what the sferics said to Mondaugen

[Roy Gordon]

> Cf. Quine's battle with 'intention', and
> his frightening ontological claim, 'to be is to be the object of a bound
> variable' (or something like that).

I think this above is very susceptible to misinterpretation, if not misleading. 
 Quine's views, at least in the article this phrase is taken from, are anything 
but linguistic-centric (and why it's 'frightening' I must admit, escapes my 
admittedly mundane mind).

I quote from Quine's "On What There Is":

	I have argued that the sort of ontology we adopt can be
	consequential--notably in connection with mathematics,
	although this is only an example.  Now how are we to
	adjudicate among rival ontologies?  Certainly the answer is
	not provided by the semantical formula "To be is to be the value
	of a variable"; this formula serves rather, conversely, in
	testing the conformity of a given remark or doctrine to a prior
	ontological standard.  We look to bound variables in connection
	with ontology not in order to know what there is, but in order
	to know what a given remark or doctrine, ours or someone else's,
	*says* there is; and this much is properly a problem involving
	language.  But what there is is another question.
		:
		:
	It is no wonder, then, that ontological controversy should
	tend into controversy over language.  But we must not jump
	to the conclusion that what there is depends on words.  Trans-
	latability of a question into semantical terms is no indication
	that the question is linguistic.  To see Naples is to bear a
	name which, when prefixed to the words, 'sees Naples', yields
	a true sentence; still there is nothing linguistic about
	seeing Naples.

				Review of Metaphysics (1948)


I think much more interesting about Quine is his net theory as (first?) espoused 
in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", and how, in defending his call to extensional 
logic he uses non-extensional phrases (e.g., 'must be', etc.).  This was pointed 
out in detail in two devastating, in my opinion anyway, articles, one 
co-authored by Chomsky and Israel Scheffler and one by Richard 
Cartwright--articles that Quine never, to my knowledge, responded.

					-- roy