Fundamental quantification and the ontology room

Abstract

If ontologists use quantifiers in different meanings, does it lead to a merely verbal disagreement or does their disagreement concern something substantive about how the world is? According to Theodore Sider, the disagreement is substantive, in that some meanings are capable of describing the world better than others. In fact, he argues that there is a perfect (i.e. fundamental) quantifier meaning, capable of describing the world better than any other, and that we can find that meaning. However, I argue, given that there is such a meaning, that finding the most fundamental quantifier meaning requires epistemic access to every quantifier meaning which we do not have and, hence, that even if we found that meaning we would not be able to tell that it is, in fact, the most fundamental one.