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Two Paths to Ontological Commitment

Peter Olen

University of Central Florida

PeterOlen@gmail.com

This is a draft version - please do not cite or distribute without permission.

I. Introduction

One recent trend in pragmatist and neo-positivist thought is a reliance on Rudolf Carnap's late approach to

ontology in an effort to support a broadly deflationary attitude towards metaphysics. Although the ways

in which Carnap's philosophy is employed may differ, most commentators assume the general correctness

of Carnap's position as found in "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" (hereafter ESM). This is to say

that even if certain aspects of Carnap's account are questionable, the overall picture of the relationship

between language and ontological commitment remains, more or less, correct. This is a picture which

urges that only internal questions -- questions that arises in reference to, and from within, a specific

linguistic framework -- should settle ontological issues and be subject to theoretical justification (i.e.,

justificatory claims that make reference to entities and theories tied to a specific linguistic framework) .

Otherwise, external questions -- questions that concern whether to adopt one linguistic framework over

another -- do not settle ontological issues per se, but are simply issues of practical decision-making. Both

the pragmatist and neo-positivist join Carnap in claiming that this rough demarcation between internal

and external questions is enough to support and motivate a deflationary attitude towards metaphysics.

In what follows I asses two recent attempts to resurrect Carnap's approach to ontology. Although

there have been numerous attempts to do so, I will primarily focus on Huw Price's and Alyssa Ney's

projects that employ Carnap's theoretical machinery in their own services. The genesis of this paper is a

concern; a concern that despite the significant amount of work surrounding Carnap's later philosophy,

very little has been done to flesh out the justificatory underpinnings of Carnap's treatment of ontology.

And although there is a high amount of interest in adopting Carnap's position, a current preference for

deflationary approaches to "metametaphysics" have led to a blind spot for discerning just how well

Carnap's position was, and is, grounded. Perhaps worse, such re-appropriations divorce Carnap from his

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historical context, obscuring whatever justification might have existed for Carnap's position. I conclude

by arguing that the re-appropriation of this aspect of Carnap's philosophy is a dead end: one either

divorces Carnap's strategy from its historical context (leaving it without justification and suffering from

worries about its own coherence) or one is forced into out of fashion commitments to strongly

verificationist philosophical programs. Instead, we would be better served by taking seriously pragmatist

commitments to the fundamentally social articulation of explanation and ontological commitment.

II. Frameworks and Ontological Commitment

"Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" is aimed at settling metaphysical disputes between

Platonists and Nominalists within the context of scientific debates. Carnap's goal is to show how one

could be a respectable empiricist and still accept a language that makes use of abstract entities. The

strategy in ESM is not to offer arguments for this position, but to develop and exhibit "a fundamental

distinction between two kinds of questions concerning the existence or reality of entities" (Carnap

1950/1956, 206). Although the distinction works (Carnap is able to formulate various debates over

abstract entities in his own terms), there is little present in ESM to justify the acceptance of such a

distinction. As Matti Eklund has noted1, part of the reason for this is that Carnap was quite aware of his

audience. The audience for this particular paper is clearly empiricist or naturalistically inclined

philosophers who already accept some kind of deflationary stance towards metaphysics. The rhetorical

stance in ESM is not argumentative but exhibitory; Carnap is explaining a method for avoiding traditional

ontological disputes, not arguing for the truth or justification of such a method.

Carnap introduces the notion of a linguistic framework as "a system of news ways of speaking,

subject to new rules" (Carnap 1950/1956, 206). Numerous issues have been raised concerning whether

Carnap’s notion of linguistic frameworks is well-formed. One might wonder whether “linguistic

framework” picks out a theory, a language as a whole, a fragment of a language, or even a perspective.

1 See Eklund (forthcoming), especially section III.

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Recent commentators in the meta-ontological debate have shown little interest in clarifying this notion.

The easy interpretive path (and the one adopted by most contemporary readers) is to think of frameworks

as languages or theories individuated by constitutive linguistic rules that constrain new ways of talking

about entities, what Eklund has called (and endorsed) the "language pluralist" interpretation of Carnap

(Eklund 2013, 231-2). We might be skeptical about how well this notion could be applied to actual

linguistic practices; it is not often that we explicitly talk of entities based on stipulated rules of formation

and transformation. Nonetheless, we can get a grasp on the heart of Carnap's position by momentarily

accepting the notion that linguistic frameworks can be individuated by something like differing sets of

formation and transformation rules for specific kinds of expressions. Simply put, different linguistic

framework, different ways of talking.

