ABSTRACT
One must acknowledge the existence of a further object, the state of affairs electrone's being negatively charged. There is disagreement over how many states of affairs should be posited. States of affairs are often motivated by pointing to the parts of ordinary thought and talk that involve quantification over or reference to states of affairs. The sceptic can recognise and understand how the sentence is grounded, and so acknowledge what is platitudinous in the sentence, without having to accept states of affairs. A different way to argue for states of affairs appeals to some theoretical role they play in science or philosophy. The comparison is with the Quine- Putnam Indispensability argument: mathematical entities are argued to exist because of the indispensable role they play in scientific theories—theories are simpler, more systematic, have greater theoretical virtue when they are formulated in mathematical terms.
