X

The pious, piety (the Object)

Y

Love (Intention, Intentionality, Attitude)

Z

The gods (the Authority)

Either the gods stand outside of that which is pious, and are thus influenced by it, or in virtue of the gods’ attitude toward piety, that which is pious — piety — sustains or bears piety thus.

Active and Passive

I typically call the first horn realism, others decide differently. Piety, right, wrong, etc are entities which, presumably, sustain or bear certain properties independent of influence from Authorities, divine or mundane. The latter horn advances divine command thinking, where the Authority plays an Active role in the properties held by the Object; the former, a Passive role. But along with “command” some additional conceptual consequences follow. Necessarily? I don’t know. So let’s just say there’s a “divine connection,” more generally: a conceptual connection, a theological metaphysic.

Horns

For the first horn, we might say that the Authority views piety as a source of inspiration or as a muse; the Authority describes or records the behavior of the pious, but the Authority has no authorship over its domain, influence, trajectories, “goals,” if you will. Piety, say, is a thing-in-itself, subject not even to the Authority’s thrust and telos. The Authority is, in the strictest sense, Passive.

For the second, the Authority engineers, creates, molds and introduces piety. The Authority’s attitude and focus’d effort circumscribes piety, control and shape it, found and contain it. The Authority constructs and defines the Object, and is thus, in the strictest sense, Active.

Thoughts

In large part, philosophers are concerned with possibilities. A philosopher’s chief task can be described as ensuring possibilities for others, other thinkers, objects and their existence, the possibility of description, the possibility of successful reference sentences, unicorns, squar’d-circles, contradiction as possible objects of thought, etc. So, Kant was concern’d with the possibility of the categorical imperative (a fancy moral jewel); Wittgenstein the possibility of a private language; Hume the possibility of a rational inference into future states of affairs (beyond habit and continual perceived conjunction of events); Russell the possibility of marrying the number 3, etc. And Socrates: the possibility of explaining the true nature of things. In my reading, I sense an underlying assumption on Socrates’/Plato’s part that if we fail to define or agree on a definition for a thing, it may as well not exist. Naturally language gets hog-tied and ransack’d in the whole intrepid undertaking. So, in a sense, Socrates is on the hunt for the existence of piety. Once defined, existence is granted; but for a thing to exist, the implicit verdict cries, we must come to a complete understanding of it. One feature of understanding, presumably, is the knowing of whether a thing essentially (necessarily) or contingently possesses a certain property or all of its properties. Moreover, granted that the gods are eternal and necessary themselves (?!), their Attitudes, if uninanimous, must also carry with it a kind of necessity. And surely the Object must be eternally sustain’d as such if the gods are unwavering (and they are — they’re “necessary”!). Thus, the problem of Euthyphro unfolds thus:

A: X is surely X.
B: But why?
A: Since [X is X], it is loved for being X.
B: But why is [X is X] true?
A: Maybe the loving of X makes [X is X] true.

Whups! The idea here is that we must expose the Object’s definition, not merely describe some feature of it. As it stands, we are none the wiser or more informed as to what X (or piety, or what’s right, or what we ought to do, etc). The concept at play, if it is at play, given the discussion, is essentially murky territory, which isn’t to say that it cannot be penetrated. And what’s at stake here is our uninformed use of the concept. In a way, this problem is similar to Hume’s is-ought, except the “is” has been erased: -ought, or vacuous/unprincipled imperatives. Moreover, it takes a metaphysical assumption about the Authority — that it is necessarily existing or necessarily holds these beliefs as opposed to others — to counter the claim that the Authority does not only contingently have the Attitude it does have toward the Object.

Ramble

If we expose the conceptual machinery, as I’ve done above, and if we factor in the concepts of Activity and Passivity, and then finally color in all the cultural, historical, and metaphysical baggage (along with all those personal predispositions and preconceptions) usually associated with the concepts, we get a whole slew of derivative problems. Generally, as is typical with Socrates, the problem is that [X is (surely) an X]. But why? Well, now that we’ve agreed that [X is an X] and could not be otherwise, we would love to understand why [X is an X]. That “could not be otherwise” puts us a few steps ahead of ourselves, but perhaps we should just go there.

Tangents

I expose the Form of the argument to underscore its import. Often we see, in expositions of the Problem, substitutions of “piety” with “right” or “moral standards.” With the latter, it’s clear that the Problem can be made more abstract, covering a greater conceptual landscape; that is, piety typically falls under the domain of “the moral standards” under most ontologies of morality. That said, we could, and often do, use the Form to introduce analogous arguments in every discourse, so long as we pay attention to the conceptual framework doing the work in the Euthyphro argument: The Object, The Attitude, The Authority. And why do they stand in relations of the Active and the Passive? Why do they stand in any relation at all? Why must we assume that Attitudes take on these Active and Passive roles? And why does anything whatever follow from the status of these roles? Is there any bearing on the human condition? Are human lives influenced in any way by the relationships so agreed upon or established? I ask these questions because they apply, assuming adequately re-contextualization, to any derivative problem which may be introduced in near or remote areas of discourse: Anthropology, Science (of Perception), Politics, Art, etc.

(2) and (3) are trivially true, and a speaker would have no motivation to assert it. It is practically irrelevant, and moreover would only suggestion shared sentiment between the speaker and the inquirer. Inquirer should only consider questions of the reasons behind (1). The speaker may be justified or unjustified in asserting (1), insofar as the speaker can be said to [know] (1). The crux of the problem here is whether (P) counts as knowledge, or if the speaker merely wishes to pass off (2) and (3) with the overt form of (1), supposing (P) properly translates to (1). (I want to consider: The speaker thinks to him or herself in asserting (P): “Let’s pretend that I know something substantial, but in truth, I have no relevant knowledge on the matter, but my language makes it look as though I do.”)

If the speaker has knowledge, then the speaker should be scrutinized insofar as that knowledge, where the inquirier is interested only in the speaker’s evidence for (1). If the speaker merely wishes to insult or criticize from bias, then the speaker may employ (2) or (3), but if the speaker wishes to speak truly, even if the speaker may fail to do so, then the speaker may employ (P) or (1). If the speaker has no knowledge, or even further, no evidence, then the speaker counts as only semantically capable to genuinely assert (2) or (3). (Measure the conceptual utility of the new concept: “semantic capability,” or “semantic rights” — what we have a right to mean; or more generally “semantic laws.” I fear “the semantic string” is of utmost relevance here.)

If the speaker has knowledge or evidence, then evidence is what is relevant. Hunches, guesses, suppositions, mere belief, pure emotional expression which happens to take on the form of language (belting out “ow!” after stubbing one’s toe), and so on, all should take treatment as if (2) or (3). Mere belief, for instance, gives you nothing to analyze in terms of justification, reason or evidence; thus, utterances of this sort are effectively equivalent to (2) or (3). “Justificatory content,” so to say, in such a case, fails to exist; but this is not to say that the statement is meaningless or generally unanalyzable. This is only to say that in terms of the analysis of knowledge, our practice will inevitably fall flat, so long as we keep to a narrow definition of knowledge such that it is defined in terms of justified true belief.

A purely psychological or emotional analysis may be in order, which appeals to the causal mechanisms of the brain and its neural inner-workings. This analysis may be consistent with our “procedure to the justificatory”; but it cannot overwrite or undermine it, without introducing harm to the ways we, in the most generic conceptual manner, treat of human behavior at the level of the mental (i.e., propositional, reason-based, etc). All this is to say: reasoned (linguistic) behavior may overlap or run in parallel to mere causal events, but both kinds of phenomena, insofar as the analysis applied, must equally be given at least a “parallel” treatment.

Analysis and interpretation must respect categorical dissimilarity (when we speak of categories, we must always “look upward” in our minds to common descent: can the thing in question have mutually excluding parents; of which the thing in question, given the contextualization of our analysis — *or “for our purposes” –, cannot — *or should not — bear entailment properties in virtue of being child to one or some other intuitively plausible parent), insofar as one phenomenon may count as a member of categories non-intersecting. We may do this, I believe, without being labelled “dualists,” for this is a analytical method which commits one to no metaphysical parent narrative. The analyst, it is my belief, has no story to tell, but only one to uncover which speaks faithfully to most generally justifiable intellectual intuition.

As usual the criticism may arise that this approach is too “pedantic,” overly dry, or whatever; the general spirit of such a criticism is that it treats so cautiously as to become careless the heart of language and its use. But I feel this criticism is ill-founded, for it ignores the outset interest of our undertaking: to go our of our way, on the assumption that it exists, to investigate language as a picture. Indeed, the owner of such a critique cannot assert as if obvious that language never grounds from a picture, or that images in language and from which language may emerge never exist. Naturally, our approach assumes a “metaphorical assumption” that language [is] in some cases chiefly image-grounded, and this assumption should be said to stand or fall given its conceptual utility (which is a cumbersome way of saying that it makes sense so long as one is attentive). That the conceptual space of language holds a region purely of images, I think, is debatable; whereas the belief that all language amounts to images and their expression is clearly not justifiable (but this is another debate which centers on the status of private languages). Naturally, again, we can go on for quite a spell backwards into the conceptual underpinnings of our conceptual history. I choose to end here, for all this amounts to typical digression that can trap anyone.

