Absolutism and Relativism

Absolutism about quantifiers maintains, with a good deal of prima facie plausibility, that quantifiers like ‘everything’ sometimes range over an absolutely comprehensive domain. This view has been challenged on various grounds: some deny the availability of a universal nominal like ‘thing’ on the grounds that it lacks a non-trivial criterion of identity; others contend that absolutism is committed to objectionable views in metaontology. But the most compelling reason to support relativism about quantifiers as opposed to absolutism is bound up with the set-theoretic paradoxes. This introductory chapter offers an overview of the absolute generality debate, and sets the scene for the defence of relativism that follows in the rest of the book.