The Problem of Universals

I've tried really hard to be a nominalist for a long time. What I've found is that, if you're too quick to reach for Occam's Razor, you slit your own throat.

Off the top of my head, I don't have a general argument for metaphysical realism. I rather make the observation that, if you look at any attempt to flesh out nominalism, you find that the nominalist ends up appealing to some abstraction or another. To me, this seems futile, because as soon as you exorcise one abstract "phantom," you end up inviting another into your system.

For example, a short dialog, between a nominalist named N and a realist name R:

N: Universals are merely names that we have for particular things. There is no entity that can be instantiated over and over again.
R: Are names real?
N: Yes, but they exist only in our minds.
R: Whose mind: yours or mine?
N: Both.
R: So a name can be realized, or instantiated, or however you want to put it,in multiple minds?
N: Yes.
R: So how are names different from universals?
N: Well, it just means that we react in the same way when we see two objects, so both objects fall into the same category.
R: So what's similar about our reaction in both cases? Are there not, then, "reaction universals?"
N: Perhaps they're just similar reactions.
R: What makes them similar?
N: There are aspects of each reaction that are the same.
R: Are the aspects universals, then?

That's the problem, really. I think that the reason for there being so many different kinds of nominalism is that nominalists tie themselves up in knots trying to reduce the non-concrete to the concrete without invoking the non-concrete, and failing, and then trying something else. If the problem keeps resurfacing like that, then you should probably take that as a hint that your approach isn't working.

Of course, realism has its own problems. But they seem more like "interesting questions" than things that undermine realism itself.

Quoting Pneumenon

I've tried really hard to be a nominalist for a long time. What I've found is that, if you're too quick to reach for Occam's Razor, you slit your own throat.

Haha, I like that. Ockham's Razor is one of the foundational aspects of nominalism, but is also heavily criticized.

Quoting Pneumenon

That's the problem, really. I think that the reason for there being so many different kinds of nominalism is that nominalists tie themselves up in knots trying to reduce the non-concrete to the concrete without invoking the non-concrete, and failing, and then trying something else. If the problem keeps resurfacing like that, then you should probably take that as a hint that your approach isn't working.

This, along with your example, I disagree with (tentatively at least). The Realist is demanding something to be explained that cannot be explained because it is not even anything at all; it's unscientific and an appeal to "common sense", which I don't find to be very convincing. I don't see why these "universals" can't be seen as a type of meme within language.

Quoting Pneumenon

R: So what's similar about our reaction in both cases? Are there not, then, "reaction universals?"
N: Perhaps they're just similar reactions.
R: What makes them similar?
N: There are aspects of each reaction that are the same.
R: Are the aspects universals, then?

I think the best answer to this from a nominalist perspective is Trope Theory. Each of these properties are similar, but none are identical. They are unique.

Argh, this is a very frustratingly confusing topic. I think the best way of explaining what I'm getting caught up with the most is that, perhaps, the Realist is correct because properties are like the "life" of an object. I think actually a better question instead of asking what makes things similar is what makes things different. The nominalist would answer that what differs is the material structure of the particular, like the atomic structure, or the string/quantum foam/etc structure. But this begs to question as to why these different structures give rise to different properties.

However, it could be said that properties are just subjective experiences, right? "Redness" doesn't actually exist, it's just a photon with a wavelength of 620-750 nm that is interpreted by our brains. Which actually leads to the problem of qualia, not universals.

Furthermore, I don't understand how Realism avoids infinite regress (Third Man argument). If a is F, then a exemplifies F-ness. But F-ness also must be explained, by Super-F-Ness, etc. If universals are immune to infinite regress, why aren't particulars?

Additionally, I fail to understand how we can come to understand such things as "abstract" objects. To be perfectly honest they simply come across as spooky, superstitious ghosts.

Would it be incorrect to understand universals as "POTENTIALS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS POSSIBLE"?

[quote=Pneumenon]N: Universals are merely names that we have for particular things. There is no entity that can be instantiated over and over again.
R: Are names real?
N: Yes, but they exist only in our minds.
R: Whose mind: yours or mine?
N: Both.
R: So a name can be realized, or instantiated, or however you want to put it,in multiple minds?
N: Yes.
R: So how are names different from universals?
N: Well, it just means that we react in the same way when we see two objects, so both objects fall into the same category.[/quote]

The problem is starting with the idea there are any universals exist in the first place. What is generally referred to a "universal" is, in fact, does not exist at all. It is actually a logical expression rather than state of existence. So in the relevant sense, names do not exist. They are anti-real. The same goes for any logical expression of a state of existence, whether it be a rock, person, social practice or government. Any universal, logically necessary truth, does not exist.

In your example, N has already ruined the argument by their first statement. Universals are not the names we have for particular things. Our name for something is our action. It exists. Someone might name you "Pneumenon." I might name you "Judith Butler." Each instance of naming is an existing state of someone doing something. Neither of these existing states, by their definition, are universal. One name is used in one instance, a different name is used in the other.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm sorry, but if you want to be butthurt about Judith Butler, can you do so in a PM or something? I'm trying to have a conversation here.

Quoting darthbarracuda

Argh, this is a very frustratingly confusing topic. I think the best way of explaining what I'm getting caught up with the most is that, perhaps, the Realist is correct because properties are like the "life" of an object. I think actually a better question instead of asking what makes things similar is what makes things different. The nominalist would answer that what differs is the material structure of the particular, like the atomic structure, or the string/quantum foam/etc structure. But this begs to question as to why these different structures give rise to different properties.

Whichever question is better, there's nothing to stop me from asking, "What makes them the same?" And so I will: why are two tropes similar? If A and B are resembling tropes, but C is not a resembling trope to either, then why is that?

And what's a structure? Because if two objects can have the "same" structure, then you're appealing to universals again. Ditto for the "brain-interpretation" counter, which seems to be positively full of holes. Is the brain doing the same interpretation over and over? And even if red is "just" an experience, is it the same experience over and over?

That's the problem with the nominalist response that appeals to "brains" or "minds" in order to try and get away from realism. All such responses operate on an implicit dualism that assumes that, if something is "in the mind," then it's safely cordoned off from the rest of the world. If abstractions can exist in my mind, but not in the rest of the world, then you need a good reason why they can only live in my mind. I don't think that minds are particularly unique "metaphysical ecosystems," if you get my drift.

Same for "names." Let's say that every name is an action rather than a universal. So what? The question then arises: if I say "Bob" twice, then in what sense did I say the same thing twice?

That's the central problem: if nominalism were true, then I'd expect my experience of things to be a completely chaotic flux of absolute randomness with no identifiable patterns whatsoever, because as soon as identifiable patterns crop up, universals have already snuck back in. But experience is not a chaotic flux of absolute randomness.

Nominalists aren't stupid. They've come up with countless clever answers to how things are the way they are without universals. But all of those clever answers seem to be susceptible to different forms of the same problem. Perhaps the problem is universal. ;)

Your penultimate paragraph, by the way, beautifully summarizes the motive behind nominalism:

Quoting darthbarracuda

Additionally, I fail to understand how we can come to understand such things as "abstract" objects. To be perfectly honest they simply come across as spooky, superstitious ghosts.

The main counter to this is that, if abstractions are spooky, superstitious ghosts, then the nominalist is just as haunted as the realist; every time the nominalist banishes a ghost out the front door, another one slips in the back.

Moreover, what isn't a spooky, superstitious ghost? In recent times, you see, we have learned that the ordinary, solid matter that we see around us is made up, at the smallest scales, of really weird stuff that isn't anything like our commonsense notion of matter. And yet, the nominalist wants to appeal to that commonsense notion in order to get rid of universals.

I'll address the third man argument, as well as your last paragraph, later, because they're both almost worthy of threads in themselves.

Reply to Pneumenon I mentioned because it is directly related to this topic. Holding that universals exist is the error you were making in that conversation. Care to comment on my actual argument about universals?

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

Care to comment on my actual argument about universals?

Well, here we go:

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

So in the relevant sense, names do not exist.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

Our name for something is our action. It exists.

Um...

Anyway, let's say that I say "Bob" twice. In what sense were both actions "the same?"

[quote=darthbarracuda]A Metaphysical Realist holds that not only do concrete particulars exist, but so do abstract, multiply exemplifiable entities, known as universals. For the particular, an apple, to be red, it must exemplify the universal "redness". For a triangle to be triangular, it must exemplify the universal "triangularity". The universal is the predicate, and the particular is the subject.[/quote]

This is Platonic argument. It has everything backwards.

The existing triangle cannot exemplify universal "triangularity" because it is merely one finite state of a triangle. It is not an instance of "triangularity" which exists everywhere and anywhere. There is nothing "universal" about it it.

To account for the triangular nature of the existing triangle, we need to think in the reverse of the Platonic argument. Rather thinking in terms of the universal nature which "allows" this triangle to exist, we must first start with the existence of the triangle, as that is what we are talking about. When we examine this state of existence, we find it is a particular shape, at a certain point at space and time. We note the existing triangle has its own particular logical expression. It means something particular. A meaning which is sometimes also expressed by other states of existence (other existing triangles have a similar meaning: they are "triangular" ).

Rather than an existing states "exemplifying" the universal, it is universals such as "triangularity" or "redness" exemplify particular states of existence. If we think about a "triangularity" or "redness," our thoughts are of a logical expression which exemplifies some states of existence. Some existing things are triangles or red, like the logical expression we are thinking of in this instance.

I am pretty sure that abstract objects (such as natural numbers) and many other kinds of abstract universals are real. But to say they are real, isn't the same as to say they exist, insofar as they don't 'exist' in the sense of being concrete particulars.

For instance, that cup exists, this keyboard exists, the computer in front of me exists. When we speak of abstract objects, such as number, we are not speaking of something that exists, but something that pertains to the operations of thought itself.

A rational and language-using being has to employ that ability even to speak. We inherently grasp the nature of numbers, labels, names, and many other things, like ratios, and so on, because they are innate to the process of thought itself. And, lo and behold, we also find that numerical reasoning seems innate to the processes of nature, meaning that numerical reasoning allows rational beings to discover hitherto unknown things about the order of nature.

So do universals exist? I say they are real, but not existent; they pertain to the nature of reality and of thought, but are not concrete particulars and so don't exist in the same way that concrete particulars exist.

Quoting Pneumenon

Whichever question is better, there's nothing to stop me from asking, "What makes them the same?" And so I will: why are two tropes similar? If A and B are resembling tropes, but C is not a resembling trope to either, then why is that?

I'm not sure, actually. The book I'm reading by Loux is actually quite confusing in this regard.

Quoting Pneumenon

And what's a structure? Because if two objects can have the "same" structure, then you're appealing to universals again. Ditto for the "brain-interpretation" counter, which seems to be positively full of holes. Is the brain doing the same interpretation over and over? And even if red is "just" an experience, is it the same experience over and over?

But doesn't this lead to the positing of some mystical "connection" between the brain and the realm of the universals? How do we, as concrete particulars, come to know about universals?

Quoting Pneumenon

That's the central problem: if nominalism were true, then I'd expect my experience of things to be a completely chaotic flux of absolute randomness with no identifiable patterns whatsoever, because as soon as identifiable patterns crop up, universals have already snuck back in. But experience is not a chaotic flux of absolute randomness.

Gotcha, makes sense. Like Dennett's idea of the Cartesian theater. If dualism is not correct, then thoughts exist, which means these abstractions exist.

Quoting Pneumenon

Same for "names." Let's say that every name is an action rather than a universal. So what? The question then arises: if I say "Bob" twice, then in what sense did I say the same thing twice?

This goes into the difference between types and tokens, I believe. Tokens are different auditory and visual representations of a name.

Which actually just makes names seem like universals. huh

Quoting Pneumenon

I'll address the third man argument, as well as your last paragraph, later, because they're both almost worthy of threads in themselves.

Cool, thanks.

Reply to Pneumenon

Both actions are the same in that they are an existing state of some kind. Each is the presence of you calling someone Bob. Without them, there would be no existence of you naming the person(s?) Bob.

Each is, however, different in logical expression. The two instances of naming do not mean the same thing. You said them at different times. You might even be referring to different people.

Most importantly though, the logical expression of "Bob" of either act is not the state of existence of naming someone "Bob." The meaning of "Bob" doesn't exist. It is not your action to call someone "Bob." The meaning of "Bob" is always the same, regardless of what exists. If someone means "Bob," then it is necessary they mean "Bob." This is always true, no matter if anyone exists naming someone "Bob."

You are equivocating these two. In your arguments, you are treating the necessity of the meaning of any language as the existence of that language. This is a twofold error. Firstly, it results in a situation where people cannot be wrong about someone's name. If I named you "Bob," you would have to mean "Bob" under your argument, as it is treating the existence of name to be equivalent to the meaning of the named thing. There is no capacity to be (ethically) wrong in using a particular language game. I couldn't be mistaken in suggesting you mean "Bob."

