Repository | Book | Chapter

The question whether a philosophy is ontologically committed or not may in the first instance appear to be either superfluous or trivial. From a point of view, according to which a philosophical theory worth the name has necessarily to posit the nature of being as it really is, the question would prove to be redundant. If the business of philosophy is, on the other hand, taken to be conceptual clarification alone, it would turn to be a trivial question whether a philosophy holds to a final view on the nature of what there is. However, the question has to be accepted as a real one when two conditions are taken into consideration — either one or both of them. (a) In one case an ontological commitment would constitute an essential part of the philosophical position concerned, though not explicitly formulated as one. (b) In another case a philosophical position would imply a reference to an ontological standpoint arising as a logical demand to fulfil the philosophical inadequacy involved in the idea of a purely deontological interpretation of experience.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-3369-5_7

Full citation: