’s summary on Quine’s famous essay in metaphysics. I make no illusion of authority here, you have no reason to trust my reading.
Summary
Quine considers the ontological problem to be the question: What is there?
The naive answer is to say that all that there is, is everything. However Quine’s refutes this answer by saying that this is a tautology.
Personal Note
‘What is there?’ is a bit harder to understand, so ‘What exists?’ is what he literally means. So to answer ‘what exists is all that exists’ is the tautology.
Something exists by virtue of reference
He moves on to discuss disagreements in ontology. In a hypothetical, McX believes something exists, and Quine believes something doesn’t. However, when Quene says that McX believes in something that doesn’t exist, then it must exist for it not to exist. i.e. If I say something doesn’t exist, it exists by virtue of it being referenced.
That’s the gist, however I want to note this quote:
When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them
He words this in an interesting way though, he says that the Narrator cannot admit that McX believes in something that the Narrator himself doesn’t believe in, as doing so basically admits that McX’s fantasy exists. He takes a third person approach when wording it out.
Personal Note
This is addressed towards the end of the paper, ironically.
Quine goes on later to basically say of McX’s belief that “Non-being must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not?”, which is going back to what I explained before.
He calls this idea of something existing by virtue of being referenced as “”
Quine also goes onto flesh out the example by saying that McX believes that Pegasus exists. However, it should be noted that Quine says McX doesn’t believe it literally exists in the real world, but by virtue of it being referenced, it must exist “somewhere”. McX says this “somewhere” is the mind.
Quine uses this opportunity to attack the position, by saying that McX confuses the idea of Pegasus with the entity of Pegasus. When we say Pegasus doesn’t exist, we don’t refer to its representation in our minds, but the entity it refers to.
He proves the difference by saying the Parthenon exists, but it exists seperate from its idea, so when we refer to the Parthenon’s existence, it’s of the Parthenon itself, and not our idea of it.
Personal Note
Interesting parallels between this and a memory pointer/reference in computation
Pegasus exists yet has not been actualized.
Quine moves onto the second argument for stating Pegasus exists, this time coming from Wyman.
Wyman says that Pegasus exists but it’s not actualized. He specifies it further by saying it doesn’t have the special attribute of actuality in the same way the Parthenon is not red.
Quine says that the problem with this is that Wyman has only redefined actuality with existence, shifting the problem there.
Quine provides a commonsense definition of existence, that when refering to something spatio-temporal, such as Pegasus, then exists connotates its existence in our spatio-temporal realm. He makes a careful note that it exists is not inherently spatio-temporal, because if we say that the cube root of 27 exists, then it remains in a non spatio-temporal context.
There’s a footnote where he brings up the idea that a spatio-temporal kind of existence is the only relevant one since it’s the only one that can be naturally checked, but he refutes it by example: “The ratio of the number of centaurs to the number of unicorns”, where spatio-temporal nature has to be checked to prove whether the non spatio-temporal entity exists.
Wyman accepts that Pegasus doesn’t exist, but says that Pegasus still is, in that it persists.
Quine moves on to attack the conclusions of Wyman’s belief.
The first is that two possible entites conflict heavily between each other (possible fat man in a door way, and a possible bald man in the doorway).
In such a case, he offers that a Fregean or some form of modal logical treatment can be used to mediate the conflicts, but modalities are used on a statement as a whole, rather than with the idea of possible entities. And if it goes to include it, it becomes redundant to use.
He says that all this seems a return to McX’s belief, in that it must exist by reference, which he’s shown is erroneous.
The second is that we can give an instance of something that simply can’t exist, for example a “round square cupola on Berkeley College”, which is self-contradictory (round square).
Wyman can reply that the round square cupola is meaningless, since it makes no sense.
Quine then argues for the meaning of contradictions. The meaninglessness of contradictions, Quine says, . For example, whether a string of letters makes sense or not.
Bringing in Russell
Quine moves on to deal directly with Plato’s beard, by bringing up Russell’s theory of “singular descriptions”, where he argues how we can use names without the existence of the entities that are named.
The names that Russell’s theory applies to are complex descriptive names, like “the author of Waverly” and “the present King of France”. Russell breaks these sentences down into phrase fragments.