Secondly, it results in equivocation of the existence of the name with the existence of other things. Since the existence of a name is considered the same as a thing's meaning, it quickly results in the equivocation of one named thing for another. The act of naming someone "male," for example, gets equivocated with describing particular biological traits. We start mistaking naming for description of empirical states. We start trying to access description of certain particulars (i.e. states of existence) through the universal meaning of a name (e.g. "Men are..." "Women are..." etc.,etc. ), even though what we are trying to describe is not a name at all.

I found a great, short resource that sums up the problem of universals for those who don't know it too well. It also has the perfect paragraph describing what I find to be troubling about universals:

"On the realist account, it seems a particular must either have a universal or not –
something is or isn’t a banana, is or isn’t yellow, and so on. But psychologists have
recently argued that this ‘either is or isn’t’ judgment isn’t how our concepts work. Are
plantain bananas or not? More or less? When does yellow become orange or green? Is a
shark a fish? Many concepts seem to work by comparison with a prototype, a defining
example (yellow, fish, banana), and other things are judged to be more or less similar to it
– which is what a nominalist would say."

A very good essay on the historical background to the 'realist vs nominalist' debate is What's Wrong with Ockham? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West.

It provides a very close examination of what, exactly, William of Ockham was objecting to, when he said that universals amount to mere names. It argues that this turn has had enormous consequences for Western philosophical thought, especially by severing reason from the concept of the formal cause:

Ockham did not do away with objective reality, but in doing away with one part of objective reality—forms—he did away with a fundamental principle of explanation for objective reality. In doing away with forms, Ockham did away with formal causality. Formal causality secures teleology—the ends or purposes of things follow from what they are and what is in accord with or capable of fulfilling their natures. In the natural world, this realist framework secures an intrinsic connection between efficient causes and their effects—an efficient cause produces its effects by communicating some formality: fire warms by informing objects with its heat.

He goes on to say

...the appeal to forms or natures does not just help account for the possibility of trustworthy access to facts, it makes possible a notion of wisdom, traditionally conceived as an ordering grasp of reality. Preoccupied with overcoming Cartesian skepticism, it often seems as if philosophy’s highest aspiration is merely to secure some veridical cognitive events. Rarely sought is a more robust goal: an authoritative and life-altering wisdom. Notice: even if contemporary philosophers came to a consensus about how to overcome Cartesian doubt and secure certainty, it is not clear that this would do anything to repair the fragmentation and democratization of the disciplines, or to make it more plausible that there could be an ordered hierarchy of sciences, with a highest science, acknowledged as queen of the rest—whether we call it first philosophy, or metaphysics, or wisdom.

Reply to darthbarracuda

The key word being concepts, not existing things. What people are judging as more or less similar is not the object in question, but rather that the meaning expressed by the object is the same as another meaning. An existing triangle, for example, shares a similar meaning to every other existing triangle and any imagined (i.e. non-existent) triangle. Yet, it remains the case that each particular is only itself, even as it expresses some meaning which is necessarily itself. Thus, every existing thing expresses a "universal" (what means), but it is only ever a particular.

However:

[quote=Edward Feser] Any mental image I can form of a man is always going to be of a man of a particular sort -- tall, short, fat, thin, blonde, redheaded, bald, or what have you. It will fit at most many men, but not all. But my concept 'man' applies to every single man without exception. Or...any mental image I can form of a triangle will be an image of an isosceles , scalene, or equilateral triangle, of a black, blue, or green triangle, etc. But the abstract concept triangularity applies to all triangles without exception. And so forth.

Second, mental images are always to some extent vague or indeterminate, while concepts are at least often precise and determinate. To use Descartes’ famous example, a mental image of a chiliagon (a 1,000-sided figure) cannot be clearly distinguished from a mental image of a 1,002-sided figure, or even from a mental image of a circle. But the concept of a chiliagon is clearly distinct from the concept of a 1,002-sided figure or the concept of a circle. I cannot clearly differentiate a mental image of a crowd of one million people from a mental image of a crowd of 900,000 people. But the intellect easily understands the difference between the concept of a crowd of one million people and the concept of a crowd of 900,000 people.

Third, we have many concepts that are so abstract that they do not have even the loose sort of connection with mental imagery that concepts like man, triangle, and crowd have. You cannot visualize triangularity or humanness per se, but you can at least visualize a particular triangle or a particular human being. But we also have concepts -- such as the concepts law,square root, logical consistency, collapse of the wave function, and innumerably many others -- that can strictly be associated with no mental image at all. You might form a visual or auditory image of the English word “law” when you think about law, but the concept law obviously has no essential connection whatsoever with that word, since ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Indians had the concept without using that specific word to name it. You might form a mental image of a certain logician when you contemplate what it is for a theory to be logically consistent, or a mental image of someone observing something when you contemplate the collapse of the wave function, but there is no essential connection whatsoever between (say) the way Alonzo Church looked and the concept logical consistency or (say) what someone looks like when he’s observing a dead cat and the concept wave function collapse. [/quote]

Think, McFly, Think

Quoting Wayfarer

For instance, that cup exists, this keyboard exists, the computer in front of me exists. When we speak of abstract objects, such as number, we are not speaking of something that exists, but something that pertains to the operations of thought itself.

Quoting Wayfarer

So do universals exist? I say they are real, but not existent; they pertain to the nature of reality and of thought, but are not concrete particulars and so don't exist in the same way that concrete particulars exist.

You may be interested in Trope Theory.

The problem I have with saying that universals exist or are real is that we have no idea what it being said.

Of course, the same applies to saying they are not real or don't exist.

Ideas of generality are what we use to talk about particulars; why should we think we can use them to talk about themselves and still l remain within the realm of intelligibility ?

Reply to darthbarracuda Not likely. I am opposed to nominalism. But I'm not materialist, so I believe that the natural numbers, for instance, are real, but not material.

[quote=John]Ideas of generality are what we use to talk about particulars; why should we think we can use them to talk about themselves and still l remain within the realm of intelligibility ?[/quote]

We can talk logically about logic, can't we?

Reply to Wayfarer Trope Theory is very similar to Realism, but simply posits that instead of abstract universals, there are only concrete particulars, and that properties are made up of "tropes". Each trope is unique.

Yes, but that is the exact opposite of the 'realism' that accepts universals. Medieval realism, as understood by the scholastic philosophers, was the view that universals are real; it is almost diametrically opposite to the kind of modern realism which says that only concrete particulars exist. So - 'realism', in the context of this argument, has a very different meaning to 'realism' in the sense that scientific and modernists use the word.

Trope theory in metaphysics is a version of nominalism. Here, a trope is a particular instance of a property, like the specific redness of a rose, or the specific nuance of green of a leaf. Trope theories assume that universals are unnecessary.

So, trope theory is nominalist. I tend towards the opposing view, which is realism, in the traditionalist sense - that abstracts and universals are real. But, as I have said above, I don't believe that it is correct to say 'they exist', as I think 'existences' pertains to empirical objects. But such things as 'the law of the excluded middle' don't 'exist' in the sense that a concrete particular exists, but they are nevertheless real. But generally speaking the modern philosophical lexicon doesn't allow for the distinction between 'what is real' and 'what exists'.

Quoting Wayfarer

But generally speaking the modern philosophical lexicon doesn't allow for the distinction between 'what is real' and 'what exists'.

This is an interesting idea that I have never thought about.

Reply to Wayfarer

Ok name a general characteristic of generalities. And if you want to say they are real beyond their instantiations then say what their reality consists in.

A general characteristic of generalities is that they are general. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

I am having trouble thinking of anything which 'instantiates' the 'general'. As a general rule, whatever instantiates something is a 'particular' rather than general - because by definition 'instantiates' is 'an instance' of something.

My argument for the reality of abstracts such as number is simply that a number is the same for anyone capable of counting. 3=III=three=drei in any language or symbolic system. So what '3' consists of is something like an apprehension of quantity. But what is apprehended is not the same as a numerical symbol; the symbol is a representation, but what is being represented is an abstraction. An instance of three things can be composed of any type of thing or even other abstractions - three separate words - but there always must be three of them. If I said 'this sentence consists of three words', I'd be wrong. (But if I said 'I'd be wrong' consists of three words, I'd be right.)

And I say that the number of things is apparent only to an intelligence capable of counting, so in that sense, is not a 'sensible object' but an 'intelligible object' i.e. intrinsic to the operation of rational thought.

As I understand it all particulars instantiate generalities, such as colour, shape, mass, size etc, etc, so many of them!

But I can't see how it makes any more sense to say that three is real apart from groups of particulars that instantiate it, imagined instances of it or mathematical operations that play with it, than it does to say that tree is real apart from trees that instantiate it or imagined instances of it.

Of course we can say that such universals as tree and three (or tree-ness and three-ness) exist (or are real) as forms in some imagined realm; but I don't think we have any genuine idea what that could mean, it therefore amounts to just playing with words, so I can't see any sense in saying it apart from poetic affect.

Reply to John I can't see how it makes any more sense to say that three is real apart from groups of particulars that instantiate it, imagined instances of it or mathematical operations that play with it, than it does to say that tree is real apart from trees that instantiate it or imagined instances of it.

There is mental arithmetic, but there are no mental trees.

Asking if a thing is "real" is too ambiguous. Is a mirage real? Well, it's not a real oasis but it is a real mirage. So are universals real? Well, are they real what? Real universals? True by definition. Real particulars? False by definition.

Start by asking what it means for a universal to be real before you ask whether or not they are real.

Reply to Wayfarer

But there are imagined trees. And you can play around with the idea of trees, not in so formalized a way as arithmetic, to be sure; but by writing about them or drawing them or creating design motifs of them and so on.

Reply to Michael

Yes, but you can say that particulars are real or that they exist because they enter into relation with, and causally influence, others particulars, and because they can be perceived, intersensorially and intersubjectively. Such things cannot be said about universals; so in what sense can they be said to be real, or to exist beyond their particular instantiations?

[quote=John]Yes, but you can say that particulars are real or that they exist because they enter into relation with, and causally influence, others particulars, and because they can be perceived, intersensorially and intersubjectively.[/quote]

So to be a real particular is to causally influence empirical phenomena.

Such things cannot be said about universals

Sure. Universals are not real particulars. That goes without saying.

What you seem to have done is conflated "this is what it means to be a real particular" with "this is what it means to be real" and then concluded that because universals don't satisfy the former then they don't satisfy the latter. But this is equivocation. As I said before, you can't just ask "is X real?"; you have to ask "is X a real Y?". Mirages aren't real oases but are real mirages.

in what sense can they be said to be real?

In some other sense, perhaps. Conceptual or grammatical or as a Form, depending on one's position.

Quoting Michael

What you seem to have done is conflated "this is what it means to be a real particular" with "this is what it means to be real" and then concluded that because universals don't satisfy the former then they don't satisfy the latter.

You are half right here. What it means to be a real particular or to exist as a particular is what it is usually taken to mean to be real or to exist. Relations between particulars and their attributes are also generally understood to be real or to exist, but such relations and attributes are not in themselves universals, any more than particulars are universals, but are rather examples of universals.

"In some other sense, perhaps" isn't saying much. If, for example, you wanted to say that universals exist as concepts, grammatical entities or forms, then you should be able to give an account of such an existence that does not depend on describing particulars, their relations or attributes, otherwise you will not be giving an account of how universals exist independently of their instantiations as particulars, their relations or attributes.

If such an account of their independent existence or reality cannot be given then I don't see how it could make any sense to assert their independent existence or reality.

[quote=John]If, for example, you wanted to say that universals exist as concepts, grammatical entities or forms, then you should be able to give an account of such an existence that does not depend on describing particulars, their relations or attributes, otherwise you will not be giving an account of how universals exist independently of their instantiations as particulars, their relations or attributes.[/quote]

I don't see how this follows. Do I need to give an account of how the copula can "exist independently" to say that the copula is a grammatical entity? Do I need to give an account of how counterfactuals can "exist independently" to say that counterfactuals are concepts?

If such an account of their independent existence or reality cannot be given then I don't see how it could make any sense to assert their independent existence or reality.

Neither do I. But why must universals have an "independent existence or reality" to be real? Again you seem to be suggesting that universals must be real particulars to be real, but of course that makes no sense. You're arguing that a universal is only real if it is a particular, which is a contradiction. The conditions required to be a real universal must, by definition, be different to the conditions required to be a real particular.

All I have been arguing is that universals cannot coherently be said to have a reality or existence independent from particular instantiations or manifestations not that they have no reality or existence, so you're barking up the wrong tree, dude.

I think universals are as real as my desk, but they are not actual. Unicorns have one horn, they conform to our imaginary expectations, and they are real but they are not actual. What is real is contrasted with what is possible and what is actual. Our delusions are real, but they are not actual.

Yikes, I have realized that I have been severely misunderstanding universals, and confusing them with the qualia from the philosophy of mind.

However, I'm still confused on whether or not universals are seen as these ethereal things that exist in a different plane or universe. "Spooky"

Well, that is progress!

I think the reason they seem so hard to understand is historical. The big debates between realists - medieval, not modern - and nominalists, were centuries ago. The way we think about it is therefore a product of that history - and the nominalists, who were the ancestors of today's empiricism, won the day. But it's a deep study, I have been reading it for years and have still barely scratched the surface.