Once a linguistic framework is established there are two legitimate questions one can ask about

ontology. One can ask what Carnap calls "internal questions". Questions such as “Are Dragons real?” or

“Do numbers exists?” are internal questions insofar as answers to such questions occur within a

framework. Internal questions are subject to answers issued from theoretical, as opposed to practical,

reasoning because they concern the rules postulated in a given theoretical framework. Such claims would

either be analytic (based on the entities postulated within a given framework) or directly confirmable by

observation in conjunction with the rules for expressions of a framework (Carnap 1950/1956, 207).

Consequently, internal questions (and their answers) are trivial in the sense that a well-formed framework

would provide fairly definitive ways to answer such questions without much theoretical digging.

Answering the questions “Are there numbers?” when we understand this as an internal question is simply

a matter of determining whether our linguistic framework provides rules for forming “number

expressions”.

On the other hand, one can ask what Carnap calls “external questions”. By “external questions”

Carnap means the kind of ontological questions only asked by philosophers; questions such as “do

numbers really exists?” Such questions should not be answered by asserting truth-evaluable claims, but

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by making a practical decision about the adoption of one linguistic framework over another (Carnap

1950/1956, 207). Thus, when one asks “Are there really numbers?” the only legitimate response concerns

whether one has decided to adopt a framework that contains numbers or not (whether rules for forming

“number expressions” occur in the adopted framework). Otherwise, such a question “cannot be solved

because it is framed in a way wrong” (Carnap 1950/1956, 207); they are practical questions that are

asking for theoretical answers (something akin to Gilbert Ryle’s notion of a category mistake).

It's not exactly clear what counts as a theoretical, as opposed to practical, reason for answers to

internal and external questions. Although I will address this concern more fully in section IV, it should be

noted that Carnap is less than clear about how to answer this question. Initially it appears as if there is a

clear-cut distinction between theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretical reasons have truth values,

make assertions about the reality of a particular entity, and are framework-dependent (Carnap 1950/1956,

218). By "framework-dependent" I mean that such reasons use the resources of a framework already

chosen to assert, deny, or test particular statements. Answers to external questions do not have truth

values (they are, in Carnap's words, “yes-no" answers) and, thus, make no assertion about the existence of

a given entity. These kinds of reasons underlie our acceptance or rejection of a linguistic framework and

do not entail "a belief or assertion" about the reality of any entity within the framework (Carnap

1950/1956, 218). Thus, because external questions call out for a decision, they do not require theoretical

justification.

Initially, it seems as if this is a neat and tidy categorization; external questions are addressed by

practical reasons while the answers to internal questions are grounded by theoretical justification. Thus,

one finds Carnap claiming that when it comes to the practical decision of adopting one linguistic

framework over another, “the demand for theoretical justification, correct in the case of internal

assertions, is sometimes wrongly applied to the acceptance of a system of entities” (Carnap 1950/1956,

218). Yet, when discussing the adoption of the “thing language” Carnap claims that

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the decision of accepting the thing language, although itself not of a cognitive nature, will

nevertheless usually be influenced by theoretical knowledge, just like any other deliberate

decision concerning the acceptance of linguistic or other rules. The purposes for which

the language is intended to be used, for instance, the purpose of communicating factual

knowledge, will determine which factors are relevant for the decision. The efficiency,

fruitfulness, and simplicity of the use of the thing language may be among the decisive

factors. And the questions concerning these qualities are indeed of a theoretical nature

(Carnap 1950/1956, 208).

Why is this position problematic? It seems reasonable to think that the choice of a linguistic framework

would be influenced by theoretical considerations and that such considerations could turn on issues of

efficiency, fruitfulness, or simplicity. Yet why is it permissible for these theoretical notions to be

applicable to practical decisions and not others? What determines the boundary between what gets to

count as theoretical reasons that are applicable only to internal questions and those that are not? If we

cannot draw a clear distinction here, it’s difficult to see how Carnap’s approach to ontology gets off the

ground. This issue is addressed fully in section IV.

The distinction between internal and external questions supports a deflationary stance towards

metaphysics because it allows for the avoidance of ontological commitment when adopting a new

linguistic framework. As a direct result of accepting this distinction, Carnap claims that "the acceptance

of a linguistic framework must not be regarded as implying a metaphysical doctrine concerning the reality

of the entities in question" (Carnap 1950/1956, 214). Carnap's thinking is fairly straightforward: since the

reality of a given entity is tied to a specific linguistic framework, only internal questions and their answers

are indicative of ontological commitment for adopters of that framework. Answering the question "are

there really properties?" only exhibits ontological commitment once one has already adopted a

framework (since there are no framework-independent notions of ontological commitment for Carnap).

