What is a neutral criterion of ontological commitment?

Abstract

In this paper I raise the question of what counts as a neutral criterion of ontological commitment. I claim that the neutrality of a criterion should be measured by the neutrality of the method it provides for determining ontological commitment. Explicit criteria provide methods for determining ontological commitment while implicit criteria do not, and therefore competing explicit criteria may be compared and evaluated on the basis of neutrality while implicit criteria may not. Further, I suggest that the question of neutrality for explicit criteria is a question of topic-neutrality. In the light of these claims, I argue that the reason that Armstrong (2004) gives for his proposal to replace Quine's criterion with a truthmaker criterion fails.