But suffice to say, we are strongly inclined to believe that 'what is real' is some manner of object - something, or perhaps some form of energy, that is 'really there' or 'really out there'. But universals belong to a different order - they are part of the order of things, but they are not in themselves things.

Reply to Cavacava Unicorns have one horn, they conform to our imaginary expectations, and they are real but they are not actual.

There's a difference between imagination and intellect, the latter being 'what grasps universals'. See post on previous page quoted from Feser, Think, McFly, Think.

Reply to Wayfarer

The problem I see with universals is that they are seen as abstracta, and I'm not sure if I agree that abstract objects exist. I don't see any difference between them and NOTHING.

Furthermore, if I were to postulate the existence of abstract universals, they would be "fundamental" universals, not these bullshit universals like "Bob the monkey exemplifies the universal of having a tail." I can't bring myself to accept that floating around somewhere in ethereal, non-spatiotemporal world is an object that is having a tail-ness.

?Cavacava Unicorns have one horn, they conform to our imaginary expectations, and they are real but they are not actual.

Wayfarer:

"There's a difference between imagination and intellect, the latter being 'what grasps universals'. See post on previous page quoted from Feser, Think, McFly, Think."

I read your post and part of what Mr. Feser wrote. I disagree. I don't think our intellect, imagination or our perceptions can be neatly divided into separate functions with their own domain.

To my mind our organism works as a whole. Our intellect, imagination, our mental and our physical status are responsible for all our thoughts. What pushes a scientist working on some arcane theory from concept to concept, what pushes reason.

Universals are real, they are just not actual. Hospitality is real, but it is no where to be found.

Reply to Cavacava I read your post and part of what Mr. Feser wrote...

Prof. Feser.

I have recently read about Aristotelian Substance Theory. Aristotle argued that the fundamental thing is the Kind, and that by belonging to a Kind, an object was given as essence, or a set of necessary properties. Additional properties could be added on, but did not change the fundamental essence of the character.

I'm actually kind of leaning towards this theory, albeit ignoring his declaration that living creatures were kinds (he thought teleology explained by life could not arise from non-life, evolutionary theory would like to disagree). The fundamental, elementary kinds of the universe are like gluons, muons, electrons, or strings/quantum foam.

Anyway, I still am very confused on how this talk of universals is supposed to be compatible with modern physics. Say I have two apples. I see that they are both "red". They are quite similar in shade, in fact, they might even be exactly similar in color. But this doesn't mean that they share something. It just means they have exactly similar shades of color. So universals are a worthless addition.

Quoting Cavacava

Universals are real, they are just not actual. Hospitality is real, but it is no where to be found.

I don't think this is right Cavacava. Colour is real, for example, only in its manifestations; wherein it is also actual. Hospitality is real, and it is found wherever it is offered and nowhere else. That is, it is found in its manifestations, where it is also actual.

Hi John, I think color is a concept we learn to abstract from our experience of things as a common property things. The movement is from particular to the universal. That concept of a particular color has objective reality, it enables my quick differentiation of the black from the red jelly beans.

Hospitality, as a general term, is also learned from its particular manifestations. We learn what it means to be hospitable and inhospitable, we develop concepts of what this activity entails. When we experience hospitality in actuality, we don't have to re-learn what it is, it is already there in our concepts. The general term does not exist in actuality, only the particular manifestations as you stated.

Concepts that affect what we think and do are real. They are based on what we have experienced and learned, but they are not actual. The pure colors: red, yellow, blue are real but they do not exist in actuality. Mathematical objects also are real, but not actual (for the most part).

I agree pretty much with what you say Cavacava except that I don't think concepts are universals; I think they are particular events and are real as such.

Also I am not on board with the idea that the move is from particular to universal. For me, the two are symbiotic. We cannot perceive anything as something if we do not have a general concept of the thing. For example, we cannot see something as a dog if we do not possess the ability to conceptualize the generality 'dog', I think.

Reply to John I don't think concepts are universals; I think they are particular events and are real as such.

A concept can't just be 'an event'.

But I am in agreement with the paragraph that follows; as you say, we can't think of something as a 'dog' unless we have the concept of 'dog'. Compare again the quote from Feser on p 1

'Any mental image I can form of a man is always going to be of a man of a particular sort -- tall, short, fat, thin, blonde, redheaded, bald, or what have you. It will fit at most many men, but not all. But my concept 'man' applies to every single man without exception. Or...any mental image I can form of a triangle will be an image of an isosceles , scalene, or equilateral triangle, of a black, blue, or green triangle, etc. But the abstract concept triangularity applies to all triangles without exception.' The same essay goes on to discuss the nature of concepts that we can't be associated with a natural form, such as 'law, square root, logical consistency' - I can think of many other examples.

So these aren't simply like 'imaginary objects', like 'thinking about an imaginary tree' or whatever - because they have entailments. Many conceptual operations make predictions about the world which will always be accurate - the history of science has innummerable examples. So if NASA make a prediction about the whereabout of the Mars Lander on the basis of its mathematical models, it is relying on this to be factual, accurate - otherwise there could be no rocket science (or indeed, science generally).

So it's the very nature of numbers, laws, and the like, to be abstract and general - they're true of trees, rockets, words, or any other thing that can be counted.

Notwithstanding the explicit dualism of the following passage, I think it makes a point which is still as relevant to the debate today as when Aristotle made it:

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible. Among other things, this means that you could not think if materialism is true… . Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too.

Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism, 39:00

Quoting darthbarracuda

Would it be incorrect to understand universals as "POTENTIALS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS POSSIBLE"?

Ah, yes! I call this one the "profligacy argument." It's the nominalist argument that basically says, "Well, then there would have to be abstract entities correlating to all kinds of things!"

My response to this is as follows: so what? The only force that this argument really has is that the idea of a huge universe of abstracta offends the nominalist's sense of decorum (Quine's "desert landscapes"). I can only shrug at this. If a huge universe of abstracta exists, then so much the worse for the nominalist's sense of decorum.

Quoting Wayfarer

A concept can't just be 'an event'.

Why not?

Quoting Pneumenon

If a huge universe of abstracta exists, then so much the worse for the nominalist's sense of decorum.

My objection to the idea of " a huge universe of abstracta" existing is that we have no idea what it means. For me it is really no better than gibberish.

Quoting John

My objection to the idea of " a huge universe of abstracta" existing is that we have no idea what it means. For me it is really no better than gibberish.

If you understand "abstraction," then you understand "big group of abstractions." That's all there is to it. Not sure what's so baffling about it. :-|

You're misunderstanding; I know what 'abstraction' means, I have no idea what it means to say 'abstractions exist'. Can you explain what it means?

Reply to John Superman doesn't exist. My computer does exist. If abstractions exist, they are more like my computer in that regard than like Superman.

That makes it no clearer. Your computer is not an abstraction.

Quoting John

Your computer is not an abstraction.

I did not say or imply that it was.

Reply to John (why can't a concept be an event?)

For the reasons given immediately after my assertion, obviously!

You might say 'a concept' is 'a neural event' - 'you might believe that concepts are embued with predictive power, but us scientists know that they're simply patterns of neural events'.

But the problem with this view, is that in order to equate a 'neural event' with 'a concept' you have to rely on the very thing that you're wanting to explain. Why? Because you're asserting that these 'neural events' actually mean or intend something. And 'meaning' and 'intentionality' are not the properties of any event, as such. You can impute meaning to an event, but an event has no inherent meaning.

Reply to Pneumenon
Then how can an abstraction be "more like your computer"?

Reply to Wayfarer

As I see it you're just playing with a tautology 'concepts are conceptual' and imagining that it can tell you something about how things are.

Quoting John

Then how can an abstraction be "more like your computer"?

Try reading the post.

I read it and it said precisely nothing about what it means for an abstraction to exist; and you haven't augmented your paucity of explanation since. If you can't be bothered explaining yourself then fine; I'm happy to end this here.

Quoting John

I read it and it said precisely nothing about what it means for an abstraction to exist; and you haven't augmented your paucity of explanation since. If you can't be bothered explaining yourself then fine; I'm happy to end this here.

I gave you an example. That's when you point to an instance of something so your interlocutor can tell what you're talking about. Superman does not exist. My computer does.

Also, "augmenting my paucity" is nonsensical. You want to say, "correct the paucity of explanation in your post," but that's just a convoluted way of saying "explain yourself." Philosophy is about writing clearly, not impressing people with obfuscated six-dollar words that don't need to be used. Or should I say, "The preponderance of sesquipedalian verbiage in your discourse renders your bloviations risible and nugatory?"

Reply to John so how are things?

Reply to Pneumenon

You still haven't said anything about how the existence of your computer is analagous or similar to the supposed existence of abstracta.

'Augmenting' means 'expanding', 'paucity' may mean 'minimum'. Expanding the minimum of explanation is perfectly acceptable locution, even if a bit clunky. There was no need to get personal; I use the words that come to me as I write, not to impress anyone.

It would have been better if you had actually said something to explain your position instead of hiding behind gratuitously lecturing me on how to do philosophy or express myself or whatever, if you want what you say to be taken seriously.

Reply to Wayfarer

Well I can tell you the mode of existence of common objects; that they can be seen, felt, are publicly available to perception and so on. Everyone can agree on the reality and existence of those. The words 'exist' and 'real' are generally used in reference to such things.

If you want to say that abstract 'objects' exist or are real in 'some way' independently of their instantiations or manifestations, then present the evidence, and explain what kind of 'existence' it is. Shouldn't be too hard...

Why should your assertions be taken seriously otherwise?

Quoting John

You still haven't said anything about how the existence of your computer is analagous or similar to the supposed existence of abstracta.

They both involve existence. You said,

Quoting John

I have no idea what it means to say 'abstractions exist'

If you know what an abstraction is, and you know what the word "exist" means, then you understand the phrase "abstractions exist." I really hope you're just prevaricating, because the only other reasons not to understand that phrase are not understanding one of the two words in it or not understanding how to connect a noun to a verb. Is English a second language for you?

EDIT: just read your post in response to Wayfarer. I see the problem: you don't understand "exist." If "exist" means that you can see and feel it, then I guess neutrinos don't exist. Neither do time and space, 'cause you don't see either of those.

Reply to John Well I can tell you the mode of existence of common objects; that they can be seen, felt, are publicly available to perception and so on. Everyone can agree on the reality and existence of those. The words 'exist' and 'real' are generally used in reference to such things.


'Generally used'? By whom? What you're appealing to here is 'the wisdom of crowds'. You're simply saying 'hey everyone knows this. What are you talking about?'

To which the answer is, I'm talking about 'philosophy' - which consists of questioning 'what everyone thinks they know'. Philosophy is the questioning of normality, of what we all take for granted.

If the world is a common-sense world, and if everything here is as it appears, then what are we asking questions about, and why are we studying philosophy? So far, in our interactions, I haven't really seen any indication of what your view is on this.

But I have an open mind.

Reply to John

I agree pretty much with what you say Cavacava except that I don't think concepts are universals; I think they are particular events and are real as such.

Also I am not on board with the idea that the move is from particular to universal. For me, the two are symbiotic. We cannot perceive anything as something if we do not have a general concept of the thing. For example, we cannot see something as a dog if we do not possess the ability to conceptualize the generality 'dog', I think.
about 11 hours ago ReplyFlag

Well I think "Universal" is the traditional term, the term 'general' is perhaps more appropriate, or (as I saw Aristotle's name mentioned) 'species'. (the term 'Universal" I think more appropriate for math or scientific use)

When you say you think that concepts are particular events, do you mean while they are occurring, if so yes I agree and they flow through our minds incessantly. They are also categorical, enabling us to quickly differentiate particulars by means of particular/species/genus recognition.

I don't disagree with you about the movement of thought being both ways at this point in time, but concepts must start from particular instances within which we see relationships (now almost automatically) develop into concepts or add on as additional information to preexisting concepts. The concepts we derive from perception are inductive fodder for the deductive.

So, our perceptions provide us with information that we sort out and add to our 'database'. Dogs are great, but we learned this concept, and we learned it from all the particular instances of this waggy tailed, wet tongued creature. Language makes rapid concept formation possible.

I think our organism works together well, I think the mental affects the physical and the physical the mental, we are inexorably one, perhaps like the relationship between matter and form as Aristotle would have it.

The following from SEP:

"Aristotle thinks that Plato and other dualists are right to stress the importance of the soul in explanations of living beings. At the same time, he sees their commitment to the separability of the soul from the body as unjustified merely by appeal to formal causation: he will allow that the soul is distinct from the body, and is indeed the actuality of the body, but he sees that these concessions by themselves provide no grounds for supposing that the soul can exist without the body. His hylomorphism, then, embraces neither reductive materialism nor Platonic dualism. Instead, it seeks to steer a middle course between these alternatives by pointing out, implicitly, and rightly, that these are not exhaustive options."

