Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine on Reference and Ontology 133
of truth from within some theory of the world, and having admitted
the existence of a multiplicity of such theories, Quine then asks,
Have we now so far lowered our sights as to settle for a relativistic doctrine
of truth – rating the statements of each theory as true for that theory, and
brooking no higher criticism? Not so. The saving consideration is that we
continue to take seriously our own particular aggregate science, our own
particular world-theory or loose total fabric of quasi-theories, whatever it
may be. Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even
in the midst of philosophizing. (WO 24–5)
Quine thus rejects relativism about truth: We should simply accept
the best theory we have (until, of course, a better one becomes
available); in accepting it, we count it as true, true flat-out, in an
unrelativized sense. And in accepting a theory, we also adopt a language:
Choice of language is no more relative than is choice of theory
within a language. For Quine, there are not two separate stages here,
two separate issues to be settled on quite different sorts of grounds.
There is only the single issue of finding the best theory (languageown-theory,
from a Carnapian point of view) for coping with the
world. So Quine also rejects Carnapian relativism about language
choice.
This rejection of relativism about language choice is also a rejection
of the principle of tolerance. If we have accepted one theory as
true, then we have no need to hold that any other language is just as
good. On the contrary, from the point of view of the theory that we
accept – which is our point of view – any language that is not a more
or less minor variant of our own will distort matters and so is to be
rejected. 23
The other side of Quine’s rejection of relativism is that we take
our own theory (language-own-theory) seriously, as telling us the
truth about the world. For the only sense we can make of the idea
of “the truth about the world” is in terms of our own theoretical
understanding. Hence we take the ontological claims of our own
theory seriously. If it is part of our theory of the world that there are
mountains, stars, electrons, and sets, then we are committed to the
idea that these things really exist. The ontological question, which
Carnap had attempted to nullify, survives in Quine’s work. In one
sense, this is a metaphysical question – a question about what really
exists. Quine is a realist and takes the objects presupposed by our
Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2006