So, insofar as one accepts a linguistic framework that includes properties, there are properties. The

acceptance or rejection of a linguistic framework -- the answer to Carnap's external questions -- is a

decision (not an assertion) and, thus, truth isn't applicable. Whatever there is to ontological commitment,

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it's nothing over and above the decision to accept a specific linguistic framework. Thus, metaphysics is

deflated because the only substantive metaphysical questions one can ask – if there are any substantive (or

“cognitive” in Carnap’s terminology) metaphysical questions – are internal questions that, for all intents

and purposes, have fairly straightforward answers depending on the frameworks one chooses to adopt.

Otherwise, the philosopher’s continued insistence that the real ontological question (“but do dragons

really, really exist?”) has not been answered is just a misunderstanding of the nature of substantive

questions in general, and metaphysical questions in particular (Carnap 1950/1956, 209).

III. Price and Ney on Carnap

Both Price and Ney rely on a narrative that owns its genesis, in part, to the claims found in ESM.

In accord with their differing projects2, Price and Ney avail themselves of additional resources to buttress

their quasi-Carnapian stance towards deflationism.3 Where both philosophers are unified is in their

reading of, and reliance on, Carnap. I'm going to problematize the narrative both philosophers adopted on

historical and conceptual grounds, but first I need to motivate the idea that Price and Ney have something

to lose if it turns out that Carnap's position is problematic. That is, I need to show that there is something

more at risk than just an interpretive point about how to read Carnap.

The reading found in both Price and Ney is committed to at least two main claims: 1) that

Carnap’s later position towards metaphysics is separable from some of his previous commitments, and 2)

that the received view of Quine’s pragmatism as essentially refuting Carnap, and thus making the world

safe for metaphysics, is wrong. Both claims are integral to Price's and Ney's projects because they need

the received view of the Carnap-Quine exchange to be wrong (thus barring the way for Quine to play the

role as savior for metaphysics) and clearly wish to distance themselves from older positivist

2 Price is ultimately interested in being a metaphysical quietist (despite his commitment to discourse pluralism),

while Ney is interested in "reading off" a primitive ontology from our most advanced physics. From a philosophical

standpoint both views count as deflationary because they think that only a minimal role exists for analytic

metaphysics to fulfill. 3Although I deal with Price's linguistic pluralism below, Ney's reliance on a modified version of Quine's

indispensability argument (a strategy which Price explicitly rejects) is not addressed here.

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commitments. Although not explicitly positivistic, Price’s brand of expressivism relies – in part – on

Carnapian notions to apply some pressure when “keeping the lid on metaphysics” (Price 2011, 12). Price

even goes so far as to claim that his particular brand of expressivism “offers significant new support to

Carnap’s position” against Quine (Price 2011, 13). Ney explicitly denies any commitment to “either the

verificationist theory of meaning, the verificationist theory of justification, or to the analytic/synthetic

distinction” (Ney 2012, 62). Although she provides no reason for this claim, Ney asserts that the neo-

positivist is justified in this rejection because meta-philosophical accounts of how to approach

metaphysics “need not take a stance on” these issues (Ney 2012, 62). Price says little about the

separability of Carnap’s positions from its historical context, but such a move would be at odds with his

contention about the importance of reading the Carnap-Quine history correctly.

Why should we think that Carnap’s later ontological views are separable from his commitment to

a verificationist theory of meaning? Especially given my earlier point that ESM isn’t chalk full of

arguments, why would one be surprised that what does the justificatory work for Carnap’s deflationary

views just are these older commitments? Despite their initial claims, Price and Ney use passages from

ESM that rely on these earlier commitments. Especially telling is Price’s use of the following passage

from ESM:

A brief historical remark may here be inserted. The non-cognitive character of the

questions which we have called here external questions was recognized and emphasized

already by the Vienna Circle under the leadership of Mortiz Schlick, the group from

which the movement of logical empiricism originated. Influenced by the ideas of Ludwig

Wittgenstein, the Circle rejected both the thesis of the reality of the external world and

the thesis of its irreality as pseudo-statements; the same was the case for both the thesis of

the reality of universals (abstract entities, in our present terminology) and the

nominalistic thesis that they are not real and that their alleged names are not names of

anything but merely faltus vocis. (It is obvious that the apparent negation of a pseudo-

statement must also be a pseudo-statement) It is therefore not correct to classify the

members of the Vienna Circle as nominalists, as is sometimes done. However, if we look

at the basic anti-metaphysical and pro-scientific attitude of most nominalists (and the

same holds for many materialists and realists in the modern sense), disregarding their

occasional pseudo-theoretical formulations, then it is, of course, true to say that the

Vienna Circle was much closer to those philosophers than to their opponents (Carnap

1950/1956, 215).

