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Work #1489 · Mid-to-late period

Ontological Relativity and Other Essays

Quine's 1969 essay collection — including 'Epistemology Naturalized' and the John Dewey Lectures

Willard Van Orman Quine · 1969 · English · Essay collection (John Dewey Lectures plus essays)

Tradition: Analytic philosophy / Quinean naturalism / pragmatism

Quine's 1969 lecture-essay volume — 'Epistemology Naturalized' and the indeterminacy of reference

Published by Columbia University Press in 1969 from Quine's 1968 John Dewey Lectures at Columbia, 'Ontological Relativity and Other Essays' contains seven essays at the heart of Quine's mature naturalised-epistemological programme. The two Dewey Lectures themselves — 'Speaking of Objects' and 'Ontological Relativity' — develop the indeterminacy of reference: just as ontology is relative to the chosen theory's quantifier structure ('on what there is'), so reference is relative to a chosen translation manual; what makes the rabbit a rabbit (rather than an undetached rabbit-part or a rabbit-stage) is not anything in the world but a choice of analytical hypotheses. The companion essay 'Epistemology Naturalized' is one of Quine's most-cited papers, declaring the founding programme of naturalised epistemology: 'Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz., a physical human subject... Both inputs and outputs are external; the inputs are bombardments of light rays and bombardments of cool air molecules; the outputs are a string of words about the world.' The other essays — 'Existence and Quantification', 'Natural Kinds', 'Propositional Objects', and 'Linguistics and Philosophy' — extend the Quinean-naturalist programme into ontology, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language respectively. The book is one of the founding texts of analytic-naturalist philosophy and the principal source for Quine's mature epistemological position.

Author

Editions cited

  • Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (Columbia University Press, New York, 1969)
  • John Dewey Lectures, Columbia University, 1968
  • Companion volume: The Roots of Reference (Open Court, 1974) — the developmental-genetic complement
  • Critical commentary: Roger F. Gibson, Enlightened Empiricism (Florida, 1988); Alex Orenstein, W. V. Quine (Princeton, 2002)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Naturalism · 30%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 20%
Pragmatism · 18%
Structuralism · 14%
Philosophy of Language · 10%
Realism · 8%
Naturalism 30%

Founding statement of naturalised epistemology.

"Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science." (Epistemology Naturalized)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 20%

Defining statement of ontological relativity.

"What makes sense is to say not what the objects of a theory are, absolutely speaking, but how one theory of objects is interpretable or reinterpretable in another." (Ontological Relativity)
Pragmatism 18%

Continuity with Dewey and American pragmatism.

"The Dewey Lectures." (Ontological Relativity, title-page)
Structuralism 14%

Structural account of ontology — only the structure, not the elements, is determinate.

"Reference is inscrutable except relative to a coordinate system." (Ontological Relativity)
Philosophy of Language 10%

Major statement on the indeterminacy of translation and reference.

"Translation is indeterminate." (Speaking of Objects)
Realism 8%

Indispensability-style realism within the structural constraints.

"We accept what our best theories quantify over — relative to a translation manual." (Ontological Relativity, conclusion)

Internal Tensions

Founding statement of naturalised epistemology and ontological relativity. The 'Epistemology Naturalized' paper has been continuously productive — it founded the naturalised-epistemology programme that Goldman, Kornblith, and many others developed in the following decades; the indeterminacy-of-reference thesis (Dewey Lecture II) has been continuously contested by structured-propositions theorists and externalists.

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I. Time

1969 publication. Quine was 61, at the height of his mature philosophical influence.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
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II. Space

Columbia (Dewey Lectures venue) / Harvard (Quine's permanent base). The intellectual space is American analytic philosophy at its peak post-positivist period.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Curved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
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III. Matter

Lecture-essay collection (~165 pages). Form is sustained philosophical essay rather than tightly technical argument.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Mid-to-late Quine. The observer-philosopher is the naturalised-epistemology Quine, the philosopher whose 'Two Dogmas' (1951) and 'Word and Object' (1960) had already shaped two decades of analytic philosophy.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Immediate Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Passive Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Programmatic energies — naturalisation of epistemology. The Dewey Lectures' venue is itself significant: Quine positions his programme as a continuation of Deweyan pragmatism rather than (as critics suggested) as a radical break from traditional epistemology.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information

Two Dewey Lectures plus five further essays. 'Epistemology Naturalized' is the most-cited individual entry.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Willard Van Orman Quine Hilary Putnam

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

97%
Albert Einstein
33/34
97%
Willard Van Orman Quine
33/34
94%
Bertrand Russell
32/34
94%
Charles Darwin
32/34
94%
Pierre-Simon Laplace
32/34
94%
Roy Bhaskar
32/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

