The method of paraphrase provides a clear, well-defined strategy—some would say the only such strategy[42]—for  determining the ontological commitments of the two parties to an ontological dispute. But there have been objections to the method, both early and late. Early on, Alston (1958) posed more or less the following dilemma (see also Jackson 1980). Either the paraphrase and the sentence being paraphrased have the same truth conditions, or they do not. If they do, then they cannot differ in their ontological commitments; for the role of truth conditions, in part, is to specify what must exist in order for the sentence to be true. But then the method of paraphrase cannot be used to avoid ontological commitment. Suppose then that the paraphrase and the sentence being paraphrased do not have the same truth conditions.  Then the paraphrase does nothing to support the claim that the original sentence can be used without incurring ontological commitment.  Indeed, whatever the precise relation between the paraphrase and the sentence being paraphrased, nothing justifies reading the ontological commitments of the original sentence off the paraphrase rather than the other way around (compare the neo-Fregean account in §5.2).