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Price's use of this passage is instructive because of the contextual issues behind it. Carnap specifically

references Schlick's 1932 essay "Positivism and Realism" as part of the development of the logical

positivists' attitude towards metaphysics. And it's in Schlick's piece (which repeats numerous arguments

from Carnap’s Aufbau), as well as Carnap’s “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis

of Language” (from which Ney cites heavily), that one finds the explicit connection between the

positivists’ anti-metaphysical stance and a verificationist theory of meaning.

The logical positivists' position, found in both Carnap and Schlick, isn't that metaphysical

statements are uncertain, false, or even sterile, but that they are meaningless in the strictest sense (Carnap

1932/1956, 60). A metaphysical statement could be meaningful "only if its relations of deducibility to the

protocol sentences are fixed, whatever the characteristics of the protocol sentences may be; and similarly,

that a word is significant only if the sentences in which it may occur are reducible to protocol sentences"

(Carnap 1932/1956, 63). The particular "content and form" of protocol sentences are irrelevant; what

matters is that they somehow connect a statement or term to "the given". Thus, the meaningfulness and

legitimacy of a particular statement is "completely contained within its verification in the given" (Schlick

1932/1956, 106). External questions are meaningless, in the sense that they lack a connection to protocol

sentences of any stripe, precisely because they cannot be reduced to sentences which reference the given.

Thus, the answers to external questions can only be determined on pragmatic grounds.

Since whether metaphysical statements are legitimate turns on if they have cognitive meaning, it

is unclear how one could adopt the Carnapian line of reasoning without being forced into this kind stance

on meaning and verification. The "historical remark" that logical positivists had already recognized the

non-cognitive character of external questions squarely places the justificatory weight for Carnap’s later

treatment of metaphysics on the shoulders of earlier commitments. Such an attitude towards metaphysics

is, quite clearly for Schlick and Carnap, parasitic on their commitment to a verification theory of

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meaning.4 And, in what I think is a trivially true claim at this point and time

5, such a commitment to

giveness is epistemologically and semantically unacceptable. Can this rejection of metaphysics still stand

if divorced from its historical grounding? One thinks not.6

As to the second point, Price claims that

I appeal to the authority of some famous allies, in support of the kind of metaphysical

quietism that my view requires and entails. Carnap is one of these allies, but his

celebrated attack on metaphysics, in ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’ (Carnap

1950), is often that to have been decisively rebutted by Quine (who went on to make the

world safe again for metaphysics, according to a popular version of the history of

twentieth-century philosophy). This reading is quite misguided, in my view. Not only do

Quine’s criticisms not touch Carnap’s metaphysical quietism, or indeed his pragmatism;

but Quine, too, should be read as a quietist and a pragmatist – in most respects, indeed, a

more thorough going one than Carnap himself (Price 2011, 13)

Quine’s “more thorough going” pragmatism is found in his determination that all questions are external

questions. In showing the failure of the analytic/synthetic distinction, Quine claims there are no purely

internal questions, and that “no issue is ever entirely insulated from pragmatic concerns” (Price 2011,

285). If Quine’s pragmatism is right, if pragmatic concerns (in conjunction with the loss of the

analytic/synthetic distinction) go all the way down, then there is no reason to think that Carnap is

warranted in drawing a distinction between internet and external questions.

Both Price and Ney argue that the received history of analytic philosophy has understood Quine’s

criticisms of Carnap as undermining his distinction between internal and external questions, thus opening

4 One might think that the real issue between Carnap and Quine turns on the rejection of the analytic/synthetic

distinction. If Quine is right that such a distinction is untenable, then there is no reason to think that Carnap’s

distinction between internal and external questions holds. Yet, this is to strongly misconstrue the role of the

analytic/synthetic distinction in ESM. What matters is that there is some possibility of verifying the truth or

falsehood of a possible answer to internal question. See Wilson 2011 for a convincing argument about why the

issue, for Carnap, turns on verification and not the analytic/synthetic distinction. 5 What I need to prove here isn't that a theory of meaning which depends on giveness is intolerable, but that Carnap's

and Schlick's conception of meaning is used to justify their anti-metaphysical position. It should be noted that

accepting this connection isn't even an option for Price or Ney. Price's rejection of a distinction between factual and

non-factual language wouldn't allow for buying-in to such a project, while Ney explicitly distances herself from

Carnap's antecedent commitments. Price, at least, seems aware of this problem (see Price 2011, 134-5). 6 A defender of Price might claim that Carnap and others are committed to a representationalist account of language

that he need not be. And if Price isn't committed to a representationalist account of meaning, then there is no reason

to think that he must fall in line with outdated verificationist commitments. Yet, again, what justifies divorcing

Carnap's position from its grounding? One would - at the very least - need independent justification of the claims

found in ESM.