Reply to Pneumenon Reply to John Reply to Wayfarer Reply to Cavacava

I think the conversation regarding the existence of universals often overlooks a key topic, and that is whether or not properties even exist, as in, is there an ontological structure behind common concrete particulars. Because you can be a nominalist and still accept that there are properties, just that they are concrete particulars (tropes). It's taken for granted that "redness" is something that can be taken as a separate, independent entity from an object. It's taken for granted that "triangularity" is something apart from the triangle itself.

However, I don't see why there is the need to postulate the existence of a shareable entity, or even entities at all. I find it absurd that there are specific "properties" that "make up" something.

Things can be similar because they act similarly. A red object is just a piece of matter that is acting in such a way that it reflects light. A triangular object is simply a piece of matter that is acting in such a way that it looks triangular. Instead of properties being like a metaphorical sticker that is applied to objects or coalesced to bring forth an object, properties are merely the manifestation of matter as it is changed. They are what matter is doing, not what matter is possessing.

I believe I just described Aristotle's hylomorphism, that is, that matter (hyle) assumes forms (morph). His Prime Mover was pure Form, and he also conceived of Pure Matter, which could be interpreted as a predecessor to quantum indeterminacy.

Reply to Wayfarer

I tend to agree with Wittgenstein that philosophy is about getting clear about how language reflects common understanding and clearing up remaining confusions engendered by our propensity to reify linguistic terms, or use language in inappropriate ways when it "goes on holiday".

This doesn't mean that being and difference are not ineluctable mysteries; but I think these mysteries are better dealt with by an allusive philosophy, more like poetry than science; an evocative philosophy that enlivens our poetic feelings and reverence for life, than by the kinds of systematic attempts to define what is that are exemplified by pre-critical, or for that matter Kantian, and even Hegelian, metaphysics and epistemology.

Reply to Cavacava Reply to darthbarracuda

I pretty much agree with what both of you write here.

Reply to Pneumenon

This is nonsense; neutrinos ( their effects at least) can be measured, as can time and space; that's how we make sense of these things. The idea that the meaning of any phrase is understood simply by virtue of knowing the definitions of the words (even if it were unproblematically correct) doesn't rule out the possibility that the phrase may be senseless. I haven't argued that 'abstractions exist independently of their manifestations' is meaningless, but I have argued that it is senseless. You apparently haven't picked up on that.

Reply to Pneumenon

That's doesn't really help. Superman specifies something imaginary. We know we are talking about an object which doesn't exist. But what is an "abstraction?" How exactly is that a suggested thing which might exist (a thing in the world) or not (imaginary)?

In the relevant sense, "abstraction exists" is a meaningless statement because it doesn't specify a notion of what might or might not exist. It is like trying to say "space" or "time" exists. There is no coherent meaning because at no point is a possible state of existence mentioned.

I found a short summary of Aristotle's criticisms of Platonism, which I think accurately sums up the problems I have with the theory and general Realism for that matter.

I don't know whether to classify Aristotle as a Realist or a Nominalist, though.

I also don't agree with everything Aristotle said, especially the part regarding the anthropomorphizing of particulars striving for perfection. We humans can do so, and in fact Aristotle's thoughts on this are strikingly similar to that of Nietzsche's, but ultimately the universe is under the influence of entropy. So there really is no "perfection" here, unless "perfection" means to return to the state of absolute potential substance.

Reply to darthbarracuda

Aristotle was a long time before the medieval debate - which is when the realist v nominalist debate occured. So the answer probably is that he was neither, but that Aristotelean thought, generally, was very much a part of the scholastic philosophy that the nominalists, such as Ockham, were criticizing.

Reply to John Thanks for your thoughtful reply, I'm sure that the opportunity for further discussion will present itself.

Reply to Wayfarer I looked it up, Wayfarer, Aristotle advocated what is known as immanent or moderate realism.

Also, it should be noted that Aristotle thought that the constant striving towards perfection was never-ending.

Right. Well, that's because everything has a telos, a purpose towards which it is striving. That is its 'final cause', its reason for being. (It was that idea which became the source of ridicule insofar as Aristotle's physics posited that stones fell to the earth because it was their telos; such ideas which were basic to Aristotelean physics were really completely torpedoed by Galileo. But there is still much of value in Aristotle's philosophy and metaphysics, in my view.)

According to Lloyd Gerson, who is one of the current top academic experts in Platonism, Aristotle was still a Platonist, albeit a dissenting Platonist. So he believed in the reality of the universals, but he had a more empirical, less ethereal temperament than his teacher.

Reply to Wayfarer

Wayfarer, your reference to Aristotle reminds me of the parallel, or even isomorphy, that the contrast between his and Plato's understanding of the Forms has with the discussion regarding whether the existence or reality of universals is immanent to (dependent on) or transcendent of (independent of) particulars.

So, you say "he (Aristotle) believed in the reality of universals", which is true, and which I have not been arguing against either. But he did not believe in the independent reality of universals, and disbelief regarding that is the position I have also been arguing for on the grounds that we have no idea what such an "independent reality" could be.

Platonism with respect to mathematics is the view that 'number is real'. That is usually taken to mean that numbers, or numerical systems, are 'discovered', with the contrary view being that they are 'invented'. I think overall the current intellectual fashion vastly favours the latter; the overwhelming reaction seems to be, if numbers are real, where are they? Are they "out there somewhere" as the current saying has it; which I think says something about the way we see the world nowadays.

I think that mathematical systems are discovered in some respects, and invented in others. But in speaking of the natural numbers and the basic operations of arithmetic, I find the 'conventionalist' argument (i.e. that numbers are invented) untenable; I assume that the number 7 is the same for any observer, anywhere in the world, or indeed on any world. The same general observation can be made of logical laws, like the law of the excluded middle.

I found an interesting essay called Frege and the Third Realm by Tyler Burge, which says that Frege seemed to accept the existence of a 'third realm', different from either the realm of physical objects, or of thoughts, per se. Frege believed that number is real in the sense that it is quite independent of thought: 'thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", he says "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets." '

Furthermore in The Basic Laws of Arithmetic he says that 'the laws of truth are authoritative because of their timelessness: "[the laws of truth] are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace. It is because of this, that they authority for our thought if it would attain to truth."

(Frege on Knowing the Third Realm Tyler Burge, Mind, New Series, Vol 101, issue 404, Oct 1992)

That essay says that Frege doesn't give any attention to the question of 'how the third realm exists'. For him it is simply the case that the basic numbers and functions are real, independently of anyone's say-so, and that they're plainly different from physical objects. They're simply givens, things which by dint of our rational intellect we're able to perceive directly. And that attitude is very Platonist (a point which Burge makes).

The following is from my very first forum post: "we all concur on what a number is, and mathematics is lawful; in other words, we can't just make up our own laws of numbers. But numbers don't 'exist' in the same sense that objects of perception do; there is no object called 'seven'. You might point at the numeral, 7, but that is just a symbol. What we concur on is a number of objects, but the number cannot be said to exist independent of its apprehension, at least, not in the same way objects apparently do. In what realm or sphere do numbers exist? 'Where' are numbers? Surely in the intellectual realm, of which perception is an irreducible part. So numbers are not 'objective' in the same way that 'things' are. The key point is that number is real, but can only be apprehended by an intelligence capable of counting; that is the sense in which it is real but not physical.

I think this is related to the platonic distinction between 'intelligible objects' and 'objects of perception'. Objects of perception - ordinary things - only exist, in the Platonic view, because they conform to, and are instances of, laws (so there's your 'instantiation'). So in the Platonist understanding, particular things are simply ephemeral instances of the eternal forms, but in themselves, they have no actual being (i.e. their being is contingent or dependent). Their actual being is conferred by the fact that they conform to laws (their logoi). So 'existence' in this sense, and I think this is the sense it was intended by the Platonic and neo-Platonic schools, is illusory. Earthly objects of perception exist, but only in a transitory and imperfect way. They are 'mortal' - perishable, never perfect, and always transient. Whereas the archetypal forms are apprehended by Nous: they provide the ideal for all existing things by creating the pattern, the ratio, whereby things are formed. They are real, above and beyond the existence of wordly things; but they don't actually exist. They don't need to exist; things do the hard work of existence. That is the sense in which they're 'transcendental' - they're beyond the perishable realm of the world, in the 'ideal realm' only perceptible through noesis.

Now you're right in saying that this is where Aristotle differed with his teacher; he was of a much more empirical temperament. But I hope the above has helped to sharpen the question of what the argument actually is about. (And for a good contemporary presentation of the Aristotelean view, have a look at Aristotle was Right about Mathematics After All by James Franklin, which is an Aristotelean-realist view.)

Quoting Michael

Start by asking what it means for a universal to be real before you ask whether or not they are real.

For universals to be real, they must have a mind-independent existence. That's what realism essentially means. X is real if it does not depend in some way on our perceiving or conceiving it. Dreams are obviously mind-dependent, as are hallucinations. After that, it gets controversial.

Are particulars real? If that particular tree does not depend on me or anyone else perceiving or thinking about it, then it is. But what about the term "tree"? Does that denote an abstraction which only lives in human thought and language? Then it's not real. It has no existence independent of us.

The challenge for the realist qua universals is to show how they could be mind-independent. Do they live in the particulars as Aristotle thought? Do they have their own "realm"? If so, how do our minds come to know about them? And so on.

Quoting John

This is nonsense; neutrinos ( their effects at least) can be measured, as can time and space; that's how we make sense of these things.

Problem is, those are universals. You're abstracting over the entire cosmos to derive "space", and over all rate of change to denote "time", and the "building blocks" of "matter" to discuss "neutrinos".

The big problem nominalism has is how we can understand the world without using universals. You can say that space, matter, time, energy, laws, atoms, etc are just names for particulars, but that's not how they are used in science. Time isn't just a bunch of events, rather it's a dimension (another universal) related to space, influenced by gravity (again a universal), and driven by thermodynamics and how things were in the Big Bang.

You could probably say that our entire understanding is based on universals. It is our ability to abstract which allows us to reason, draw inferences, and conceptualize. That doesn't resolve the issue of whether and how universals are real, but it does demonstrate that they are indispensable to thought.

Another way to frame the universal debate is to ask how God would view the universe if nominalism is the case. Because then it's just particulars, and our naming schemes would be misleading from the omniscient perspective. You might say that even though naming and categorizing things is very useful to us, it deludes us into thinking there is something more to the endless particulars we call the universe (the universal of all particulars).

We have the gall to say things like "the speed of light prohibits anything with mass accelerating to C". God would find are notions of laws amusing, I would guess. And our equations quaint. If God is a nominalist.

Quoting Marchesk

X is real if it does not depend in some way on our perceiving or conceiving it.

So my experiences and my ideas aren't real?

Dreams are obviously mind-dependent, as are hallucinations.

But dreams and hallucinations are real things. They really happen.

Reply to Michael Yeah, but it's important to use words precisely in these kind of discussions, or mass confusion results. Realism in philosophy denotes mind-independence. Maybe they should have come up with a more technical term, since obviously dreams and hallucinations do occur. But then what isn't real under that usage? Unicorns happen in our minds as well. And culture. But nobody says they are real.

I imagined a pink unicorn, and that did happen (hypothetically speaking), but it wasn't real. That's the proper use.

Reply to Marchesk And that's exactly why you can't just say "X is(n't) real". You have to say "X is(n't) a real Y". A mirage isn't a real oasis but it is a real mirage. So the question "are universals real?" should be the question "are universals real Ys?" So what's Y? You offer "mind-independent thing" as an example? But isn't that that the definition of a particular? So you're asking "are universals real particulars?" Obviously the answer is "no". But then of those who say that universals are real, how many are saying that they're real particulars?

Quoting Michael

You offer "mind-independent thing" as an example? But isn't that that the definition of a particular? So you're asking "are universals real particulars?"

I'm not asking that. I'm asking whether they are something we cooked up as part of our making sense of the world, or whether they exist somehow independent of us. And if universals are something we cooked up, then the world isn't how we think it is. It's just a bunch of particulars. Which means our scientific understanding is wrong, however useful it may be to us. As is our everyday talk with all it's universals.

Quoting Michael

You have to say "X is(n't) a real Y".

"Particulars aren't real." You can certainly make that move. It's called idealism. So what is the Y for particulars if realism is the case? Themselves? Then that is the same for universals.

[quote=Marchesky]And if universals are something we cooked up, then the world isn't how we think it is. It's just a bunch of particulars. Which means our scientific understanding is wrong, however useful it may be to us.[/quote]

I don't see how that follows.

"Particulars aren't real." You can certainly make that move. It's called idealism. So what is the Y for particulars if realism is the case? Themselves? Then that is the same for universals.

I'm not making that move, and that's not what it means to be an idealist.

I'm asking whether they are something we cooked up as part of our making sense of the world, or whether they exist somehow independent of us.

If you asking "are universals real?" is you asking "do universals exist independently of us?" then you're asking "are universals mind-independent things?". And what does it mean to be a particular? Is it to be a mind-independent thing? Then you're asking "are universals particulars?"

Quoting Michael

I don't see how that follows.

Because all of our scientific concepts make heavy use of universals. Matter, spacetime, atoms, etc are all universals. So is DNA, species, evolution, brain, mind, information, computation, etc.

