McX
E319094
McX is a fictional philosopher introduced by W.V.O. Quine in his essay "On What There Is" to illustrate and critique certain metaphysical views about existence and ontological commitment.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| McX canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2996880 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McX Context triple: [On What There Is, containsCharacter, McX]
-
A.
MXMID
MXMID is the UN/LOCODE identifier for the city and port of Mérida in Mexico, used in international trade and transport logistics.
-
B.
MXP
MXP is the IATA airport code for Milan Malpensa Airport, the largest international airport serving the Milan metropolitan area in Italy.
-
C.
MC
MC is the official abbreviation for NATO’s highest military authority, the NATO Military Committee.
-
D.
MC
MC is the postnominal abbreviation used to denote recipients of the Military Cross, a British military decoration awarded for gallantry during active operations against the enemy.
-
E.
MX
MX is a specific trim level designation used for the Mercury Montego sedan, denoting a particular configuration of features and equipment.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: McX Target entity description: McX is a fictional philosopher introduced by W.V.O. Quine in his essay "On What There Is" to illustrate and critique certain metaphysical views about existence and ontological commitment.
-
A.
MXMID
MXMID is the UN/LOCODE identifier for the city and port of Mérida in Mexico, used in international trade and transport logistics.
-
B.
MXP
MXP is the IATA airport code for Milan Malpensa Airport, the largest international airport serving the Milan metropolitan area in Italy.
-
C.
MC
MC is the official abbreviation for NATO’s highest military authority, the NATO Military Committee.
-
D.
MC
MC is the postnominal abbreviation used to denote recipients of the Military Cross, a British military decoration awarded for gallantry during active operations against the enemy.
-
E.
MX
MX is a specific trim level designation used for the Mercury Montego sedan, denoting a particular configuration of features and equipment.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (40)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
fictional philosopher ⓘ philosophical character ⓘ |
| appearsInField |
metaphysics
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ |
| appearsInGenre | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| associatedWithConcept |
Alexius Meinong
ⓘ
surface form:
Meinongianism
Platonism ⓘ abstract entities ⓘ existence ⓘ ontological commitment ⓘ ontology ⓘ universals ⓘ |
| contextOfUse |
argument against quantifying over non‑existent objects
ⓘ
critique of bloated ontologies ⓘ |
| contrastedWith | Wyman ⓘ |
| createdBy |
Willard Van Orman Quine
ⓘ
surface form:
W. V. O. Quine
|
| discussedBy |
Willard Van Orman Quine
ⓘ
surface form:
W. V. O. Quine
|
| discussedIn | analytic metaphysics literature ⓘ |
| hasFunction |
foil for Quine's views
ⓘ
representative of a non‑Quinean metaphysician ⓘ |
| hasNameStyle | placeholder name ⓘ |
| hasOntologicalStance | accepts non‑concrete entities (as characterized by Quine) ⓘ |
| hasRole |
example of a metaphysician
ⓘ
illustrative figure in metaphysics ⓘ |
| hasStatus |
didactic construct
ⓘ
hypothetical philosopher ⓘ |
| introducedInPublication | Review of Metaphysics ⓘ |
| introducedInWork |
“On What There Is”
ⓘ
surface form:
On What There Is
|
| introducedInYear | 1948 ⓘ |
| isFictional | true ⓘ |
| languageOfOrigin | English ⓘ |
| mentionedAlongside | Pegasus (as an example of a problematic entity) ⓘ |
| nationality | American (implied, following Quine's context) ⓘ |
| usedAsExampleIn |
discussions of Quine's criterion of ontological commitment
ⓘ
logic and ontology textbooks ⓘ |
| usedFor |
critiquing certain metaphysical views
ⓘ
discussing existence claims ⓘ discussing quantification over non‑existents ⓘ illustrating ontological commitment ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: McX Description of subject: McX is a fictional philosopher introduced by W.V.O. Quine in his essay "On What There Is" to illustrate and critique certain metaphysical views about existence and ontological commitment.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
On What There Is