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the possibility for something like substantive metaphysical debate. According to both philosophers, the

received view significantly misconstrues Quine’s position. Assuming the correctness of Quine’s

pragmatic arguments, Price remarks:

What effects does it have on Carnap’s anti-metaphysical conclusions? Carnap’s internal

issues were of no use to traditional metaphysics, and metaphysics does not lose if they are

disallowed. But does it gain? Science and mathematics certainly lose, in the sense that

they become less pure, more pragmatic, but this is not a gain for metaphysics. And

Quine’s move certainly does not restore the non-pragmatic external perspective required

by metaphysics. In effect, the traditional metaphysician wants to be able to say ‘I agree it

is useful to say this, but is it true?’ Carnap rules out this question, and Quine does not rule

it back in” (Price 2011, 285).

Ney too argues that the received view is quite misguided; Quine’s pragmatism leaves no room for

“traditional” metaphysical speculation. Ney joins with Price in claiming that “as far as the nature of the

project of ontology itself was concerned, Quine and Carnap were in large agreement: it was an important

project, but one that was ultimately decided by pragmatic means” and that “the significant difference

between Carnap’s and Quine’s attitudes towards ontological issues appears to be not much more than

which frameworks are in fact promising for particular purposes" (Ney 2012, 58).

By rejecting the second aspect of this joint reading I’m not rejecting Price’s re-telling of the

history of analytic philosophy (nor am I rejecting Ney’s endorsement of Price’s history). Instead, I’m

denying that eating the pragmatic apple to the core necessarily gets you only a robustly anti-metaphysical

or deflationary stance. Such pragmatism might knock metaphysics down a peg, but it isn’t clear why one

might think this rules metaphysics out in toto. This is not to say that embracing a thorough pragmatism

doesn’t entail some negative consequences for metaphysics. Clearly, empirical scrutability becomes a

serious issue for the contemporary metaphysician. If, as Quine and Price argue, there is no level over and

above the sciences for metaphysics to operate, substantive metaphysical theories would need to be as

vulnerable to disconfirmation as new physical theories (insofar as they’re making empirical claims or

predictions).

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Take now-classic treatments7 of mental properties as an instance of worrying about the

metaphysics of the mind. Mental properties can be understood as either first or second-order properties. If

mental properties are second-order properties, dependent or derivative of their physical or functional

basis, then we have (or can plausibly generate) something akin to an empirically scrutable explanation or

prediction. If mental properties are first-order properties, intrinsically characterizable in one ineliminable

way or another, then we can offer armchair speculations about what may be missing from empirical

treatments of mental properties. Of course, such speculation is constrained by whatever empirical

explanations or predictions it generates (as Quine’s setting metaphysical speculation on the same level as

empirical inquiry would dictate), but this doesn’t entail that all such speculation is empirical in nature and

it certainly doesn’t force ontological speculation out of the philosopher’s grasp. What Quine’s

pragmatism does is hold metaphysical claims that impinge upon the empirical world to the same

standards as any other empirical claim. Post-Quine, metaphysical claims don't get special isolation from

the tribunal of experience in light of their being metaphysical.

A defender of Quine might object that the strategy outlined above is too reminiscent of the

analytic/synthetic distinction to be effective. That is, one could claim the ability to effectively parse the

empirical parts of a theory from the non-empirical parts isn’t a live option if we accept Quine’s

pragmatism. And if parsing the difference between the empirical and non-empirical parts of a theory isn’t

a live option, then there are no good reasons for adopting metaphysical speculation in addition to the

theories and results of the special sciences. Yet I think this reading of Quine’s pragmatism is

unnecessarily restrictive on what justifiably follows from Quine’s kind of pragmatism. True, Price might

be right that Quine himself was no friend of metaphysics, and that Quine certainly did not see his

commitment to pragmatism and ontological relatively as securing a path of traditional metaphysics.

Nonetheless, what Quine takes to be the consequences of his own pragmatism and what can be justified as

the consequences of his own pragmatism are two entirely different points. If we drop metaphysics “down”

7 Here I am simply thinking of recent classics such as Jaegwon Kim’s “Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of

Reduction”.

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to the level of the sciences, at most one is justified in claiming that metaphysics suffers from having to

meet new standards of proof or viability.

A related puzzling move is the idea that Quine’s pragmatism “does not restore the non-pragmatic

external perspective required by metaphysics” (Price 2011, 285 emphasis added). Such a claim is

puzzling because it certainly is not clear why metaphysics requires this perspective. Granted, historically

metaphysicians have claimed access to a perspective over and above the sciences; yet this need not be the

case. Metaphysical claims could be more open to empirical refutation or constraint (at least in instances

where they generate empirical claims), but it is unclear (post-Quine) why metaphysics need this external-

to-science perspective. The leveling of the playing field may not be great news for metaphysics, but there

is no reason to think it is fatal.