Quoting Michael

I'm not making that move, and that's not what it means to be an idealist.

To be is to be perceived, which makes things mind-dependent, yes? I brought that up because one can deny that particulars are real, and therefore, what is the Y for particulars?

Quoting Michael

If you're asking "are universals real?" is you asking "do universals exist independently of us?" then you're asking "are universals mind-independent things?".

But I didn't ask if universals are "things". I stated that they are real if they exist independent of us.

Quoting Michael

And what is a particular? Is it a mind-independent thing?

Materialists would say yes. But "particular" is a concept we utilize to denote unique objects. Maybe it's a universal as well?

Quoting Michael

Then you're asking "are universals particulars?"

And now we're close to abusing language. But it is an interesting angle to argue. I could argue for "particular" being universal and you could argue that realism amounts to universals being particulars. I'm not sure where that gets us. Is this a Wittgenstein approach to dissolve the issue?

[quote=Marchesk]Because all our scientific concepts make heavy use of universals. Matter, spacetime, atoms, etc are all universals. So is DNA, species, evolution, brain, mind, etc.[/quote]

Aren't universals said to be abstract? Science doesn't say that matter, space-time, atoms, and so on are abstract. Science says that they're concrete things (i.e. particulars).

To be is to be perceived, which makes things mind-dependent, yes? I brought that up because one can deny that particulars are real, and therefore, what is the Y for particulars?

Maybe one can deny that they're real, but I'm not, and neither does the idealist (prima facie). But as I said before, if one wants to deny that they're real then one needs to deny that they're a real Y (whatever that Y is).

But I didn't ask if universals are "things". I stated that they are real if they exist independent of us.

What's the difference between asking if they exist independent of us and asking if they're things which exist independent of us?

And now we're close to abusing language.

Which shows that the approach taken to deny the reality of universals stems from an abuse of language. They argue that a universal must be a mind-independent thing to be real but also that to be a particular is to be a mind-independent thing, and so they're saying that a universal must be a particular to be real. But of course that makes no sense.

Quoting Michael

Aren't universals said to be abstract? Science doesn't say that matter, space-time, atoms, and so on are abstract. Science says that they're concrete things (i.e. particulars).

But the concepts "matter", "spacetime", "atoms", etc are abstractions over particular instances. Take time, for example. It is an abstraction from various events. We notice a commonality, and so we say there is this time dimension in which stuff happens. And there is an order to it. The past flows into the present which flows into the future. Of course that's everyday talk based on how we experience stuff happening.. The physical notion of time is a bit different. But it is an abstraction.

As is General Relativity, for that matter, with it's talk of gravity curving spacetime across the universe. Of course it's also mathematical equations backed up by experiments which can be put in such and such terms, but math itself is an abstraction, and so are all scientific equations.

Quoting Michael

But as I said before, if one wants to deny that they're real then one needs to deny that they're a real Y (whatever that Y is).

Okay, so what is the Y for particulars? Particulars are a real ____?

Quoting Michael

They argue that a universal must be a mind-independent thing to be real but also that to be a particular is to be a mind-independent thing, and so they're saying that a universal must be a particular to be real. But of course that makes no sense.

It doesn't, if to be real is to be a mind-independent [B]thing[/B], where thing is a particular. But independent just means it doesn't depend on us thinking or perceiving Y, if you like.

For example, colors are real if they don't depend on organisms like us seeing stuff. If they are out there in the world. But colors are not things. They are properties of things. If they're real, which I'm not stating. But there are and have been color realists.

[quote=Marchesk]But the concepts "matter", "spacetime", "atoms", etc are abstractions over particular instances.[/quote]

That the concept of matter is an abstraction is not that matter is an abstraction.

Okay, so what is the Y for particulars? Particulars are a real ____?

I wouldn't say that particulars are a real Y. I'd say that something (e.g. a tree) is a real particular. Which is just to say that it's the sort of thing that I could really touch.

It doesn't, if to be real is to be a mind-independent thing, where thing is a particular. But independent just means it doesn't depend on us thinking or perceiving Y, if you like.

I still don't understand the difference between being mind-independent and being a mind-independent thing.

For example, colors are real if they don't depend on organisms like us seeing stuff.

Like I said, you can't just say "X is real if...". You have to say "X is a real Y if...". So colours are a real what if they don't depend on organisms like us seeing stuff? Are you just saying that colours are mind-independent if they don't depend on organisms like us seeing stuff? Well, that goes without saying. But colours don't have to be mind-independent to be real colours; they don't have to be mind-independent to be something I really see.

Quoting Michael

That the concept of matter is an abstraction is not that matter is an abstraction.

But the concept matter is abstracting over all instances of matter, which are particulars that have the commonality of rest mass. So physics, while being about particulars, relies on abstraction to make sense of those particulars.

Reply to Marchesk Sure. But it's the aboutness that determines whether or not the theory is correct. Therefore if physics is about particulars then the truth of its theories depends on the existence of the particulars, not on the mind-independent existence of the abstractions that we require to make sense of the particulars.

Reply to Michael Quoting Michael

But it's the aboutness that determines whether not the theory is correct. Therefore if physics is about particulars then the truth of its theories depends on the existence of the particulars, not on the mind-independent existence of the abstractions that we require to make sense of the particulars.

Maybe, but it's the abstraction being a requirement part that worries me. What you're saying is that reality has no need for our abstractions. They are not part of the ontological furniture of the world. And yet we need them to make sense of the world.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what that means. It is either a statement on the nature of intelligence, or a problem for nominalism.

Quoting Michael

I still don't understand the difference between being mind-independent and being a mind-independent thing.

From doing some reading, I'm able to clarify my response. Universals exist if the same properties and relations exist among particulars. The exact same properties and relations are not themselves individual things, as they are not numerically distinct and don't have a specific location.

However, a different approach to dealing away with universals does posit tropes, which themselves are abstract particulars, numerically distinct and existing in only one location. Each particular thing has or is made up of particular tropes.

Quoting Michael

Therefore if physics is about particulars then the truth of its theories depends on the existence of the particulars, not on the mind-independent existence of the abstractions that we require to make sense of the particulars.

Back to this again. Why do physicists need abstractions to make sense of particulars? What is it about those particulars which leads to abstract conceptualization schemes? Obviously because there is resemblance of some kind. But what does that resemblance amount to? How is it to be explained, since we are dealing with particulars?

Reply to Marchesk

Yes, but I haven't been arguing that there are no universals, just that we have no idea what it would mean to say that they are real independently of their manifestations; manifestations which would include both thought and things.

So, I have been contending that Platonism, as traditionally conceived, is incoherent, that is all.

Quoting John

So, I have been contending that Platonism, as traditionally conceived, is incoherent, that is all.

Ah well, okay. I wonder how a Platonist might go about defending their position.

Well, what if the universe is inherently mathematical, as Max Tegmark maintains? Would that be a form of Platonism, except that we happen to live there? I'm just curious as to what that would imply. In that case, the physicist is the one leaving the cave, with help from mathematicians.

Quoting Marchesk

But what does that resemblance amount to? How is it to be explained, since we are dealing with particulars?

We reliably perceive resemblances in common. This naturally leads to the idea that what gives rise to intersubjective perceptions of resemblances must be independent of any and all instances of perception.

Reply to Marchesk

I am not convinced that we could know what the claim that the universe is mathematical means. For us the universe is sensate, material, and we can't make sense of what it means to say that it is somehow different than that in itself. If sensing is a material process through and through, then why should we think the situation that produces sensing, taken as a whole, would be any different? I mean even if there were a 'difference' that 'difference' could never be a difference that made any difference to us. That is to say it could never be a real difference to us.

I don't think the kinds of understandings that quantum physicists or relativity theorists, for example, have can be intuitively grasped any better by them than by the average Joe. They understand abstrusely through the mathematics. When it comes to their ordinary lives they experience the same material world as the rest of us; so I don't think we can say they have 'left the cave'.

Reply to Marchesk For universals to be real, they must have a mind-independent existence. That's what realism essentially means.

That's what scientific realism means. What 'realism' meant in the context of the 'realism v nominalism' debate was something completely different to that, and it is important to understand how 'scientific realism' came about, and how it fits into the overal history of ideas, when you make statements like that.

Reply to Marchesk X is real if it does not depend in some way on our perceiving or conceiving it.

Does 'the law of the excluded middle' exist independently of mind? How could it? It's only perceptible to a rational intelligence.

Reply to Marchesk Are particulars real? If that particular tree does not depend on me or anyone else perceiving or thinking about it, then it is.

Trees are real to us humans, and many other terrestrial creatures. If you were a being whose body consisted solely of energy, and whose vision consisted of - I don't know - beams of neutrinos, then the whole notion of 'a tree' might be unintelligible to you.

Scientific realism starts with an image of the Universe. It is mediated by strict protocols, and the like, but it is nevertheless an image. It works, it is consistent, predictive - but when you're talking about fundamental existents, you can nevertheless call such things into question.

Quoting Wayfarer

Trees are real to us humans, and many other terrestrial creatures. If you were a being whose body consisted solely of energy, and whose vision consisted of - I don't know - beams of neutrinos, then the whole notion of 'a tree' might be unintelligible to you.

Scientific realism starts with an image of the Universe. It is mediated by strict protocols, and the like, but it is nevertheless an image. It works, it is consistent, predictive - but when you're talking about fundamental existents, you can nevertheless call such things into question.

Thing is that the problem of universals applies to fundamental constituents as much as it does complex objects like trees. What makes a neutrino a neutrino? All neutrinos have the same properties. Well, how is that possible? How can multiple particulars share the same properties? Or, how is it that you have the same properties across multiple particulars?

Quoting Wayfarer

That's what scientific realism means. What 'realism' meant in the context of the 'realism v nominalism' debate was something completely different to that, and it is important to understand how 'scientific realism' came about, and how it fits into the overal history of ideas, when you make statements like that.

I'm pretty sure that Plato and Aristotle's position on universals was the equivalent of being mind-independent. For Plato, they existed in a non-spatiotemporal realm. For Aristotle, they were to be found in particulars.

The nominalists and conceptualists claimed that universals were products of the mind, be they names, sets or concepts. They weren't out there in the world somehow.

Quoting Wayfarer

Does 'the law of the excluded middle' exist independently of mind? How could it? It's only perceptible to a rational intelligence.

I don't know. Can particulars be and not be X? If not, then is the law of excluded middle an observation derived from that fact?

Reply to Marchesk Plato was an 'objective idealist'. What that means would take an essay to define, but suffice to say it *does not* mean 'mind-independent'. I would argue that the notion of 'mind independence' would have been unintelligible or even anathema to Platonism. The idea of 'mind-independence' is very much a recent historical development, derived from the representative realism of Locke, and others.

Reply to Marchesk What makes a neutrino a neutrino? All neutrinos have the same properties. Well, how is that possible? How can multiple particulars share the same properties? Or, how is it that you have the same properties across multiple particulars?

That is of the essence of this problem. But look at it like this - a number or a quantity of things, can be of any kind of thing. Imagine 3 trees, 3 letters, 3 dogs - in each case, the particular items you're thinking of are completely unrelated. But they're all a part of a group of three. The only significance of that example, is that it shows the way that the mind itself understands and interprets reality, according to such things as 'number'. And grasping 'number' is close to grasping 'universals' - which is why Platonic realism generally accepts both the reality of universals, and of numbers, and why, conversely, nominalism tends to understand both as 'conventions' or 'mere words' or 'mere ideas'.

Same thing applies with the 'law of the excluded middle'. We look at things through such mental operations - they determine how we see the world, as rational beings who think logically. We do that instinctively without being aware we're doing it, but that very much determines how we interpret the nature of what we see. Whereas, for example, animals don't see that - they don't have the capacity to 'interpret' in that rational and reflective sense.

I am proposing a novel idea here, which is this. Modern realism presumes 'mind-independence', because it implicitly tries to understand the nature of reality from no viewpoint, by bracketing out the subjective or the personal (as covered in Nagel's View from Nowhere.) But what this is not seeing is that every interpretive mental act, even those which involve scientific laws, is in some real sense mind-dependent, because it could only be understood by a mind capable of grasping the intelligible relations that make science (for example) possible. So it is of course true that F=MA whether or not anyone is aware of that fact, but, knowing such facts determines how we view the world. So i'm referring to 'mind' here, not as 'your mind' or 'my mind' or 'the contents of conscious thought', but the very framework of understanding within which anything we deem 'real' exists.

Quoting Wayfarer

So it is of course true that F=MA whether or not anyone is aware of that fact, but, knowing such facts determines how we view the world. So i'm referring to 'mind' here, not as 'your mind' or 'my mind' or 'the contents of conscious thought', but the very framework of understanding within which anything we deem 'real' exists.

So are you arguing for conceptualism here? I'm not quite clear what you're saying. Are you saying that it is necessary for any mind to understand the world in terms of abstractions such as 3? But this is only a feature of minds making sense of the world?

So universals are necessary for minds (ones that employ abstractions - leaving aside questions of animal intelligence). But this fact doesn't mean that F=MA is something in the world?

