 To bring the issues here into focus we will need to take on board two further distinctions. First, the distinction between truth-making and ontological commitment. A truth-maker for a statement \(S\) is (at least) something the existence of which determines (necessitates) that \(S\) is true (Armstrong 2004: 5–7). By contrast, something \(x\) is an ontological commitment of \(S\) if, roughly speaking, \(S\) could not be true unless \(x\) existed (Quine 169: 95). Typically, a statement \(S\) incurs ontological commitment to an entity or some entities because we refer to it or quantify over them when we make the statement. It’s easy to run truth-making and ontological commitment together but it’s important to keep them separate. A statement \(S\) cannot be true unless the entities to which \(S\) is ontologically committed exist. So it’s a necessary condition of the truth of \(S\) that the entities to which \(S\) is ontologically committed exist. By contrast, it’s a sufficient condition for the truth of \(S\) that a truth-maker for \(S\) exist because a truth-maker for \(S\) determines that \(S\) is true.