On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
"There are prime numbers over a million" says that there is something that is a number and is prime and is over a million. For this to be true, the things over which the bound variable "something" ranges must include such numbers. So the statement commits us to accepting such numbers into our ontology.
We are so committed, at least until we devise some way to paraphrase the statement to show that the reference to numbers was an avoidable way of speaking.
On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
"There are prime numbers over a million" says that there is something that is a number and is prime and is over a million. For this to be true, the things over which the bound variable "something" ranges must include such numbers. So the statement commits us to accepting such numbers into our ontology.
We are so committed, at least until we devise some way to paraphrase the statement to show that the reference to numbers was an avoidable way of speaking.
On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
"There are prime numbers over a million" says that there is something that is a number and is prime and is over a million. For this to be true, the things over which the bound variable "something" ranges must include such numbers. So the statement commits us to accepting such numbers into our ontology.
We are so committed, at least until we devise some way to paraphrase the statement to show that the reference to numbers was an avoidable way of speaking.
On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
"There are prime numbers over a million" says that there is something that is a number and is prime and is over a million. For this to be true, the things over which the bound variable "something" ranges must include such numbers. So the statement commits us to accepting such numbers into our ontology.
We are so committed, at least until we devise some way to paraphrase the statement to show that the reference to numbers was an avoidable way of speaking.
On Quine's view, believing "There are prime numbers over a million" commits us to recognizing as entities
"There are prime numbers over a million" says that there is something that is a number and is prime and is over a million. For this to be true, the things over which the bound variable "something" ranges must include such numbers. So the statement commits us to accepting such numbers into our ontology.
We are so committed, at least until we devise some way to paraphrase the statement to show that the reference to numbers was an avoidable way of speaking.