76%
Stoicism
22/26
73%
Structuralism
22/26
72%
Scientism
23/26
72%
Realism
23/26
69%
Behaviorism
22/26
69%
Evolutionary Psychology
22/26
68%
Eternalism
21/26
68%
Reformed / Calvinist Theology
22/26

How Ontological Relativity and Other Essays resolves each dilemma

34 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 6 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 23 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Do you really choose?
If the brain is a physical system and physical systems are governed by laws, then every choice is also a chain of causes — which raises the question of what was really left to choose.
Choice is structural illusion — every event is fixed by the prior state.
On this view, the future is fixed by the present, and the observer is a recipient of causes rather than an originator of them. The sense of choosing is real — but what is being chosen is itself a consequence of brain states that were …
Roads not taken The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. (69%) · Choice is real within a determined order — agency and determinism aren’t opposites. (9%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, you are not the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
Addiction looks from one angle like the textbook case of agency failing — a person doing what they don't, in any meaningful sense, want to do. From another angle it looks like agency at work in hard conditions. Which it is depends on what agency is.
The addict's behaviour is the outcome of causes; 'responsibility' is a useful fiction, not a metaphysical fact.
On this view, the addict's brain state, history, genetics, and circumstances jointly produce the behaviour, and there is nothing inside the person that could have produced anything else. Calling the addict responsible is at best a social tool — useful for the deterrent and rehabilitative …
Roads not taken The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. (69%) · The addict is genuinely responsible within a determined order. (9%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, the addict isn't the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 10% of schools agree (20/202)
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
When an autonomous AI takes an action that harms someone, the question of who or what is responsible — the developer, the operator, the model itself — turns on whether the model is the kind of thing that can be a responsible agent.
An AI's behaviour is fully determined by training and input; 'responsibility' applies if at all to its makers.
On this view, the AI's output is a function of its training data, its architecture, and the input it received. There is no extra fact about the AI that could ground its responsibility, because there is no extra fact about the AI that could have …
Roads not taken An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. (69%) · The AI can be a genuine agent within determined conditions — and therefore genuinely responsible. (9%) · Neither AIs nor anyone else are the locus of free agency; the question is the wrong one. (6%)
6 mainstream positions
How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. 47% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. 47% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. 47%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 3 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
What is our place in nature?
Whether humans are masters of nature, members of nature, or makers of nature is not a question climate science can settle. It depends on what nature is, what we are, and what kind of relationship is possible between us.
Subject to a real natural order we did not make.
On these views, nature is a real, ordered, mind-independent reality that we are inside of but did not construct. Our fundamental posture toward it is one of observation, discovery, and humility before laws that are not ours to make. Stewardship and conservation are real obligations, …
Roads not taken Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. (48%) · Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. (15%) · Embedded in a web — partners with the more-than-human world. (15%)
Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
Should we colonize space?
The drive to extend human presence beyond Earth is sometimes framed as the next chapter of stewardship, sometimes as hubris, sometimes as escape from problems we ought to solve here. Which it is depends on what we take our relationship to nature to be.
Nature includes its limits; colonisation is bounded by what the cosmos allows.
On these views, humans operate within a given natural order whose laws and limits set the terms. Space colonisation is fine to the extent that it is actually possible — radiation, gravity wells, biological tolerances — and folly to the extent that it requires denying …
Roads not taken Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. (48%) · The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. (15%) · Colonisation continues the work that ended the wisdom of seven-generation thinking. (15%)
Distinctive · only 12% of schools agree (25/202)
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
Editing the genomes of the plants and animals we eat is either the natural continuation of breeding — careful improvement of what is given — or a category error that treats biology as raw material rather than as living kind.
Biology is what it is; we modify it within real biological constraints.
On these views, organisms are real biological systems with real constraints, and genetic modification is reasonable when it works within those constraints and dangerous when it ignores them. The question is technical: does this modification do what its proponents say, with the unintended consequences they …
Roads not taken Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. (48%) · What counts as a 'natural' genome is itself a construction. (15%) · Editing the genome cuts into the relational fabric; we should be very slow. (15%)
11 mainstream positions
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32%
23 unaligned
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8% — Are the dead morally present to the living? Schools split: 44% / 35% / 13% — Are there indivisible units of experience? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? Schools split: 49% / 37% / 8% — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Could an AI have a mind that matters? Schools split: 30% / 30% / 15% — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? Schools split: 32% / 29% / 11% — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Schools split: 50% / 29% / 12% — Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — Does prayer change God's mind? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? Schools split: 46% / 33% / 13% — Is memory stored or reconstructed? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is reality fundamentally digital? Schools split: 44% / 37% / 13% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — What happens to "you" when you die? Schools split: 37% / 30% / 18% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — What makes someone the same person over time? Schools split: 36% / 29% / 14% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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