'Things in the world' obviously obey physical laws - hence physics! But it's a long-standing conundrum as to why this should be so. Einstein declared that 'the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible'. Wigner wrote his famous essay on 'the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences'. So they're both asking: what is it about 'what goes on in the mind' (especially mathematical reasoning) that enables mathematics to make such accurate predictions about 'what is going on out there'?

Notice that this is actually a very similar question to the question posed in the Critique of Pure Reason - namely, why can we make synthetic a priori statements? Actually Kant's paradigmatic examples of those were from geometery. I'm sure they're all asking basically the same question.

I think the answer has something to do with the fact that we are not actually apart from our outside of the world. So that sense of 'in here' and 'out there' is also in some real sense, a mental construction. The mind receives stimuli and assimilates them according to its existing categories and understanding - and that is what is real, for us. What is outside of, or apart from, that process of apperception, is not known to us. But that is not saying that the world is 'in your mind' but it is saying that whatever we know of the world is constituted in some fundamental way by our mental operations. And they're not peculiar to you or me, they're cultural and linguistic constructs. So in that sense, the world isn't 'mind-independent'. Even if we imagine the world going on in our absence, or in the absence of the whole human species, that 'going on' is still imagined from an implicitly human perspective. Belief in the 'view from nowhere' is 'transcendental realism' - the construction of an idea of a universe with no observers in it. But I'm saying, it is literally impossible to conceive of such a world, because even to conceive of it requires an implicit perspective.

As for conceptualism, that is discussed in this essay that I referred to eariler in this thread. It is a very good essay on the role of Ockam in the establishment of nominalism. Dense piece of work, I've read it half a dozen times this year, still taking it in, but definitely germane to this topic.

[quote=Marchesk]What makes a neutrino a neutrino? All neutrinos have the same properties. Well, how is that possible? How can multiple particulars share the same properties? Or, how is it that you have the same properties across multiple particulars?[/quote]

What if rather than say "all neutrinos have the same properties" we were to say "all neutrinos are described using the same predicates"?

Reply to Michael Why do we describe all neutrinos using the same predicates? Has the problem been addressed by using different words?

[quote=Marchesk]Why do we describe all neutrinos using the same predicates?[/quote]

Because a neutrino is defined as that which is described using predicates X, Y, and Z. Your question is comparable to asking "why are all bachelors described as unmarried men?".

Quoting Michael

Because a neutrino is defined as that which is described using predicates X, Y, and Z. Your question is comparable to asking "why are all bachelors described as unmarried men?".

The essential problem of universals is that we experience a world of particulars, yet our language is full of properties, relations, and kinds. That's because we also experience similarities among the particulars, allowing us to generate taxonomies, distill patterns, create models, and so on. If there were no similarities, we could not universalize.

Stating that neutrinos are defined as having certain predicates is to miss the problem, which is how we can predicate across particulars. What needs to be explained is the similarities between particulars. Universals play this role well, but they do so at the cost of being strange and hard to accommodate, particularly in their more extreme forms.

If we wish to keep universals out of our ontology, then particulars must fill the role that universals play in our language. We should be able to replace all talk of universals with particulars, and leave nothing out. So particulars must be able to explain the similarities we notice amongst them. Noting that we can categorize particulars because we're able to assign predicates to them is to entirely miss the point. We already knew that. That's where the problem begins.

Quoting Wayfarer

it shows the way that the mind itself understands and interprets reality, according to such things as 'number'. And grasping 'number' is close to grasping 'universals' - which is why Platonic realism generally accepts both the reality of universals, and of numbers, and why, conversely, nominalism tends to understand both as 'conventions' or 'mere words' or 'mere ideas'.

I think this is the kind of classic false dichotomy that is typical of so much of the philosophical tradition, and that both platonic realism and nominalism are wrong, in the sense that they are both inadequate to our lived experience and understanding.

Platonism imagines a radically separate mind that knows the external world, and explains the bridging of the unbridgeable gulf created by that radical separation via the existence of an eternal realm of universals which imbue the external world with meaning.

On the other hand to deny such an independent reality to universals by casting them as 'mere conventions' is to ignore the fact that the roots of those conventions must always already be in our most primordial experience in order for them to be established as conventions at all.

Reply to John I agree with the false dichotomy assessment. I think Aristotelian metaphysics is a good middle-ground between the two extremes.

Quoting Wayfarer

So in that sense, the world isn't 'mind-independent'. Even if we imagine the world going on in our absence, or in the absence of the whole human species, that 'going on' is still imagined from an implicitly human perspective. Belief in the 'view from nowhere' is 'transcendental realism' - the construction of an idea of a universe with no observers in it. But I'm saying, it is literally impossible to conceive of such a world, because even to conceive of it requires an implicit perspective.

Even though Kantians make a strong argument, the big problem with it is that our best scientific theories say something very different. They describe a deep time before us, leading up to us. Our very existence is explained by cosmology, astronomy, geology and evolution. If that's just from our human perspective, then our scientific theories are making false claims. They have to be uttered with a huge caveat. There were dinosaurs long before people, or so it appears to us living now.

I tend to fancy realism, particularly scientific realism, so that sort of thing really bothers me. I'm not interested in how the world appears to humans living now. I'm interested in how it is. If we can't get beyond our perspective, then what's the point in having theories of evolution or cosmology?

Quoting Wayfarer

Modern realism presumes 'mind-independence', because it implicitly tries to understand the nature of reality from no viewpoint, by bracketing out the subjective or the personal (as covered in Nagel's View from Nowhere.)

I don't think this is so much a "novel idea" as a misunderstanding of modern realism, in the sense of understanding it as being monolithic. I mean, the explanation you give above may be somewhat relevant to some realism. The point that seems to be lost in the interminable debate between realism and idealism/ anti-realism is that there are many forms of modern realism, in fact many more forms than there are of idealism or anti-realism.

The main difference between all forms of realism and idealism/ anti-realism is that the basic assumption of the latter is that reality is fundamentally mental; that is what it really comes down to, I think. The justification for this is usually given as a kind of definition. All we know comes from experience, and experience is mental; therefore there cannot be any reality beyond the mental.

Realists question the second and third steps; they question the idea that all experience is mental and on the basis of questioning that (but not only on that basis) they question the assumption that there cannot be any reality beyond the mental.

This is relevant to the Brassier's paper (see the other thread here: http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/150/reading-for-december-concepts-and-objects-ray-brassier#Item_145) because this is precisely the assumption that is being questioned; that concepts are 'mental objects', and that there must an unbridgeable abyss between these supposed mental objects and physical objects; how could the two ever be connected?

So, I would say that modern realism presumes mind independence on the basis that experience shows us unequivocally that things are not subject to our minds, and on the basis that it is obvious that our minds do not in any conscious sense construct experience. So, if experience is constructed sub-consciously what warrant do we have for saying that experience is (exhaustively or at all) mental or subjective in any purportedly substantive sense?

Marchesk:Stating that neutrinos are defined as having certain predicates is to miss the problem, which is how we can predicate across particulars. What needs to be explained is the similarities between particulars. Universals play this role well, but they do so at the cost of being strange and hard to accommodate, particularly in their more extreme forms.

I think this is a terrible misstep. Don't we already know, understanding the presence of to similar states, the expressed meaning? If we see two red cars, for example, how exactly do we need any "explanation" that they have the similarity of red? Aren't we not already aware of that in knowing about each state, each particular, as it appears to us?

Seems to me universals are not needed at all. To understand a similarity between states, what we need to know is that those particulars share a certain expression of meaning. We predicate across particulars by knowing the particulars in comparison to each other, not by finding some form which exists regardless of particulars.

Reply to darthbarracuda

Yes, I agree that Aristotelian metaphysics is far more consonant with the richest kinds of phenomenological, pragmatist, process and enactive/ embodied philosophy that has evolved over the last couple hundred years, than either Platonism or nominalism. I think it is a sign that many are still stuck in this false dichotomy, which is also the basis of the realist/ anti-realist polemic, that they apparently continue to think that Platonism/ nominalism exhausts the alternatives.

I do wonder, though, whether Brassier isn't also guilty (at times) of falling back into this polemic. Sometimes it does seem to be "the same old stew reheated over and over" (a nice expression I read or heard somewhere recently which comes from Hegel I think) that we are being served.

Reply to Michael

Because to express it this way would be to tendentiously make it appear that the properties of neutrinos are entirely constructed by us.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

Seems to me universals are not needed at all. To understand a similarity between states, what we need to know is that those particulars share a certain expression of meaning. We predicate across particulars by knowing the particulars in comparison to each other, not by finding some form which exists regardless of particulars.

The problem is that we're able to successfully compare particulars. If all there are is particulars in the world, then where does the comparison come from? You mentioned two objects being red. How is it that they are both red? Sure, you can give a scientific account involving electrons and photons, but then you are just moving the problem to subatomic particles, which share the same properties.

If there are no universals, we still have particulars resembling each other. What are to make of these commonalities, resemblances, similarities? Something needs to take the place of universals to explain that.

To put the problem as simply as possible, particulars are particulars because they are unique. And yet these unique particulars seem to have attributes which are not unique. It is those non-unique attributes which allows us to generalize. What needs explaining is how unique particulars appear to have non-unique features.

[quote=Marchesk]The essential problem of universals is that we experience a world of particulars, yet our language is full of properties, relations, and kinds. That's because we also experience similarities among the particulars, allowing us to generate taxonomies, distill patterns, create models, and so on. If there were no similarities, we could not universalize.[/quote]

I don't understand the problem. You say that "we experience a world of particulars" but also that "we ... experience similarities". So if particulars aren't problematic then why are similarities? We experience them both.

What needs to be explained is the similarities between particulars. Universals play this role well, but they do so at the cost of being strange and hard to accommodate, particularly in their more extreme forms.

How are they hard to accommodate? We describe the structure and behaviour of two particular things using (more or less) the same sentence. What's strange about this?

If we wish to keep universals out of our ontology, then particulars must fill the role that universals play in our language. We should be able to replace all talk of universals with particulars, and leave nothing out. So particulars must be able to explain the similarities we notice amongst them.

Perhaps; if you wish to keep universals out of our ontology. But why do you wish to do this? What, exactly, is the problem with saying that we use the single word "triangle" to describe the shape of two different particular things?

Noting that we can categorize particulars because we're able to assign predicates to them is to entirely miss the point. We already knew that. That's where the problem begins.

What problem? You just seem to have asserted that similarities are problematic, but it's not clear to me why they're problematic.

[quote=John]Because to express it this way would be to tendentiously make it appear that the properties of neutrinos are entirely constructed by us.[/quote]

Well, as a supporter of model-dependent realism, I don't find this at all problematic. The physicist's model of the neutrino is just that; a model – a model used to describe and predict physical phenomena.

Quoting Marchesk

particulars are particulars because they are unique.

I would dispute this. A trope theorist would argue that the attributes that are shared are actually just particulars that are part of a set.

Reply to Marchesk

How about our knowledge of the particulars in question? Isn't that the successful comparison?

Then there is no problem because we know each particular and its relationships to other particular. We have as much "explanation" (it's really just description of the particulars we are talking about) as there is. What are we to make of similarities? How about, you know, recognising there are particulars which, by their nature (e.g. red, a tree, a car, happy, sad, etc.,etc.) are similar? Is it so hard to think that there are some things which are similar to other things by their existence as a particular?

Any question go "moving to subatomic particles" is irrelevant. Rather than trying to give an account for a similar particular by some other state of existence, we have finally learned we are talking about given particular, specific states of the world, which are similar (or different) to each other. Two objects are red by each object, each particular, being red.

With respect to science, this is actually quite an important point. The notion of "universals" leads to the mistake of trying to define states of existence through ideas. We start talking about things "human nature," as if there are a particular set of qualities which all humans will necessarily possesses, even though the world may end-up doing something different (e.g. humans born without arms, without eyes, with superpowers, etc.,etc. ). We stop looking at the particulars we need to for description of the world, instead trusting we know a "universal" which must grant us knowledge of existing states, to a point where we think no longer have to think about or describe a state itself.

Reply to Michael

Yes, but a model which doesn't model anything is not much of a model.

Quoting Michael

I don't understand the problem. You say that "we experience a world of particulars" but also that "we ... experience similarities". So if particulars aren't problematic then why are similarities? We experience them both.

It is accounting for the similarities that is problematic. We experience similarities among particulars. How is that? What is going on?

Quoting Michael

How are they hard to accommodate? We describe the structure and behaviour of two particular things using (more or less) the same sentence. What's strange about this?

For one thing, that universals are not bound to any single location. And for another, that particulars somehow participate in, or share properties with the universals. And finally, that universals are not epistemic. We experience particulars, not the universals themselves. Although maybe an Aristotelian can clarify their position here.

Quoting Michael

Perhaps; if you wish to keep universals our of our ontology. But why do you wish to do this? What, exactly, is the problem with saying that we use the single word "triangle" to describe the shape of two different particular things?

You're the one who has been challenging realism about universals in this thread, which would mean to keep them out of one's ontology. I was just explaining what that amounts to. If there are no universals, then particulars must do the work instead. That's all.

