Goodman says somewhere that he finds abstract entities difficult to
understand.  And from a psychological viewpoint it is certainly his dislike
and distrust of abstract entities which leads him to propose an ontology from
which they are omitted.  Now a misogynist is a man who finds women difficult
to understand, and who in fact considers them objectionable incongruities in
an otherwise matter-of-fact and hard-headed world.  Suppose then that in
analogy with nominalism the misogynist is led by his dislike and distrust of
women to omit them from his ontology.  Women are not real, he tells himself,
and derives great comfort from the thought -- there _are_ no such things.
This doctrine let us call _ontological_ _misogyny_.

There are various forms which such a doctrine may take.  The misogynist may
follow the example of Ryle and say that the world of women has no independent
existence, it does not exist in addition to man's world but is an aspect of
it; and though it may be convenient to speak of women independently, it is
also misleading, and actually one should not ask such questions as whether
women exist.  But if this doctrine stands in isolation and does not affect
the circumstances under which he agrees to my assertion that there is a woman
in the room, or admits that some women have made important scientific
discoveries, then it is clear that the denial of ontological status to women
is only a matter of psychological comfort to the misogynist and has no
further significance.  

Instead of this the misogynist may take the more profound course which
follows Goodman and Quine, attempting to construct a comprehensive theory
that is adequate in general for purposes of understanding and communication,
but at the same time avoiding ontological commitment to women.  It is an
interesting logical question how far such a theory is possible (without
inconsistency with experimental and observational results).  I think it may
have at least as much success as has attended the corresponding search for a
nominalistic theory, and probably more.

Just as propositions are replaced by inscriptions in order to avoid
ontological commitment to the former, so a woman might be replaced by her
husband.  Instead of saying that a woman is present, we might speak of men as
having two kinds of presence, primary presence and secondary presence, the
observational criteria for secondary presence of a man being the same which
the more usual theory would take as observational criteria for presence of a
woman.  And similarly in the case of other things that one might think to say
about women.  Certain difficulties arise over the fact that some women have
more than one husband and others none, but these are no greater than the
corresponding difficulties in the case of propositions and inscriptions.

Actually the task might be lightened by taking advantage of the fortunate
circumstance that every woman has only one father.  And for this reason
ontological misogyny is a doctrine much easier to put into satisfactory
logical order than is the Quine-Goodman finitistic nominalism.

But the question of the logical possibility of such a theory must be
separated from the question of the desirability of replacing the ordinary
theory by this ontologically more economical variant of it.  Quine and
Goodman emphasize the economy of nominalism in supposing the existence of
fewer entities.  But the economy which has commonly been the concern of
the logician, and of the mathematician dealing with foundations, has been
simply economy of assumption, which might be thought to include (among
other things) economy of ontological assumption, but certainly not as its
primary or most important element.  Surely there are other criteria by
which to judge a theory.  And though we may be obliged to grant that the
ontological misogynist has made a successful application of Ockham's
razor, in that he has reduced his ontology without losing the adequacy of
his theory, we may still prefer the more usual theory which grants
existence to women.

To return to Quine and Goodman, it is possible, even likely, that the
failure of their program will demonstrate the untenability of their
finitistic nominalism.  But the success of their program, like that of
ontological misogynist, would leave us to choose between the rival
ontologies on other grounds.  It is only in the former case that Quine and
Goodman could be said in any sense to have settled the nominalist-realist
controversy.  But it is in any case a major contribution to have clarified
the meaning of the dispute, by putting the opposing doctrines on a sounder
basis and showing their relevance to logic.

                                                          ALONZO CHURCH



David Bircumshaw wrote:
> I was just browsing on a philosophical site and came across the
> following piece of sublime lunacy:
>
> "This is the tag end of a talk that Church delivered at Harvard
> entitled "Antinominalism", in which he develops the theory of
> "ontological misogyny" in order to prove that women don't exist."
>
> There was a link provided but the site it points to, um, no longer
> exists. Ah, the folly of the wise.
>
>
>   

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
  --Corey Ford