“The variables of quantification, 'something,' 'nothing,' 'everything,' range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true.” IfsMayWholeOrderExistenceParticularRangeEntityAffirmationVariablesOntologyIfs And Book:Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine Source: Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine
“Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.” BelieveKindTermSituationObjectsDegreesLaysErrorsDefinitionsConceptionEntityPhysicistConvenient Book:Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine Source: Quintessence: Basic Readings from the Philosophy of W.V. Quine
“Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part.” LawNumbersExistenceObjectsAccountsMathematicsRoundsMathMythMathematicalSchemesEntityIrrationalIntroductionConvenientLiteralSimplifyArithmeticContainingFluxIrrational Numbers Author:Willard Van Orman Quine