Price can somewhat accommodate this line of reasoning by invoking his commitment to

discourse pluralism. By “discourse pluralism” Price means that one ought to see differing realms of

discourse as both legitimate in their own rights (i.e., as constituting a distinct subject matter) and

ontologically autonomous from other areas of discourse (Price 2011, 38). Price’s rejection of additive

monism, the idea that various discourse are distinction but that there is some kind of unifying notion that

ties together talk of reality with a capital “R”, leads one to reject idea that “there is a single substantial

category of descriptive or fact-stating discourse” (Price 2011, 52). Although one gets talk of

metaphysical entities, processes, and properties if one so desires, there is no reason to think such talk

tracks ontology. Instead, Price argues that such talk – at best – concerns our linguistic habits and not

fundamental features of the world. Thus, we get a linguistic solution to what once was thought of as

problems of substance. Price’s strategy doesn’t rule-out metaphysics so much as allow for a quietist

response to metaphysical claims.

Yet, if we’re going to be pluralists through and through, it’s difficult to see how metaphysics can

be ruled out of bounds. Instead, one would think that the obvious position to take is to simply let the

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cards, metaphysical or otherwise, fall where they may. Price defends something like this position by

arguing that ontological speculation be “subject only to the modified Quinean requirement that such an

ontology provides the most economical basis for the particular discourse in question (i.e., roughly, the

basis that best enables that discourse to serve its intended function in human life)” (Price 2011, 52). The

pragmatic claim that what ought to guide our theoretical choices just are concerns of economy or practical

needs bring us back to wondering about the viability of Carnap’s views.

IV. Further Problems and Considerations

Historical problems aside, perhaps there are good pragmatic reasons to adopt the approach found

in ESM. Even if the Carnap-Quine narrative embraced by Price and Ney doesn’t rule out a substantive

metaphysics, and even if Carnap’s anti-metaphysical stance cannot be separated from out of date

epistemological or semantic commitments, there could be something to Carnap’s position that provides

aid and comfort to our contemporary deflationists. Perhaps the kind of pragmatic, pluralistic selection of

discourse embodied by Price is all we need to justify this move. Let’s grant Carnap’s talk of frameworks,

internal/external questions, and skepticism towards metaphysics without worrying about their

epistemological backing. Faced with our contemporary meta-ontological debates8, can we usefully

employ Carnap’s distinction between internal and external questions?

Remember, Carnap initially claimed that theoretical reasons are not appropriate answers for

external questions. Yet, what kind of debates does he suppose occur about the range of appropriate

responses to external questions? Clearly reasoning about the acceptance of one framework over another

would turn on some theoretical considerations, but it is difficult to see how theoretical considerations are

in play given Carnap's conception of external questions. Instead, it would seem that only pragmatic

factors should affect our choice of appropriate responses. So, despite special relativity's restrictions, one

might argue that inclusion of tachyon particles (particles that travel faster than the speed of light) in a

8 For the start of recent debates see Chalmers, D., Manley D., and Wasserman, R. (Eds.) 2009, and Ross, D.,

Ladyman J., and Kincaid, H. (Eds.) 2013 for the most recent entries.

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Physicalists' ontology holds certain practical advantages (it could solve funding problems, it would give

graduate students something to do, it opens up all kinds of possible research projects, it ad hoc solves and

creates various theoretical puzzles, etc...). In terms of placing this conversation within the scientific or

philosophical community, it seems clear that such reasons would not be considered good reasons to adopt

a linguistic framework. Why? Because what we demand aren't practical reasons to admit an entity into

our ontology (or for adopting specific linguistic frameworks that "contain" that entity), but just the kinds

of theoretical reasons that Carnap denies as possible answers for external questions.

One could claim that this sense of "practical" is too superficial to capture Carnap's intended

meaning of "practical". Part of the fundamental problem with adopting Carnap's approach is there just

aren’t any prohibitions on reading such overtly practical concerns as the exact right response to external

questions. If the introduction of abstract entities guarantees no ontological commitment (i.e., if our

practical moves don't commit us to much beyond talking a specific way), then why can’t such

professional norms guide our ontological choices in place of representational concerns? To argue

professional norms aren't reliable guides for ontological commitment is to double-dip in the theoretical

pot; one cannot claim that theoretical reasons function internal to a given framework and then use such

reasons to exclude the adoption of one framework over another. Claiming that we have reason to think

that such professional norms wouldn’t be good practical reasons just is to claim that there are theoretical

reasons that are framework-independent (i.e., arguing that such norms do not make truth evaluable claims

not only in a given framework but somehow beyond it). Yet this simply cannot be in Carnap’s picture of

ontological commitment.