So, perhaps more succinctly, I should say: I aim to understand what assertions mean, and the approach given above, which is tethered to the popular definition of knowledge, is my effort to understand. Whether it is wholly unfruitful, I believe is a matter of preference, and I should not ever demand that others engage it. Assertions amount to pictures whose brush strokes come from the bristles of justification and whose directions analogous to the lines of right thinking, conspicuous or obscure. I perceive never obstruction of sense, but only the fog of language, should such a fog compel me to unmanageable thought: I shall aim ever to understand what I mean before I say it, only so when I venture to craft from the world rather than create into the world.

And I end with the basis for my albeit archaic way of thinking:

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions; and to this end I have looked upon passions, such as love, hatred, anger, envy, ambition, pity, and the other perturbations of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as properties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like to the nature of the atmosphere, which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed causes, by means of which we endeavour to understand their nature, and the mind has just as much pleasure in viewing them aright, as in knowing such things as flatter the senses.

Political Treatise, Baruch Spinoza

Primitive Man

(Points ostensibly to a mundane stone situated before him.) One!

Primitive Man

(Again.) One!

Primitive Man

(Again; followed by extended sigh.) One! …

Primitive Man

He begins to sulk and wail as if the act were a kind of superstitious ritual. He begins to dance, cajoled by the stone’s physical presence.

Primitive Man

One! One! One! One! …

Primitive Man

He stands dejected and immoral by his unsuccessful attempts. Rain shall not fall this season.

Our Primitive Man undertook a rain dance, say, so as to fruitfully introduce a new term into his language. His attempt, as given our scene, was a failure. But as he begins to stomp away from his alter, fire, what have you, he murmurs to himself as he paces. “One… One… One…”; he is “counting” his feet, as is clear, but he continuously, consistently fails (as he did before; he might now say: the set of his walking consisted in) — though the point here is that he is not celebrating in this act. It is a mere transition to another game. (Imagine, if you can, pacing as a game we play. And why is it not? Indeed, what makes this behavior not counting? — Do not say: “Well, obviously!” That is to say, I have generated a question, and if understood by any intellect, an answer must be given (we seek to, or rather are compelled to (theorem: psychologically), extend our epistemic rights.)

Second Act

Musical Man

Dun. Dun. Dun. Dun. Dun.

Musical Man

(Notice of a rhythm to his counting.)

Theory on correspondence theory of truth:

Music as a Representation of the World.

Consider the score a picture of reality in the “literal,” physical sense; music as a description of the empirical world, — now the mathematical world. Do not consider

Music as a Creation of the World.

We imagine music as a complexity, but is it, like with mathematics, necessarily not about the world? Would we say that music is an application of mathematics? Perhaps even founded on mathematics?

Devil’s enquiry: “The world created by a musical piece. What sense of world do we use here? Must it map to our understanding of world in the physical sense, world in the mathematical sense? Can we make sense of the question? Can we make sense of the use in ordinary language? (Will we resort to a psycho-causal theory to explain this phenomenon in ordinary language? Thus!: the sense of the question is best understood under the frame of the physical. But is the musical world created an approximation to our empirical world, or is it the Unto Itself, like how we view the world of the physical (the Natural world) or the mathematical (the world of Necessity)?

Third Act

(Rain fails — the man enjoys the Real-ality: observation of real numbers through a waterfall. Quickly: might one continue to bellow out: “One!”?)

Fourth Act

We are those caught in the rain,
Unable to embrace its insanity,
For our lack of language:
Language as a Necessity
To the Possibility of Sensation;
Of Seers See No Truth

…

The conceptual landscape out from which ordinary-down-to-technical-up-to-mystical speakers of a language apply concepts is a primary subject matter in philosophy of language. We may look at the myriad, sometimes confused, other times aright, forms of representation, the ontological backdrop of linguistic activity, or we may observe the effectual characteristics of performances we commonly describe as linguistic. We may investigation the distinctions and overlapping between fact-stating language (constative) and value-implying language (performantive); I say value-implying to appease the anthropologist whose task it is to uncover and reveal the cultural and historical underpinnings of speakers, archetype and peculiar.