“The author of Waverly was a poet.” for example is explained as:
- Something wrote waverly
- They were a poet
- Nothing else wrote waverly
The seeming name (“The author of Waverly”) is called an , where you can’t analyze the expression by itself. The phrase as a whole (“The author of Waverly was a poet”, which is the context of the name) is meaningful regardless, whether true or false.
Incomplete Symbol
You can read Russell’s work on descriptive names where he defines the incomplete symbol better than I can do.
Both McX and Wyman say that “the author of Waverly” requires objective reference in order to be meaningful at all.
But when looking at the deconstructed sentence (Something wrote Waverly. They were a poet. Nothing else wrote Waverly), the burden of objective reference is placed on bound variables, which are variables of quantification like “something”, “nothing”, “everything”. They aren’t names for the author of Waverly, they’re general names of entities that hold ambiguity.
And while these variables are meaningless, they no way presuppose that there is an author of Waverly.
So when we say that “There is the author of Waverly”, it means “Something wrote Waverly. Nothing else wrote Waverley.”
And when we say that “The author of Waverly is not”, we mean “Either everything didn’t write Waverly, or two or more things wrote Waverly”. Note how it does not contain any expression referencing the author of Waverley.
Thus, if a statement of being and non-being of an entity is analyzed by Russell’s method, it shows that it dosen’t contain any expression which references the entity. Thus the meaning of the statemetn doesn’t need to presuppose the existence of an entity.
Pegasus The Word
Quine then moves on to discuss the word aspect, since Russell’s talking about complex descriptive names. Pegasus can be turned into a description by placing it into a statement. For example “A winged horse that was caputred by Bellerophon”, can have “a winged horse” replaced with “Pegasus”.
So to see if a single word name can be analyzed under Russell’s theory of description, we have simply to replace it.
However, if Pegasus is obscure or basic such that no simple translation into a descriptive phrase is obvious, then we can still do it. This is done by hypothesis in appealing to the irreducible attribute of “being Pegasus”, which he calls “is-Pegasus” or “pegasizes”, which are verbs. Pegasus as a noun can then be treated as a derivative and identified with the description: “the thing that is-Pegasus”, “the thing that pegasizes”
Thus, he concludes, that referencing something doesn’t mean it exists.
Meaning vs Naming
He moves on from Russell in distinguishing between meaning and naming something.
He uses Frege’s example, by saying that the Evening Star and the Morning Star both name the same thing but they don’t mean the same thing. The meanings of the names thus must be different from the entity.
McX confused the meaning of the named object Pegasus, with the entity ‘Pegasus’, saying that Pegasus must exist in order for the word to have meaning.
He asks what is a meaning, then? This is a moot point, but he doesn’t explain why. He humours the question by saying that we can say that meanings are ideas in the mind, thus Pegasus which was confused for a meaning, ends up as an idea in the mind still.
(I had trouble here with what he meant between meaning and naming)
Universals
Quine then goes to talk about the ontological problem of universals: Are there such things as attributes, relations, classes, numbers, and functions?
McX says there are. Red house, red rose. Both exist, both share the attribute of redness.
One’s ontology is basic to the conceptual scheme by which he interprets all experiences, even the most commonplace ones. Judged within some particular conceptual scheme - and how else is judgement possible?
He says in a different conceptual scheme, McX can be made wrong. For example, by saying that there are red houses and red roses, but they share nothing in common. “Houses” and “roses” are of individual entitites, and “red” is an individual entity of “red houses” and “red roses”. And in the same way there is no entity named “redness”, there is no entity named “househood”, or “rosehood”
Personal Note
This is much like a DNA in a cell, vs shared state in concept. I take it that there is no such thing as redhood without an observer, but recognition of the commonality between them coalescing into a single idea in the mind does exist.
I used to think that there are two kinds of shared state: emergent between individual objects such as DNA in a cell, and one shared between each other, such as in a server/client relationship, or global state in a program. In hindsight, both have their structural uses. The intelligent organism is made up of a centralized shared state (the brain) and the distributed shared state (the cell).
The structural benefits of each are obvious, the centralized shared state can regulate who and what gets information in a singular manner, and how it interacts with it, while the cell is individual to each. DNA couldn’t work in a centralized state because each cell needs to interpret it its own way. Likewise, the coherent whole of an organism couldn’t work with a distributed shared state, as all cells need to be orchestrated in a way that is above individual.