For our decision procedure to be constrained in rationally and naturalistically acceptable ways we

need the ability to legislate what counts as the acceptable kinds of reasons prior to adopting a given

linguistic framework and independent of a specific set of ontological commitments. It simply will not due

to rule out a framework that contains tachyons because our current physical framework does not (or,

perhaps more accurately, it does not contain favorable predictions towards the discovery of tachyons). To

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do so would commit us to an unduly conservative approach for introducing new entities or theoretical

frameworks. Looked at from this standpoint, any proposed entity would necessarily clash with the

currently adopted framework (as new entities wouldn't contain rules for forming expressions about them

in our current framework). If the wholly practical reasons offered above are not the right kinds of

reasons, that what dictates the right kinds of reasons?

One could claim there is a give and take between theoretical and practical reasons (part of the

process of conceptual refinement one finds in Carnap’s notion of explication). A. W. Carus claims this9,

and the general idea would be that advances in theoretical reasoning inform our practical decision-making

which, in turn, help inform decisions about which theoretical framework to adopt. The hopeful outcome

of this would be that such ostensibly irrelevant practical reasons as professional norms would be filtered

out during the interplay of theoretical and practical reason. Although this would seem to solve the issue,

it does so by blurring Carnap’s own distinction between internal and external questions. The idea that

theoretical and practical reasons somehow interact cannot be made intelligible from within Carnap’s

philosophy. They are, as was pointed out in section II, different kinds of answers to different kinds of

questions (i.e., theoretical reasons have truth-conditions while practical reasons do not, etc…).

This problem, what I will call the "boundary problem", is that there are no constraints for the

kinds of reasons that function as answers to external questions without invoking ad hoc restrictions. The

distinction between internal and external questions works if there is a rigid boundary between the kinds of

claims that can answer each kind of question. As soon as Carnap is willing to allow certain theoretical

reasons to influence practical decisions, then we need some kind of criterion that demarcates the relevant

theoretical reasons (the ones that are, apparently, framework-independent) from the kinds of theoretical

and practical reasons that are irrelevant. Despite his suggestion that considerations of simplicity,

efficiency, and fruitfulness might be theoretical reasons that influence our practical decisions, Carnap

doesn’t explain why these are the relevant theoretical reasons. More so, without a rigid boundary between

9 See the introduction and closing chapters in Carus 2007 for this account of explication.

16

the right theoretical reasons and the right practical reasons, we cannot stop other kinds of practical

reasons (the ostensibly bad kind outlined above) from factoring into our decision-making process. If the

answer to such external questions is pragmatic all the way down, then – at best – we can end a given line

of inquiry by, ad hoc, severing the regress of ontological questioning and simply insist that there are

enough good reasons or evidence to accept specific ontological claims without drawing a line between the

kinds of reasons or arguments that are appropriate and those that are not.

A second response to this problem would be to deny the distinction between theoretical and

practical reasons. This is Quine’s strategy of arguing that ontological commitment is not an issue "of fact

but of choosing a convenient conceptual scheme or framework for science" (Quine 1951, 72). Yet if this

is true, there doesn’t seem to be any a priori reason to think that practical considerations cannot be used

to rule metaphysics in. One would think that philosophers committed to the idea that “every statement is

ultimately to be evaluated using practical considerations” (Ney 2012, 58) would hold a more tolerant

attitude towards metaphysics. There doesn’t seem to be any a priori reason to think that practical

considerations cannot be used to rule metaphysics in. Of course, such tolerance might depend (again) on

what is meant by “practical considerations”. More often than not, one would be excused for thinking that

“practical considerations” is just a stand in phrase for something like “epistemic access”, despite whatever

tension might exist between our epistemic access to such entities and our ability to generate truth-

conditions for statements about such entities.10

Regardless, my point has been that while we might be led

to deflationism from this kind of pragmatism, there is no in principle reason to think that we couldn’t just

as well be led towards metaphysical speculation.

V. Conclusion - What is to be done?

If my argument so far has been correct, then we don't have good reasons to adopt Carnap's

approach to ontology. On the one hand, the historical commitments of Carnap’s position are extremely

10

See Bonevac 1982 for a discussion of how this problem in the philosophy of mathematics applies to abstract

entities in general.

17

unattractive. Yet when we ignore these commitments the justification for Carnap’s position (and, one

might think any good reason for adopting it) disappears. This, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily cast

doubt on pragmatist or neo-positivist approaches to ontology per se. What it does is make the

deflationary mountain steeper when approaching from the Carnapian face. Carnap’s more significant

problem is what I've called the "boundary problem": any attempt to steer the decision making process

towards exclusively naturalistic ends either introduces an un-constrainable, arbitrary element to one's

inquiry or restricts, ad hoc, the justification for our ontological choices. Both of these options are

unacceptable and contrary to Carnap's original aims (as well as contrary to most contemporary naturalistic

aims). If we're committed to the kind of quietism endorsed by Price or the "primitive ontology" endorsed

by Ney, we need a way out of this dilemma.