Quoting darthbarracuda

I would dispute this. A trope theorist would argue that the attributes that are shared are actually just particulars that are part of a set.

Maybe so? If tropes can do the work, then there is no need for universals in one's philosophy. The question is can they? I take it that's an ongoing debate.

One issue for tropes is that they are themselves strange. The notion of abstract particulars is bound to draw similar stares of disbelief as universals do.

Marchesk:To put the problem as simply as possible, particulars are particulars because they are unique. And yet these unique particulars seem to have attributes which are not unique. It is those non-unique attributes which permits us to generalize. What needs explaining is how unique particulars appear to have non-unique features.

That's incoherent.

Since particulars are unique, any expression of aspect of them is unique, no matter any similarity. Two clones are most definitely not each other, no matter how much alike they look, think, sound, act, etc.,etc.

There are no non-unique features. Any feature of a state of existence, by definition, is of that state only, including in instances where a feature is similar to what is found in some other particular.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

There are no non-unique features. Any feature of a state of existence, by definition, is of that state only, including in instances where a feature is similar to what is found in some other particular.

If that's the case, then how does our universalizing work at all? How is it that we can categorize anything, or notice relationships between any particulars? In a universe of 100% unique particulars, generalization is impossible.

Unless you want to argue that the mind imposes a structure on the world which doesn't exist. That we're the ones adding the similarities in. I suppose that's what conceptualism amounts to.

Reply to John I didn't say it doesn't model anything.

Reply to Michael

Well why should we not say the predicates in the model are or are not reflective of the properties of what is being modeled?

Reply to Marchesk I agree, I find Trope Theory to be lacking in explaining the similarity between tropes without the use of universals.

Reply to Marchesk

There is no such thing as universalizing. When we "generalise" or "universal," we are at best talking about a similarity found in many unique states and at worst mistaking our idea about a feature for describing a state of the world.

There is no "how" in sense you are expecting. Categorisation isn't a function of an existing object. It is only how we talk about it. Placing an object in a category is defined by how we exist using language. So is whether or not we recognise the relationships between states of existence. In either case, it is always a question whether we exist with the relevant experience. How do we categories? We have the experience, use language, which is the relevant categorisation. How do we tell the relationship between objects? We know how the objects in question relate to each other. It is all defined what we are doing, not by the nature of any object we might know.

[quote=Marchesk]We experience similarities among particulars. How is that? What is going on?[/quote]

The same areas of our brain that "light up" in response to stimulus X also "light up" in response to stimulus Y. And they do so because stimulus X and stimulus Y behave in the same way. I really don't understand what's troublesome. If it's possible for one thing to behave in such-and-such a way then it's possible for another thing to behave in that same way.

You seem to be working on the premise that it's less problematic for each individual particular to behave in its own unique manner. But what warrants this premise?

For one thing, that universals are not bound to any single location.

I don't know what you mean by this. Just that two particulars in different locations each behave in the same way? Yes. But, again, what's strange about this?

And finally, that universals are not epistemic.

Well, that's not true. We do know about universals.

We experience particulars, not the universals themselves.

But earlier you said that we experience similarities and that universals are similarities. Therefore we experience universals.

You're the one who has been challenging realism about universals in this thread, which would mean to keep them out of one's ontology.

Well, no, because I reject realist ontology.

But if you need to keep universals out of one's (realist) ontology, and if universals are apparent, then clearly one's (realist) ontology fails.

Quoting Michael

But earlier you said that we experience similarities and that universals are similarities. Therefore we experience universals.

I stated that universals are an explanation for similarities, and that if one wishes to dispense with universals, then particulars must play the role of explaining similarities.

Quoting Michael

Well, that's not true. We do know about universals.

We know that we utilize universals in language. Whether they exist in the world somehow in addition to the particulars is the age-old debate.

Quoting Michael

I don't know what you mean by this. Just that two particulars in different locations each behave in the same way? Yes. But, again, what's strange about this?

No, it's rather that there is something else called a universal by which the two particulars share properties or relations.

Quoting Michael

Well, no, because I reject realist ontology. If, however, you want a realist ontology, and if universals are inconsistent with a realist ontology, and if universals are apparent, then clearly realist ontology fails.

Realism in this debate means there are universals in addition to particulars, either in the particulars themselves, or some other realm. Maybe there are other options, but the point is they exist somewhere outside of our thoughts and language.

Quoting Michael

You seem to be working on the premise that it's less problematic for each individual particular to behave in its own unique manner. But what warrants this premise?

I may have made a mistake here in my characterization of the problem. It's not just that particulars have similarities. It's that we universalize over all potential particulars to say things like gravity is inversely proportional to distance squared for all objects having mass. But of course we don't experience all matter, so how are we able to do that?

Or we can say that all apples have the properties X, Y, Z without ever experiencing all apples. That's different from taking 100 apples and lumping them in a category of similar traits. And yet we have a great deal of confidence that certain properties make an apple an apple, which differentiate it from non-apples.

Reply to Marchesk

This way of thinking seems wrong-headed. Better to say that particulars are also universals, and universals are also particulars. or perhaps rather that universality and particularity are properties of things.

Reply to Marchesk Even though Kantians make a strong argument, the big problem with it is that our best scientific theories say something very different. They describe a deep time before us, leading up to us. Our very existence is explained by cosmology, astronomy, geology and evolution.

Kant's 'Theory of Nebular Formation', adapted by LaPlace, is part of the corpus of modern astronomy. So don't think that there's a contradiction between Kant's philosophical work and science; there isn't.

[quote=Marchesk]No, it's rather that there is something else called a universal by which the two particulars share properties or relations.[/quote]

And I think this is a category mistake. It's not that there is this particular, that particular, and a universal, just as it's not that there is a library, a classroom, and a university. You can't have a university without its "parts" and you can't have a universal without its particulars (i.e. you can't have something that things have in common if you don't have things to have something in common). But just as we don't then conclude that universities aren't real we shouldn't then conclude that universals aren't real.

This is why I pointed out that the very question "are universals real?" is mistaken. What you should ask is "is X a real universal?" And if X is something that many particulars have in common then X is a real universal. It is an empirical fact that many particulars have things in common (shape, size, colour, etc.) and so it is an empirical fact that these things (shape, size, colour, etc.) are real universals.

It's that we universalize over all potential particulars to say things like gravity is inversely proportional to distance squared for all objects having mass. But of course we don't experience all matter, so how are we able to do that?

I don't understand. We do it by doing it. We say "gravity is inversely proportional to distance squared for all objects having mass" and then if this statement successfully describes (and predicts) every experiment then we say that it is true.

Are you just asking "why is a single sentence able to describe many different instances of empirical phenomena?" Well, we don't know why. And conversely, if reality were different then we wouldn't know why a single sentence isn't able to describe many different instances of empirical phenomena. Some things are inexplicable.

And yet we have a great deal of confidence that certain properties make an apple an apple, which differentiate it from non-apples.

This sounds like essentialism, and as I argued here, essentialism doesn't really work.

Maybe there are other options, but the point is they exist somewhere outside of our thoughts and language.

Well, if the property of this particular "exists outside thoughts and language" and if the property of that particular "exists outside thoughts and language", and if both of these properties are described using the same term (e.g. "negative charge"), then a property which different particulars have in common "exists outside thoughts and language".

Reply to Wayfarer The contradiction comes from stating that we can't get outside our perspective to say what the world is like without us, and yet very important and successful scientific theories do exactly that.

Quoting Michael

But just as we don't then conclude that universities aren't real we shouldn't then conclude that universals aren't real.

Well, Some philosophers don't think that universities are real.

Quoting Michael

What you should ask is "is X a real universal?" And if X is something that many particulars have in common then X is a real universal. It is an empirical fact that many particulars have things in common (shape, size, colour, etc.) and so it is an empirical fact that these things (shape, size, colour, etc.) are real universals.

Does this imply a kind of strong emergence for universals then? Could you have predicted the existence of universities from their parts before there were any universities?

Quoting Michael

This sounds like essentialism, and as I argued here, essentialism doesn't really work.

Universals and essentialism seem related. If you accept that universals are real, can you still deny essentialism? You are agreeing that it's true that things in common share the same properties.

Quoting Michael

I don't understand. We do it by doing it. We say "gravity is inversely proportional to distance squared for all objects having mass" and then if this statement successfully describes (and predicts) every experiment then we say that it is true.

Yes, but it's saying more than that. It's saying that it's true for the entire cosmos, which is impossible to test. We have an expectation that when we come across new stars or galaxies, the same principle will apply. That's what makes it universal.

Yes, but it's saying more than that. It's saying that it's true for the entire cosmos, which is impossible to test. We have an expectation that when we come across new stars or galaxies, the same principle will apply. That's what makes it universal.

I think you're using "universal" in a different manner here. But regardless, what's problematic about this? We say that it's true for the entire cosmos, and if it successfully describes and predicts all relevant phenomena then it is and if it doesn't then it isn't.

Quoting Michael

We say that it's true for the entire cosmos, and if it successfully describes and predicts all relevant phenomena then it is and if it doesn't then it isn't.

It's not a problem if one accepts the reality of universals. It is if one doesn't. Then you need to account for laws of nature some other way. To say that it just fits observation is to ignore the problem, which is to account for the existence of such principles.

[quote=Marchesk]It's not a problem if one accepts the reality of universals. It is if one doesn't. Then you need to account for laws of nature some other way.[/quote]

Then accept the reality of universals. Many particulars really do have things in common. It's empirically evident. X and Y are both (correctly) described as having a negative charge or being circle. It's still not clear to my what the problem is.

Quoting Michael

Then accept the reality of universals. Many particulars really do have things in common. It's empirically evident. X and Y are both (correctly) described as having a negative charge or being circle. It's still not clear to my what the problem is.

I tried to explain, but it's been considered a problem in philosophy since the Ancient Greeks.

I suppose that all particulars are related, and that only by means of universals that limits can be drawn between particulars. An apple is not a doughnut. The relationship between the universal and the particular are defined outside of any particular universal and any specific particular. The habitual appearances we note are ongoing/changing all the time, their manifestations are infinite. If we suddenly find a variety of apple that is bred to have a hole in the middle we would have to change our concept of what it means when we say 'apple'. We would have expand the limits of what it means to be an apple.

A blind man can have no universal concept of color, just a a deaf man can have no abstract idea of sound. They are unable to imagine exactly what is meant by these terms.

Marchesk:Yes, but it's saying more than that. It's saying that it's true for the entire cosmos, which is impossible to test. We have an expectation that when we come across new stars or galaxies, the same principle will apply. That's what makes it universal.

This is disgusting scientism and essentialism, Marchesk. We do not say that gravity must be true for the entire cosmos. What we know is the states we have observed and these fit with the present description of gravity. We have the expectation new stars and galaxies will work by the same principle, and given what we have seen, this is a fair guess.

But it is not description of the new state or galaxy. To describe the galaxy, we still have to perform the observation work. It might be different to the stars of galaxies we do before. We can't proclaim our theory of gravity must be true everywhere. It can't be because states of the world are distinct and defined in themselves. There's always the possibility a given state works differently than ones we have observed before. We cannot proclaim a theory must apply to the entire cosmos. Such a "universal" is impossible because each states of the world is its own thing.

What makes it disgusting? GR and QM are said to apply to the entire cosmos. It is an inference that can be shown incorrect, but the problem of universals is that we so readily universalize over particulars.

Reply to Marchesk

Well... it is anti-scientific for starters. It throws out observation and suggests we can account for the world by merely relying on the ideas we have used before. If we think in that manner, we lose capacity to notice states which confound our present theories.

It's also terrible with respect to interactions betweens humans. Since it is an essentialist position, it has us thinking we know the "nature" people without taking a moment to consider them and their relationship to our theories and actions. It leads to people being ostracised because they don't fit with the "essential" nature of (supposedly) all humans. An ignorance of the difference between our actions as a society (e.g. description, categorisation, etc., etc) and states of existence (e.g. someone's biological states) is created, such that we start equivocating our ideas and categories for someone with their existence.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

Well... it is anti-scientific for starters

If it's anti-scientific, then why do scientists posit such things? If you don't think they do, then go ask a physicists if GR or QM applies to the entire universe. Go ask a biologist if evolution applies to all life. The topology of the universe itself is said to be determined by gravity, for Plato's sake.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

It's also terrible with respect to interactions betweens humans. Since it is an essentialist position, it has us thinking we know the "nature" people without taking a moment to consider them and their relationship to our theories and actions.

Well, there must be something about humans which differentiates us from duckbill platypuses or peat moss. That people have gotten all worked up about what exactly that is and done terrible things doesn't change the fact that we're not dogs.

Marchesk:If it's anti-scientific, then why do scientists posit such things? If you don't think they do, then go ask a physicists if GR or QM applies to the entire universe. Go ask a biologist if evolution applies to all life. The topology of the universe itself is said to be determined by gravity, for Plato's sake.

