A Study On Quine’s Thought Of Ontological Commitment

Quine adopted the strategy of "semantic ascent" to turn the argument about what existed into the argument about language in his ontological study.In his research,he solved philosophical problems with logical methods,redefined variables,interpreted the quantifiers,and put the whole research on "ontological commitment" under the framework of quantified logic.Quine defined the concept of "ontological commitment".He thought "ontological commitment" was a linguistic problem and closely related to quantifiers.He proposed two famous criteria: the identification criterion of ontological commitment and the acceptability criterion of ontological commitment.The identification criterion of ontological commitment was "to be is to be a value of a variable".The acceptability criterion of ontological commitment was "no identity,no entity".Under the guidance of these two criteria,Quine identified ontological commitments of theory and screened them.Quine discussed the problem of the choice of ontological commitment.He held that the choice of ontological commitment was the choice of different conceptual structures,and pointed out that the choice of ontological commitment should follow the criteria of pragmatism.At the same time,Quine argued that it was necessary to eliminate those unnecessary entities in the ontological commitment in order to achieve the economy of ontology.Quine’s thought of "ontological commitment" had exerted an important influence on philosophical research of later ages.It not only reinstated the important position of ontological research in philosophical research,but also provided new research strategies and methods for later philosophers.