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On What There Is
Willard Van Orman Quine


Review of Metaphysics (1948). Reprinted in 1953 From a Logical Point of View. Harvard
University Press. Revised and reprinted later


A curious thing about the ontological problem is its simplicity. It can be put in three Anglo-
Saxon monosyllables: „What is there?‟ It can be answered, moreover, in a word—
„Everything‟—and everyone will accept this answer as true. However, this is merely to say
that there is what there is. There remains room for disagreement over cases; and so the issue
has stayed alive down the centuries.
Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX
maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with
his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize
certain entities. I should protest, of course, that he is wrong in his formulation of our
disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to
recognize; but my finding him wrong in his formulation of our disagreement is unimportant,
for I am committed to considering him wrong in his ontology anyway.
When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a
predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not,
for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them.
It would appear, if this reasoning were sound, that in any ontological dispute the proponent of
the negative side suffers the disadvantage of not being able to admit that his opponent
disagrees with him.
This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what
is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it
has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam‟s razor.
It is some such line of thought that leads philosophers like McX to impute being where they
might otherwise be quite content to recognize that there is nothing. Thus, take Pegasus. If
Pegasus were not, McX argues, we should not be talking about anything when we use the
word; therefore it would be nonsense to say even that Pegasus is not. Thinking to show thus
that the denial of Pegasus cannot be coherently maintained, he concludes that Pegasus is.
McX cannot, indeed, quite persuade himself that any region of space-time, near or remote,
contains a flying horse of flesh and blood. Pressed for further details on Pegasus, then, he says
that Pegasus is an idea in men‟s minds. Here, however, a confusion begins to be apparent. We
may for the sake of argument concede that there is an entity, and even a unique entity (though
this is rather implausible), which is the mental Pegasus-idea; but this mental entity is not what
people are talking about when they deny Pegasus.

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McX never confuses the Parthenon with the Parthenon-idea. The Parthenon is physical; the
Parthenon-idea is mental (according anyway to McX‟s version of ideas, and I have no better
to offer). The Parthenon is visible; the Parthenon-idea is invisible. We cannot easily imagine
two things more unlike, and less liable to confusion, than the Parthenon and the Parthenon-
idea. But when we shift from the Parthenon to Pegasus, the confusion sets in—for no other
reason than that McX would sooner be deceived by the crudest and most flagrant counterfeit
than grant the nonbeing of Pegasus.
The notion that Pegasus must be, because it would otherwise be nonsense to say even that
Pegasus is not, has been seen to lead McX into an elementary confusion. Subtler minds,
taking the same precept as their starting point, come out with theories of Pegasus which are
less patently misguided than McX‟s, and correspondingly more difficult to eradicate. One of
these subtler minds is named, let us say, Wyman. Pegasus, Wyman maintains, has his being as
an unactualized possible. When we say of Pegasus that there is no such thing, we are saying,
more precisely, that Pegasus does not have the special attribute of actuality. Saying that
Pegasus is not actual is on a par, logically, with saying that the Parthenon is not red; in either
case we are saying something about an entity whose being is unquestioned.
Wyman, by the way, is one of those philosophers who have united in ruining the good old
word „exist‟. Despite his espousal of unactualized possibles, he limits the word „existence‟ to
actuality—thus preserving an illusion of ontological agreement between himself and us who
repudiate the rest of his bloated universe. We have all been prone to say, in our common-
sense usage of „exist‟, that Pegasus does not exist, meaning simply that there is no such entity
at all. If Pegasus existed he would indeed be in space and time, but only because the word
„Pegasus‟ has spatio-temporal connotations, and not because „exists‟ has spatio-temporal
connotations. If spatio-temporal reference is lacking when we affirm the existence of the cube
root of 27, this is simply because a cube root is not a spatio-temporal kind of thing, and not
because we are being ambiguous in our use of „exist‟.[1] However, Wyman, in an ill-conceived
effort to appear agreeable, genially grants us the nonexistence of Pegasus and then, contrary
to what we meant by nonexistence of Pegasus, insists that Pegasus is. Existence is one thing,
he says, and subsistence is another. The only way I know of coping with this obfuscation of
issues is to give Wyman the word „exist‟. I‟ll try not to use it again; I still have „is‟. So much
for lexicography; let‟s get back to Wyman‟s ontology.
Wyman‟s overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of
us who have a taste for desert landscapes, but this is not the worst of it. Wyman‟s slum of
possibles is a breeding ground for disorderly elements. Take, for instance, the possible fat
man in that doorway; and, again, the possible bald man in that doorway. Are they the same
possible man, or two possible men? How do we decide? How many possible men are there in
that doorway? Are there more possible thin ones than fat ones? How many of them are alike?
Or would their being alike make them one? Are no two possible things alike? Is this the same
as saying that it is impossible for two things to be alike? Or, finally, is the concept of identity
simply inapplicable to unactualized possibles? But what sense can be found in talking of
entities which cannot meaningfully be said to be identical with themselves and distinct from
one another? These elements are well-nigh incorrigible. By a Fregean therapy of individual
concepts,[2] some effort might be made at rehabilitation; but I feel we‟d do better simply to
clear Wyman‟s slum and be done with it.
Possibility, along with the other modalities of necessity and impossibility and contingency,
raises problems upon which I do not mean to imply that we should turn our backs. But we can
at least limit modalities to whole statements. We may impose the adverb „possibly‟ upon a