What exactly does the "entire universe" mean here? If we are talking bout the observed universe or the measured universe which relates to the observed universe, then the answer is clear: we say GR or QM applies to the entirety of that realm because, for that realm (i.e. the observed and measured), the theory fits. The topology of the (observed) universe does express gravity. This doesn't mean the universe always express this. There may be instances of the universe which behave differently. (as we discovered in the shift from Newtonian mechanics to GR to QM).

Otherwise, if someone proclaims a theory must apply to the entire universe, in the sense of a "universal," in the sense everything thing which exist must necessarily be like that, it is merely that scientists can be just as vulnerable to thinking of the world infinite terms as any one with "belief."

[quote"Marchesk"]Well, there must be something about humans which differentiates us from duckbill platypuses or peat moss. That people have gotten all worked up about what exactly that is and done terrible things doesn't change the fact that we're not dogs.[/quote]

For sure... but it is not our statements or ideas (even about biology) which make that distinction. It is existing biological states. Whether or not we state the biological differences between humans, platypuses or peat moss, we are different. The difference is not defined by are acts of description or categorisation.

Reply to Marchesk The contradiction comes from stating that we can't get outside our perspective to say what the world is like without us, and yet very important and successful scientific theories do exactly that.

'A theory' requires a set of connected axioms - what is it that makes the connections between those axioms? Theories are still entertained by minds, there is no way to get outside of that.

Furthermore, you're posing a false dichotomy between Kant and science - the Critique of Pure Reason is not creationism or religious dogma. Kant was an empirical realist, he wasn't trying to undermine science.

Quoting Wayfarer

Furthermore, you're posing a false dichotomy between Kant and science - the Critique of Pure Reason is not creationism or religious dogma. Kant was an empirical realist, he wasn't trying to undermine science.

I'm not saying he wasn't, but you stated that the view from nowhere is impossible for us, and yet science posits deep time in which there were no human minds. And what happened during this deep time is what led to human minds being able to connect axioms about that past. You also stated that the world outside of us is unknowable, but again science has quite a lot to say about this unknowableness. We weren't there in the Big Bang or when life first got going, but yet science says that's what's crucially important to us being here in the first place.

You have to bracket all that and add the caveat, as it appears to us. Or as it is correlated to us. Which is odd, because it appears to us that there was all this stuff happening without us, and most crucially, we wouldn't be around if not for all that. But if philosophically we can't say what the world is like without us, then those scientific theories are prima facie wrong without caveating them. It only appears to scientists that our existence depends on Evolution, etc.

I fully accept the facts of evolution, scientific analysis of the age of the cosmos, and the rest. But theories remain mind-dependent in the sense that any theory has to be entertained by a mind. 'What happened anyway', regardless of any observer, in the absence of all minds, is impossible or even meaningless to conceive of. 'The length of time that the Universe existed before us', is calculated in units which are meaningful to the human mind, in terms of intervals and distances which are measureable by that mind, such as 'the time taken for the earth to rotate the Sun' and 'the speed of light'. This doesn't mean that 'the universe exists in the mind' but t does mean that whatever we say or know about it is dependent on a mind that measures it and understands it; that is always part of the picture. It is an inextricable part of the whole. The conceit of scientific realism is to act as if that has been taken out, but it's always there; the whole issue with the 'measurement problem' in physics is that this has more or less reached out through the glass in the observatory and whacked scientists on the nose.

I understand that you accept that facts, and that theories have to be formulated by minds. Nevertheless, the theories that have been formulated state there is this deep time before us. I take that to mean evolution is true in that it really happened, as opposed to it just appears to happen to creatures like us with our particular senses and cognitive abilities.

But according to evolutionary theory, those same 'senses and cognitive abilities' are the sole consequence of the evolutionary processes - which are held to be blind, purposeless and un-directed. So it's a wonder that we have the ability to determine such things as 'the age of the Universe', if indeed we have done that. The things you pick up chasing wildebeest!

Anyway, this is a debate about scientific realism. What you're saying is that the world described by scientific theory is a real world, independently of what science says about it. I'm arguing that the world is inextricably bound up with the observing mind. That doesn't say that the world is 'in the mind', but it does deny the premise of scientific realism, that the observer is really separate from the world s/he observes. So I think we might agree to differ on that point, but I also think it has been a useful exchange for delineating what exactly is at issue.

It is useful, and I was wondering how universals might play a role in the debate over scientific realism. It sounds like Kantianism is a strong version of conceptualism. I wonder if scientific realism requires universals or tropes to be part of the world. Does the issue ultimately go back to how we are able to make sense of the flux of experience?

Marchesk: I wonder if scientific realism requires universals or tropes to be part of the world. Does the issue ultimately go back to how we are able to make sense of the flux of experience?

I think the idea universals have to be part of the world is correlationism working its way through a back door. What are we saying if we suggest that states of the world need "universals" to be? Well, we are saying that for a given state to exist, there must be this "universal" idea which its presence is dependent on. Instead of addressing particulars (states of existence) on their own terms, we are back trying to construct them out of ideas and experience (the "universal" we propose to be their origin).

The dependency of the world (states of existence) on the "mind" has snuck back into our philosophy. We are, once again, considering states of the world to be defined by the "universal" ideas we have in our minds, rather than considering them are there own unique moments of existence.

Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness

I think the idea universals have to be part of the world is correlationism working its way through a back door. What are we saying if we suggest that states of the world need "universals" to be? Well, we are saying that for a given state to exist, there must be this "universal" idea which its presence is dependent on. Instead of addressing particulars (states of existence) on their own terms, we are back trying to construct them out of ideas and experience (the "universal" we propose to be their origin).

The dependency of the world (states of existence) on the "mind" has snuck back into our philosophy. We are, once again, considering states of the world to be defined by the "universal" ideas we have in our minds, rather than considering them are there own unique moments of existence.

For me the idea that universals could exist apart from the world is unintelligible, so there wouldn't seem to be any alternative to saying they are "part of the world" (in the sense that they are inherent in any idea of "the world").

The idea "states of the world" is itself a universal. I think you are conflating nature, the existence which is "had" in experience, with the states that are subsequently "known" by experience (the quotation marks are to acknowledge that these are not my terms, but the terms of John Dewey's distinction between types of experience).

Particulars can only be "addressed" in terms of universals. The term 'particular' is itself a universal. A particular can only be understood in terms of its universal properties; the properties that make it a token of a particular type. So, for example the appearance and behavior of a particular lion is understood in terms of the appearance and behavior of lions in general. If no two supposed lions looked or behaved like lions then they would not be lions at all.

We do not "construct" particulars out of universals as origins, it is quite the reverse; we "construct" universals out of recognition of the manifest commonalities of particulars. Once an understanding of the general properties of a type of particular is established it may be used to recognize future manifestations of that type; but certainly not to construct future manifestations.

States of existence (what is known) in experience are of course dependent on the mind, but not wholly so; they are also dependent on the primordial existence which is "had" in experience prior to any knowledge (consciousness). The mind itself is of course dependent on this existence which is primordially "had" in experience but there are no objects or states of existence prior to consciousness, how could there be? To say there are such is to illegitimately transpose the eventuated understanding of objects and states, which is dependent on consciousness, or better codependent on consciousness, or better still, which is consciousness, back to the mere existence which is antecedent to any such understanding.

I don't think there is much of a problem with universals if we accept a version of 'conceptualism':

Quoting Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Platonism in Metaphysics)

Conceptualism (also called psychologism and mentalism, depending on the sorts of objects under discussion): This is the view that there do exist numbers — or properties, or propositions, or whatever — but that they do not exist independently of us; instead, they are mental objects; in particular, the claim is usually that they are something like ideas in our heads.

If everything is a thought I'm not sure you run into the same problems. There is no platonic realm needed to explain where redness etc. is, it is just a mental realm.

Quoting invizzy

If everything is a thought I'm not sure you run into the same problems. There is no platonic realm needed to explain where redness etc. is, it is just a mental realm.

Well, you still need to account for why we have such concepts, and how they map onto particulars. I assume we use concepts such as redness because it makes sense of something about particulars (that some of them are shaded red).

I am a little confused as to the difference between nominalism and conceptualism. Is it that nominalism just sees universals as naming schemes and arbitrary groupings, while conceptualism is more a matter of our cognitive makeup that we see the world in universal terms?

Reply to Marchesk

Why do we need to account for the concepts? Can't we dismiss them as false if we reject platonism? We can have false concepts right?

Quoting invizzy

Why do we need to account for the concepts? Can't we dismiss them as false if we reject platonism? We can have false concepts right?

Sure, but I guess the question is what do we mean we talk about the world using universals? If the universals are false, then what are we talking about?

Reply to Marchesk

Right but I'm saying universals don't exist. We just have a THOUGHT of redness.

Quoting invizzy

Right but I'm saying universals don't exist. We just have a THOUGHT of redness.

We have a thought of redness, true. But then there are red things. Which is presumably why we think of red.

Reply to Marchesk
Oh I see. Well an Idealist would say EVERYTHING is thought (or at least all that is known is thought) which would solve that problem, wouldn't it?

Quoting invizzy

I don't think there is much of a problem with universals if we accept a version of 'conceptualism':

From the IEP:

"As tidy as this seems, it too suffers from problems. To see this, we need to realize that concepts can be misapplied in some cases, such as when we say of a cat that it is a dog. And misapplied concepts explain nothing deep about generality. Conceptualism's appeal to concept application must concern only correct concept application. As such, it is fair to ask, “What makes it the case that the concept red is rightly applied to both a and b, but not of some third individual, c?” To treat this fact as brute and inexplicable is to revert to problematic Predicate Nominalism. So it seems the Conceptualist must say that the concept red applies to a and b, but not c, because a and b share a common feature, a feature c lacks. Otherwise, the application of red is unconstrained by the individuals to which it applies. But simply noting that a and b resemble each other isn't going to help, because that just is the fact we originally sought to explain, put differently. The Conceptualist might now say that a and b share a property. But if this isn't to amount to a restatement of the original datum, it must now be interpreted as the claim that some entity is in both a and b. That, of course, turns our supposed Conceptualist strategy back into Realism.

Critics say Conceptualism solves no problems on its own. In trying to ground our right to predicate the concept red of a and b, we are driven back to facts about a and b themselves and that leaves Conceptualism as an unstable position. It teeters back and forth between Realism, on the one hand, and Nominalism, on the other."

Quoting Marchesk

I am a little confused as to the difference between nominalism and conceptualism.

So, Marchesk, conceptualism is an unstable position between nominalism and realism, although it claims to be nominalism.

[reply="darthbarracuda"]

“What makes it the case that the concept red is rightly applied to both a and b, but not of some third individual, c?”

I don't see a problem here, surely red is applied if something is thought of as red.

Reply to invizzy a and b are similar but different to c. What makes this so? The redness of a and b, they are similar to each other.

That's not to say that the realist interpretation of similarity (universals) is necessarily correct. You could be a nominalist trope theorist and think that the Taj Mahal has a unique color, unique meaning numerically independent from any other trope, even an identical-looking trope. It seems to me that we can avoid the question of what makes these tropes similar by appealing to evolution and realizing that attributes exist in a spectrum, just as colors exist in a rainbow, and that it would be significantly beneficial to the survival of the species for an organism to be able to see similarities between objects.

Reply to darthbarracuda

Yeah but I'm saying a and b are called red because they are THOUGHT of as red. That's how conceptualism works. And if c is not thought of as red it won't be described as such. It is not about redness from a third person's view at all, that is totally irrelevant - from their point of view it could be green!

Reply to invizzy But why are a and b thought of as red while c is not?

Reply to darthbarracuda
Good question, could be a demon putting the thought in our head, we simply don't know. There is no access to the real world, you see. But presumably there is a cause; perhaps light reflecting, cones firing, the lack of tinted spectacles or water in the way, just the fact that there is anything there in the first place. Most likely a combination of these.

But it could be a demon. And that is an important point.

Quoting invizzy

here is no access to the real world, you see.

Not really.

Quoting invizzy

But presumably there is a cause; perhaps light reflecting, cones firing, the lack of tinted spectacles or water in the way,

Which would be the real access. You can't appeal to the real world to undermine real access. If everything is a mental construct, then that includes the brain, photons, etc. As such, scientific explanation can't undermine realism if they're already ideal.

Reply to Marchesk

Yeah I would agree that brains and photons are thoughts too. Everything is -from your own point of view. You can't think of anything that is not a thought.
We must be talking past each other a bit.
Do you agree that everything you can think of is mediated by a thought? That is not 'real' access, surely?

Quoting invizzy

Do you agree that everything you can think of is mediated by a thought? That is not 'real' access, surely?

Sure, and I agree that everything I see is mediated by seeing. As for real access, thoughts are real. People have them, presumably because they have brains, brains that are part of bodies moving about in the world. I consider being a body in the world to be real access.

Reply to Marchesk Yeah but access to that body and outside things are going to be through thoughts. For us they're the only tthings that exist. And that's important, for US. I'm not saying bodies don't exist, they do but for us they only exist though mental activity.

1. Everything you can think is necessarily from your point of view.
2. It follows that everything (from your point of view) is what you are thinking at this point in time.
3. What you are thinking at this point in time is a thought.
4. It follows that everything is thought.