A Curious Thing About The Ontological Problem

Physics Investigates The Essential Nature Of The World, And Biology Describes A Local Bump. Psychology, Human Psychology, Describes A Bump On The Bump.

The Variables Of Quantification, 'something,' 'nothing,' 'everything,' Range Over Our Whole Ontology, Whatever It May Be; And We Are Convicted Of A Particular Ontological Presupposition If, And Only If, The Alleged Presuppositum Has To Be Reckoned Among The Entities Over Which Our Variables Range In Order To Render One Of Our Affirmations True.

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.

The Mastery Of One's Phonemes May Be Compared To The Violinist's Mastery Of Fingering. The Violin String Lends Itself To A Continuous Gradation Of Tones, But The Musician Learns The Discrete Intervals At Which To Stop The String In Order To Play The Conventional Notes. We Sound Our Phonemes Like Poor Violinists, Approximating Each Time To A Fancied Norm, And We Receive Our Neighbor's Renderings Indulgently, Mentally Rectifying The More Glaring Inaccuracies.

It Is One Of The Consolations Of Philosophy That The Benefit Of Showing How To Dispense With A Concept Does Not Hinge On Dispensing With It.