Willard Van Orman Quine

Quine on Reference and Ontology 145
we feel as if we are in the odd position of insisting that something
must exist but having to acknowledge that we cannot say what. But
if all that there is to an object is the role that it plays in theory, then
what is it that we do not know? According to the view considered
in §IV, the correct way to think of an object is simply as marking a
certain role – a “neutral node” – in the structure of our theory. So
it would seem that all that being a realist about an object can come
to is, so to speak, taking that role, that node, seriously. But this is
simply to take seriously the theory of which it is an aspect. So we
should perhaps take ontological relativity to show that there is no
issue concerning realism about objects separate from the issue of realism
about the theory that mentions them: To repeat, ontology is
derivative from truth.
This conclusion may seem to be too anodyne to be the moral
of the seemingly bizarre idea of ontological relativity, for it simply
repeats the moral of §I, which seemed moderate enough. I am inclined
to think, however, that the ideas of §I are less moderate, less
in conformity with unreconstructed common sense, than may have
appeared and that the apparent oddness of ontological relativity was
lurking from the start. We are, as Quine says, “body-minded” (RR
54); it comes entirely naturally to us to think in terms of bodies, and
of objects more generally, and to take them as fundamental to our
knowledge. Russell’s way of articulating this nexus of ideas, when
dissected and exposed to the light of day, may easily come to seem
offensive to common sense, but it is an articulation of ideas that are, I
think, very natural. The apparently paradoxical character of ontological
relativity arises in part because Quine’s ingenuity enables him
to draw conclusions that most of us would never have dreamed of.
But it also, and more significantly, arises because the notion of an
object and the nexus of ideas associated with it go very deep in our
conception of the world. Ontological relativity dramatizes the fact
that Quine’s work repudiates those ideas completely.
notes
For comments on an earlier draft, I am indebted to Roger Gibson, Dorothy
Grover, and Bill Hart.
1. Russell was an important influence on Quine, second only to Carnap. In
a tribute to the latter, Quine says, “I see him [Carnap] as the dominant
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