McX could’ve argued that referring to something red means that they exist, but Quine already handled that belief.
McX says something different then, that ‘being red’ has meaning, and that the meanings, whether named or not, are universals.
Quine counters it by refusing to admit meanings.
People talk about meanings in two ways: the having of meanings (significance and insignificance), and the sameness of a meaning (synonomy and heteronymy).
Quine provides a nice summary of his paper up till now, which I ought to use for my own summary:
- He has argued that we can use singular terms signifincantly in sentences without presupposing the entity’s existence of those terms.
- He has argued that we can use general terms without conceding them to be names of abstract entities.
- He has argued further that we can view utterances as significant and synonymous/heteronymous without accepting a realm of entities called meaning.
McX must ask does nothing we say commit to the assumption of universals or entieis which we may find unwelcome?
The only way we can tell the existence of an attribute is to say: there is something which red houses and roses have in common. Or there is something which is a prime number larger than a million. But it’s the only way we can refer to universals.
Personal Note
The topic of emergence is somewhere here with regards to the existence of universals.
Quine says names are altogether immaterial to the ontological issue, as shown.
To be assumed as an entity is to be reckoned as the value of a variable. Linguistically, it translates to being in the range of reference of a pronoun.
Personal Note
What of the implications of ideas on reality? A planned bridge does not exist, except as its idea, but when we build it, it then does exist. But had it not exist as an idea before, its identity simply be “actualized” as said before. It brings into question the temporal nature of existence as well, and determinism. If we believed in eternalism, that everything does exist as it does throughout time, does not it lend to the “unactualized” theory of existence?
I don’t think it has to do with the idea existing, per se, but it has to do with the mind’s ability to mimic reality, such that the idea of the planned bridge can interplay between “existences”. To us it has existence as visualizations, mock-ups, plans, etc. When we construct it, then the bridge carries the identity of the idea before. The variable becomes “bound” to reality in Quine’s terms, but before it, the name remained bound to its non-existent form (its abstract form), which exists only in our minds.
McX mistakes Pegasus for the entity existing outside of himself, when it is an entity existing within himself or the noosphere (if we accept other minds). A test can be made by direction. If Pegasus exists by perception (we apply real perception to pegasus) then pegasus exists. But if pegasus has to be created to exist, then it remains within ourselves, but then testimony begins to become a problem.
Overview of Positions
Quine clarifies the positions regarding universals in the history of philsophy.
Medieval viewpoints: realism, conceptualism, and nominalism
Modern Phil. of math viewpoints: Logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.
These aren’t necessarily definitions of the factions, rather the viewpoints that they hold on universals.
Realism: The Platonic doctrine that universals/abstract entities have existences independently of the mind. The mind may discover them but cannot create them.
Logicism: Allows bound variables to refer to anything, whether it’s known or not, and specifiable or not.
Conceptualism: There are universals but they are mind-made entities.
Intuitionism: Bound variables refer to abstract entities with a determined formation, such that you’re discovering rather than creating. Sort of like how you discover a piece of technology rather than create it like a book or a painting. The piece of technology could’ve been found on its own by someone else, and have it be the same overall design, because it would be built for a specific purpose using shared intuition.
Formalism: Mathematics is a play of insginificant notions, even if it can be utilized. Significance is used in the literal linguistic sense.
Nominalists: reject the existence of abstract entities, even with ideas.
Ontologies
Quine asks for this section: how do we mediate opposing ontologies? Ontologies, as he says before, provides the “basic conceptual scheme by which [we] interpret all experiences.”
Personal Note
Quine’s use of the word ontology isn’t written out clearly for my novice eyes, but from my interpretation he means by what we regard exists, as noted by the quote:
We commit ourselves to an ontology containing numbers when we say there are prime numbers larger a million.
I also want to include that what he means by ontology is also how we determine what exists. i.e. things exist by virtue of reference, is a type of ontology. It works out because determining how something exists denotes a set of things that exist within an ontology anyways.
He says it can’t necessarily be by his answer “To be is to be the value of a variable.” As he says it’s moreso to test if something is consistent with its own ontology. Rather, he states that mediating involves one sticking to their own “semantical plane”, which is synonym for an ontology.