I’m terribly sorry for what I have done. And why apologize in this setting, we might enquire? Or more generally, what is the connection between the concept of forgiveness (and anticipated mercy), relative to a culture, and the language with which its members express said concept. Nevertheless, values are latent, most clearly, in performative utterances, for values are the reason for which a performatives emerge: they are necessary posits so as to explain such behavior.

We, moreover, look at the pitfalls and paradoxes engendered by (apparent) concept mix-matching, wherein interpretation of an utterance fails to clearly demarcate the conceptual inner-workings of one speech act now performative, now constative and everywhere in between. Indeed, it is not clear that a description (a statement, say, of scientific propositions or — hopefully — precise and methodologically grounded contingent propositions) always fails to possess a value, even an implicit one. Thus, we may see that an organization of

1. performative always and only implies value
2. constative always and only implies fact

which is highly contentious. But even then, this is a rudimentary starting point for my ruminations on this matter. Clearly these components ought not to be taken as gospel. The intuition, I gather, is that this is how one may typically view such cumbersome terms. So sure, indeed, a performative may be viewed as a mere behavior of a kind, and eager are we to classify it under those terms. A kind of associationism looms behind the methods in which performatives are treated. In a sense, performatives are linguistic behavior, and not the other way around; whereas the presumption, conversely, holds that constatives are chiefly and properly expressions of language. So further, one may assume that language is better understood in terms of the concept which acts as root to constative forms of speech; i.e., language as representation.

We start of inquiry into the structural or logical tethers of language by observing its objects, artefacts, things and stuffs, where every noun a noun, every verb a noun — a world of substantives and relations (which are just as well things but on a more abstract level). Readily we see the unfit nature of such a conceptual if applied to the notion of performative utterance and behavior so defined in those terms. Immediately we must observe and respect the psychical world and its denizens, motivations, agendas, goals, ideas (not as idealizations), laws (hardly describable, if at all, as nomic, but as moral or imperative): the mental. How might we connect the performative we the mental? Indeed, one may perform an action which some arbitrary linguistic behavior — but why should she, or he? And why at this very moment? Granted, to be sure, these agents speak about this or that, and intentions are abound, inundating our skulls we philosophically trivial substitutable terms, but have we more to say than S stands in a certain [psychical] relation to P?

(I should add some points about “criteria” and “process.”)

• describing circumstances in which a seemingly problematic expression might actually be used in everyday life,
• comparing our use of words with imaginary language games,
• imagining fictitious natural history, and
• explaining psychologically the temptation to use a certain expression inappropriately

“Meaning is use”

It is quite clear that here Wittgenstein is not offering the general theory that “meaning is use,” as he is sometimes interpreted as doing. The main rival views that Wittgenstein warns against are that the meaning of a word is some object that it names–in which case the meaning of a word could be destroyed, stolen or locked away, which is nonsense–and that the meaning of a word is some psychological feeling–in which case each user of a word could mean something different by it, having a different feeling, and communication would be difficult if not impossible.

1. All taken from http://www.iep.utm.edu/wittgens/

“Life means for us constantly to transform into light and flame all that we are and meet with.”
– Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom

    function baz() {
        bar = bar+8;
        return bar;
    }

    return (function(a) {
        bar = a()+4;
        return bar;
    })(baz);
})();

console.log(foo);

The Absolute subsists eternally

The above is customarily described as a metaphysical proposition — a pseudo-proposition, under my personal view, but nevertheless we call it “metaphysical.” It presupposes a kind of world and ontology that must be radical or queer to our own, wherein the relations and facts at that world make the proposition true. And it presupposes an “ontological relevancy” axiom which, often with hope, justifies that it has sense at our own world.

In two ways the proposition is “metaphysical,” under the first sense we shall treat, in that it bears a fiat ontology, where its terms have no readily accessible synonym in ordinary idiom, and it contains an agenda: the agenda to introduce a novel concept as being relevant to the way we typically organize our perception (relevancy axiom). It is plain that “the Absolute” is not a common or popular term to ordinary linguistic practice, and whether it resides in a genuine semantic family is highly questionable. The speaker aims to introduce, perhaps, a conceptual gestalt, or a wholly novel concept which is not grounded in the ordinary conceptual scheme (that which roughly maps to the ordinary idiom). Moreover, the term is given an exceptional property of “eternal subsistence” which flies in the face of modern physical knowledge, in and of itself. Certainly no empirical science as we understand it comports to such a property.