There are at least two possible solutions to this problem. The first option is to jettison the

Carnapian strain of thought from our anti-metaphysical program. Although such thinking played some

justificatory role when we were committed to a thoroughly verificationist theory of meaning, a naively

empiricist framework is not a living option at this point. If this is the case (as the lack of strict

verificationist theory of meaning defenders would attest to), then there is no reason to bring Carnap into

our contemporary debates. This is not to suggest the deflationary project is doomed to failure. There are,

of course, numerous other avenues that lead to a deflationary viewpoint. Instead, I’m simply claiming that

Carnap's views are either too outdated or too problematic to be of much help in contemporary debates

surrounding ontology.

A second option is to ignore specific problems with Carnap's account and focus on his general

perspective on metaphysics. As noted in section II, the motivation behind Carnap's position would be the

presupposition of a scientific world picture that makes traditional metaphysics obsolete. Yet, taking up

this stance towards the role of philosophy in discussing the underlying structure of the world (or, more so,

18

not discussing it) is still one in need of justification. The pragmatist and neo-positivist can be united11

in

their response to this problem. By being pragmatists through and through, both parties can secure a path

towards a deflationary view of metaphysics without the Carnapian baggage. This solution is found in the

idea that ontological and theoretical commitments are commitments responsive not to the world, but to

people and practices. The resources for this move are already contained within both Price's and Ney's

arguments. For Price, one finds the underpinnings of this argument in his claims that what is needed in

place of metaphysical discourse is discourse concerning what ontological claims are for as opposed to

what they are about. For Ney, it's the recourse to looking at the practices of the scientific community at

large. For how else could we determine what's indispensable to scientific explanation aside from looking

at, well, what is indispensable to the scientific community? Both Price and Ney can insist that such

inquiries leave "no remainder" as to what's going on with an analysis of ontological commitment without

reference to Carnap's project. If this is so, why think we need to invoke Carnap in the first place?

This kind of thoroughly pragmatist reading of ontological commitment comes with its own set of

problems. If we’re going to invoke practices as a tool for determining when ontological questioning have

gone “far enough”, we need some kind of criteria which severs the seemingly infinite regress of asking

“But do tachyons really, really exist?” To argue, as Ney does, that we ought to simply accept whatever

physicists tell us to accept (in the rare instances in which physicists speak to philosophers) cannot be a

solution to this problem; at least it cannot be a rational solution to this problem. This kind of recourse

back to practices needs something over and above appeals to authority or a kind of “accepting” quietism.

I think both positions have invoked Carnap’s later philosophy as a partial way of doing just this. On first

glance, ESM provides a significantly strong standpoint to sever this kind of regress.

11

Whether positivists and pragmatists can be united on why one ought to reject a substantive metaphysics is a

historically contentious issue. One can easily see this tension in the North American reception history of logical

positivism. For example, see Jewett 2012. One could go directly to the source as well in debates between C. I.

Lewis and Moritz Schlick. See Lewis 1934 and Schlick 1936.

19

But make no mistake, regimenting talk of frameworks and quietism as demarcational tools for

settling the legitimacy of metaphysical questions is a totalitarian move. The pressing philosophical

question isn't whether such political machinations are acceptable. It could be the case, as it seems from

our contemporary perspective, that claims which assert what is the case just are totalitarian moves,

regardless of the method behind such claims. This would be the banal idea that by asserting that

something is the case, one is necessarily denying all other things are the case. Despite rhetorical claims to

pluralism, it's difficult to see how embracing quietism leaves room for pluralist conceptions of discourse.

The question we need to be asking is this: When are such authoritarian claims acceptable? That is, when is

it acceptable to invoke authority as the sword that severs the infinite regress of metaphysical or

ontological questioning? Although, as a discipline, we can pretend as if this is not what we do when we

insist that certain concepts just are helpful demarcational tools -- but this would be naive at best,

disingenuous at worst.

I find myself in agreement with Price and other pragmatists when it comes to issues of ontology.

The contemporary interest in broadly deflationary approaches to ontology is laudable and Ney's neo-

positivism is, at least, a pro-active approach to deflationism. The blind spot I've tried to point out isn't

that Price and others are wrong, but that their justification for deflationism is lacking. It may turn out that

Price's (or Ney's) overall strategy is the right method for dealing with "inflated" ontological claims. Yet

the current arguments for such a position are lacking. Looking back to Carnap will not help us.

20

21

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