McX’s belief in a non-existant object exists as utterances of belief in Quine’s ontology, allowing reference without implying the existence of that entity in Quine’s ontology.
Having each other’s own ontologies allows for commonality or overlap between them, which allows for discussions in the differences between in these ontologies.
Personal Note
The concept of an “ontology” and “semantical plane” shares very similar characteristics to the “worldview” in sociology/anthropology, and schema in psychology.
He likens an ontology to a scientific theory. He says they’re similar in the way they organize the concepts, but the the ontology is pervasive in everything. Although, I’m a bit shaky in understanding his last sentence (“To whatever … adoption of an ontology.”)
… (This part is hell, I’ll figure it out later)
He suggests two conceptual schemes put forward by a principle of simplicity. The first he suggests is one of pure sensation, where everything is ascribed to itself. The second is one where our mind wants to simplify all our raw experiences into single things. When we see two pennies, we wouldn’t register each individually, but as two instances of a single type.
He calls the first the phenomenalistic conceptual scheme, and the second is the physicalistic conceptual scheme.
The physicalist one can’t be translated into the phenomenalistic language.
He states that from the conceptual scheme of elementary rational numbers, the broader world of advanced rational and irrational numbers would be a myth simpler than the truth (elementary rational numbers) yet containing literal truth as a scattered part.
It’s simpler because it says more with less, so an algorithm within elementary rational numbers is more complicated than one using more advanced tooling. However, in the world of the elementary, it’s just a convenient tool (or myth) to simplify what already is.
I’d think of it like machine language and C. machine language shows vistages of itself in C, and as far as machine language is concerned, C is an abstraction of itself and isn’t real.
Thus is the same between the phenomenalistic point of view, and the physicalistic point of view.
A Platonistic ontology is a physicalistic conceptual scheme, that is a myth to the phenomenalistic conceptual scheme.
In analyziing the myth of mathematics, he makes clear that Godel’s problem shows its nature as a myth. In physics, it’s the nature of light as a wave and a particle. He also draws an analogue between heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and godel’s incompleteness theorem.
Finally, he’s nice enough to lay out a conclusive summary:
- Quine undertook to show that some common arguments in favor of certain ontologies are fallacious, at the start.
- Quine provides a standard to decide the ontological commitments of a theory.
- The question of what ontology to adopt is still open.
- he encourages exploring the phenomenalistic and and physicalistic conceptual scheme and their interplays
- Myth is relative.
Although to sum it all up, I’ll bring up that sentence that gets quoted so much:
To be is to be the value of a bound variable.
(Short) (Personal) Analysis
Things get rocky at the end for me in understanding, but also the most interesting. Regardless, I want to move on from this work because it’s evident I might stay weeks on this if I don’t.
My analysis isn’t too sophisticated. I adhere to a principle of socratic skepticism. I know in that I know nothing, not until I learn more at least.
I’m a bit overwhelmed by just how deep the pool is. It’s not that I worry about getting the concepts, but this is like learning these concepts in another person’s language, so you’re stuck trying to understand the jargon and the terms, not knowing which is which in your own understanding. A common one that I had trouble with was the distinction between a priori and a posteriori truths.
At first it seemed a problem with timing. If you know a chair is under you when you stand up, you don’t have to use experience to check it, even though technically it’s a posteriori, “there is a chair under me.”
It’s not until an explanation brought up math that a priori made sense. You don’t need sensory experience to explain one plus one is two, it is evident in itself, while saying the chair is under me is not evident in itself. The in itself being the important part.
So if “there is a chair under me”, it’s not that I remember, it’s that if I’m asked to prove it again, I have to check experience. If I have to prove whether 1+1=2 is true again, then I don’t need to check experience.
It’s that simple.
It’s stumbling blocks like these that worry me. The idea to carry in such a case is this: If so many intelligent people thought so long about a problem that I brush off, then I’m the idiot. I’ll continue reading, I have a lot more pages left in this metaphysics anthology.
To-Do For Second Iteration
I’m going to revisit this write up and improve it. Here are the to-dos to better understand what I’m reading.
- Find the keywords, and figure them out, (conceptual scheme,
- Create argument map.
- Introduce side readings.