Nevertheless, the claim stands in some sense, if not literal sense or “empirical sense.” As said, we customarily describe it as “metaphysical.” It presupposes a kind of world where observation is possible, but such a world is not our own nor is it anything like our own (perhaps because for such a thing to exist, the physical laws would have to be unidentifiable to us). The sense of “meta,” thus, suggests the “other-worldly” or the “supernatural.” We may say this is one sense of “meta”; it may be contrasted with a descriptive sense which “meta” often takes on in analytical discussions.

Now the question is whether statements like

Physics provides knowledge of ultimate reality

is a “metaphysical” claim is just the same way, bearing the “supernatural” sense. McTaggart tackles the claim under the assumption that “meta” has a completely or exhaustively descriptive sense. Thus, the above statement, which I think is better described as anthropological or epistemological, is rendered and treated as “metaphysical.” So assume there is something called “physics,” and it stands in a certain relation to “ultimate reality” — but in the way that we analyzed the manifest metaphysical statement above, or “metaphysical” in the “other-worldly” sense. And this is where I seem to hit a wall. What makes “physics” a non-term for physicists? Is it because it’s “too big,” or does the term always carry with it some stipulation that one is “talking about” the whole cultural phenomenon we call “physics”? To put it crudely, does the mere word persistently opt us out of being able to use it with a “physical backing”?

Another point: Would we say “Physics is boring” or “Physics helps us understand the world” are “metaphysical” statements? Certainly these statements cannot be justified in terms of physical evidence alone, and thus they are “outside” of the domain of physics. But again, are they “metaphysical”? Merely because they satisfy an “aboutness” criterion they gain a “metaphysical” status? This seems like an inappropriate use of the term.

With these points I consciously ignore the second term “ultimate reality.” McTaggart may say that our latter proposition is a metaphysical claim about physics. But just what makes it “metaphysical”? With the term “physics”? Nothing about this term seems “metaphysical” when taken as a mere identification of a collection of human agents and their undertakings.

What of “ultimate reality”? Well, just what is “ultimate reality”? (We may observe this question in two ways: the kind of thing “ultimate reality” is, a question of its category or, more simply, what constitutes it or what are its features, if it exists.) Is it metaphysical in just the same way “the Absolute” is metaphysical, or “god” perhaps, or “miracles”? We may, I think without disagreement, say that it is vague or bogus. It’s a question whether it picks out anything, but is it “metaphysical” on account of its lack of precision? (And thus its lack of clearly and distinctly falling under the scope of physics?)

It seems to beg the queston to claim that the term is “metaphysical” merely because of its fuzzy nature, but what demands that it refer to something “outside” of the realm of physics? Is there a lack of physical evidence for something called “ultimate reality”? It seems that that there’s no such thing as physical evidence for such a thing. We may wish to say “There could never be physical evidence for ‘ultimate reality.’” But why? It’s not obvious to me that such a thing could or could not exist for the same class of reasons which comport to the status of “god,” miracles, etc. There is physical evidence which at least makes plausible the disbelief in miracles, but there’s no such thing as physical evidence either affirmative or negating to any belief on the status of “ultimate reality.” Would “ultimate reality” not be a basic term which picks out some thing on which physical evidence is parasitic? How is “the Absolute” anything like this? Well, if we treat of various monisms, “the Absolute” would be synonymous than “ultimate reality” itself. I struggle to see how the latter proposition is “metaphysical” and not just “about” physics. We could say, then, that physics cannot speak to the proposition simply because physics cannot be in the business of talking about itself. It is not sufficiently generic, like algebra, in its methods, to describe itself.

There is a clear divide, I think, between statements which count as metaphysical on account of “domain exclusion” and, quite differently, on account of identifying “phenomena” contra the physical laws as we understand them.

One sharp contrast that we may bring in is that nothing readily answers to “the Absolute,” whereas “Physics” can roughly pick out, say, “the total sum of professionally acting physicists, etc.” It should be clear here that we have a dilemma as to which sense the latter statement is or could be metaphysical. It is not obvious that it is “metaphysical” in the way the former statement is, as it isn’t patently absurd, with respect to the ordinary conceptual scheme, but at the same time is it the case that being able to “roughly” provide entities, which answer to the latter claim’s terms, justifies its not counting as “metaphysical” in the other-worldly sense? That is, is it because we can wrap our minds, as it were, around the claim that it earns a “metaphysical descriptive” status?

