The relevance of ontological commitments

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of ontological commitments as pragmatic hypotheses that influence scientific practice, emphasizing the importance of clarifying these commitments for productive scientific discourse.

Contribution

It offers a pragmatic view of ontological commitments as useful, non-naive hypotheses that shape scientific inquiry and argues for making these commitments explicit.

Findings

Ontological commitments are pragmatic hypotheses influencing science.

Explicit commitments improve scientific discussions.

The view is compared with philosophical and scientific perspectives.

Abstract

In this introductory note, I describe my particular view of the notion of ontological commitments as honest and pragmatic working hypotheses that assume the existence (out there) of certain entities represented by the symbols in our theory. I argue that this is not naive, in the sense that it does not entail the belief that the hypotheses could ever be proved to be true (or false), but it is nevertheless justified by the success and predictive power of the theory that contains the concepts assumed to exist. I also claim that the ontological commitments one holds (even if tacitly so) have a great influence on what kind of science is produced, how it is used, and how it is understood. Not only I justify this claim, but I also propose a sketch of a possible falsification of it. As a natural conclusion, I defend the importance of identifying, clarifying and making explicit one's ontological commitments if fruitful scientific discussions are to be had. Finally, I compare my point of view with that of some philosophers and scientists who have put forward similar notions.