Aristotle rendered “metaphysics” as “after the physics,” and we take liberties to understand this as “about the physics,” “above the physics” — and today we classify anything supernatural, occult, mysterious or counter to common sensibilities as “metaphysical.” It’s unfortunate that such a crucial term can be so diversely strung out and used. And this is centrally my concern here. It seems that anyone who takes the latter statement to be “metaphysical” in the sense that its terms stand “above” the physical, anyone who does this must so to give a descriptive attempt to its terms. What is physics? And why does it “stand above” physical investigation (observation)? If taken in the sense that one is merely talking about what physicists engage in on a daily basis its clear that no sin against a logical positivist’s sensibility has been committed.

But is talk about physics in the abstract a tip of the hat to the metaphysical? Is ultimate reality an itinerant and aberrant abstraction, or is it something incorporeal and without measurement? In which sense should we take it under such a discussion? Must we take it under both senses?

It is my belief the latter proposition is one whose expression in popular or even obscure scientific literature would be incredibly difficult to find, along with any sufficient cousin. It is without doubt a peculiar thing to say, and it largely has no place, being as general as it is, in “rigorous” scientific discourse. Almost no one would utter it or write it save for a metaphysician, to be sure. But the lack of presence in the scientific literature, or the observation that it is not a “claim of” physics, does not entail that it is “supernatural,” whatever this amount to. My point is a subtle one, as we describe “physics” as having some domain and other discourses their own, we tend to think of anything “outside” said domain as being “supernatural.” Now, of course, American politics is “outside” of the domain of physics in one sense, though not the “supernatural” one, despite the pagentry, reification, and other-worldly charisma and sway of then and now historic figures. But to speak plainly, we don’t think of religious discourse, American politics, legal studies, etc as counting as “supernatural” or “metaphysical” on grounds of their falling outside of the “province” of physics. (Which incites a question that I often find irredeemably inane: Can we “reduce” X to physics, where X is, well, “religion,” “legal systems,” etc. Perhaps it isn’t quite so “irredeemable,” but the question often arises with very little scope, precision. At its core, however, and I am pretty heavy-handed about this, I believe it is no more and no less than a conceptual blunder.) They’re simply not about the subject; moreover, and as a brief justification for my own interpretation of the latter proposition, anthropological or epistemological claims about scientific discourse are not “metaphysical” in the “other-worldly” sense. We may call them “non-physical,” which is what I think McTaggart likely meant.

The concepts of “domain” and “province” become fuzzy here since, on McTaggart’s view, it seems that all statements “about” physics are metaphysical, as if talking “about physics” and talking “about the Absolute” amount to the same kind of judgment.

The Argument

1. We ought to have ontological commitment to all and only those entities that are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
2. Mathematical objects are indispensable to our best scientific theories.
Therefore,
3. We ought to have ontological commitment to mathematical entities.

Vomit.

A tiff with fictionalists

You might think that mathematical existence claims should not be taken at face value claiming instead that when we say “There exists a prime number greater than five we mean something like “In the story of mathematics, there is a prime number greater than five.” Another possibility is that you think that to claim, “There is a set of all prime numbers less than 100” is to claim that “We can construct a set of all the prime numbers less than 100.” Perhaps you think mathematical existence claims are merely consistency claims. In any of these views, or others where mathematical existence claims are not taken at face value, there is no reason to accept Quine’s statement that we should accept as existing what we quantify over and thus no reason to accept the indispensability argument.

A flagrant analogy

Someone like Bas van Fraassen who argues that scientific theories need only to be empirically adequate to be our best scientific theories would balk at being obligated to accept hypothetical particles into his ontology; so the analogy to mathematical objects carries no weight. The fact that we should treat mathematical object in the same way we treat physical objects lest we be hypocritical does not lead to the conclusion that we should believe that mathematical objects exist unless you already believe that all of the physical objects quantified over in this way also exist.

Really, taking shelter under scientific pragmatism?

Naive holism

Quine’s view on this matter is that the mathematical claims and physical claims are all part of the same theory as a whole and thus get tested, confirmed, or disconfirmed as a whole. This view is called confirmational holism. If you held a different view, for example the view of Elliott Sober, you might think that you only confirm scientific hypotheses when you test them against other hypotheses. The key claim here is that you don’t confirm or disconfirm what is common to all of the hypotheses being tested – in this case, the background mathematics. Thus the mathematics is not being confirmed just because the hypothesis is being confirmed.

I doubt it even makes sense to “confirm the background mathematics” if one means to talk about the whole socio-cultural edifice underpinning one’s practice.