Why are universals regarded as real things?
Surely it would be that universals like "the perfect triangle" or "perfect body proportion" are just an ideas within our minds and hold no physical existence outside of our thinking of them.
Why does it sound like philosophers are saying that certain ideas of objects and forms actually have an existence outside of the mind? That just sounds silly, yet I know I am missing something here...
Just to confirm, physicalism and universals are non-compatible right?
Why does it sound like philosophers are saying that certain ideas of objects and forms actually have an existence outside of the mind? That just sounds silly, yet I know I am missing something here...
Just to confirm, physicalism and universals are non-compatible right?
Comments (490)
No one argues that universals have physical existence. As I understand it, the issue is whether universals are nevertheless real - i.e., whether there are modes of being other than individual, particular actuality. Setting aside the notion of "perfect," the idea is that a triangle is a universal - there is an infinite continuum of potential triangles, with different combinations of angles and side lengths. They are all real because they possess certain characteristic properties, regardless of whether anyone thinks that they do.
Quoting intrapersona
I think so, because physicalism entails that the only mode of being is physical existence.
You might take a look at the ongoing thread on "Does existence precede essence?" and the recent one on "Inescapable universals," since they have both touched on this subject.
If something is real, does it not need to have existant properties in some way? How can something be real and not exist? Universals seemed to be concepts much in the same way that I think of a pink fluffy cloud made out of uranium. The cloud doesn't exist but couldn't I say the cloud is real nonetheless? That sounds like what you are doing, what does real even mean in this context?
I tried looking at those threads but I just can't seem to read further without getting frustrated by not understanding this very basic issue I can't seem to get my head around.
Where would these modes of being exist without an individual or "particular actuality" to observe them?
P.S. thanks for taking the time to help me here
Where does this infinitum continuum of potential exist? I thought universals weren't dependent on spacetime in anyway. Don't potential states of affairs need to depend on spacetime in order for them to be "potential"?
How can they be real if they are still just latent/dormant potential states? That is like saying the infinite potential of states of me in 5 minutes have certain characteristic properties. We could only ever say that I "may" have characteristic properties and we might not ever know what they are, incase out of the infinite amount of possibilities, I end up turning in to a pineapple in 3.5 minutes.
Have a read of this blog post by Ed Feser which discusses triangles as an example.
The gist of it is:
One point is that a triangle is the same for any mind, not just for the individual mind, and that the specification of 'a plane bounded by three straight lines' can be realised in many different physical forms.
So then, where do they exist? If they are not a product of physical states, nor the mind then what? This sounds like another unjustified metaphysical claim yet it goes back to plato ffs what am i missing here?
The problem is, in our culture, everything is either 'in the mind' i.e. a product of the material brain, or 'out there somewhere'. Platonism doesn't see it like that, as for Plato, there are real ideas, or concepts, which will be the same for anyone capable of grasping them. But they're purely intelligible - they're not material objects, but intelligible objects.
It's simply a reification, in the sense of a psychological projection into the objective world, of ideas and the mental aspects of language.
A lot of mistakes are made simply due to the reification (in this sense) of mental content.
To some extent there have been overt efforts in this regard--the general rejection of psychologism, the desire to make philosophy a science, etc., but often it's a simple oversight bolstered by a lack of analysis and a bit of ego, a la "how I think about things, my opinions, aren't just how I think about things or my opinions, they're FACTS." Part of it is also due to the fact that it can be far simpler to talk about things under an "as if" reification stance than it is to explain what's really going on physically (and that's partially due to the fact that our natural languages developed in relation to these mistaken beliefs).
Do you see the "sum of the properties"--like for example, say that we're talking about the property of redness, as an independent thing, though?
It depends on what you mean by "exist." Platonists might talk about forms that exist independently in a separate realm that is real, but non-material. Aristotelians see forms as composite with matter, such that they only strictly exist in their instantiations, but are still real apart from them. I prefer Peirce's terminology myself, where "real" means having identifiable properties independent of human thought, and "exist" means reacting with other things. Thus possibilities (qualities, feeling, spontaneity) and necessities (habits, laws, continuity) are real, but only actualities (things, facts, haecceity) exist.
Quoting intrapersona
"Where" is the wrong question. It presupposes that spatio-temporal existence, having a "here and now" aspect, is the only real mode of being.
Quoting intrapersona
No, they only depend on spacetime in order for them to be actualized. If a potential state of affairs is real at all, then it must have a different mode of being than existence; otherwise, it would not be distinguishable from an actual state of affairs.
Quoting intrapersona
Why are we able to be confident that you will not turn into a pineapple in 3.5 minutes? Because that is not a real possibility, any more than a triangle turning into a rectangle while remaining within the infinite continuum of real triangles.
I am not trying to sell you (or anyone else) anything, just doing my best to answer the question posed by the thread title. If you cannot accept the reality of anything except spatio-temporal existence, then realism about universals is obviously not for you.
Yeah, I didn't mean that personally. I'm just saying this re those sorts of views in general--from Plato and so on.
You don't have to believe in Platonic universals to believe in universals. Nevertheless Platonic universals are quite helpful with many problems.
Quoting intrapersona
No, this is false.
All universal theorists are arguing for is the existence of an entity that somehow exists in multiple places at the same time. The red of that firetruck is similar to the red of that fire hydrant in virtue of the fact that both objects instantiate the universal "red-ness".
It can be helpful to think of properties as ways objects are. Universal theorists think that these "ways" are repeatable entities. Those with the same property are literally instantiating the same universal.
Furthermore, it should be noted that not every single property has to be a universal, or has to have a copy somewhere. The more complex systems become the more likely unique arrangements of atoms will occur, arrangements that may never occur ever again.
Thus similarity is oftentimes not literal same-ness but rather a close resemblance in virtue of instantiating a certain number of similar universals, but perhaps not all.
Re the parts in italics above, and especially the terms in bold, how would the entities in question be physical? Where would they be instantiated first off?
So the question is, how are universals physical? I would argue that "physicality" is a universal itself.
There's no "physical" and then "everything else" on top of it. What makes a universal physical is whether or not it is necessarily instantiated only in cases in which the property of physicality is instantiated.
If we're non-physicalists, like dualists, say, then we would say that the property of "blue-ness" is non-physical, perhaps mental, in virtue of the fact that "blue-ness" does not exist outside of the mind, and is thus a mental property. i.e. a property of the mind, vs a property of the physical.
Okay, but you're positing an entity that's not identical to its instantiations in particulars, right? What I'm asking you is how that entity is physical.
Well, I mean, universal theorists don't have to be Platonists. We can be Aristotelian and believe that universals actually exist in the world and aren't just cheap knock-offs of the ones in the Platonic World of Forms.
So if I were a transcendental Platonist then yes, the Platonic Forms would not be physical, they would be "something else". If I were an Aristotelian immanent theorist, then universals would be physical if essentially paired with the universal of physicality.
It seems like you're avoiding answering the question I'm asking though. Re "We can be Aristotelian and believe that universals actually exist in the world"--that's fine, but how do they exist in the world, exactly as something physical? Re "Universals would be physical if essentially paried with the universal of physicality" I don't really know what that's saying.
Similarly it doesn't make sense to talk of things like mass or shape outside of how they are instantiated by physical objects. I already said that physicality and other universals are not necessarily identical, but I also said that physical universals are "physical" in that they cannot be instantiated apart from physicality. They are separate properties but are unable to be separated.
Aristotelian substance is the name for the thing that exists without predicates, in which everything else is predicated of. You cannot have universals without substance, but without universals substance isn't anything discernible.
Would that include fields? Fields are studied by physicists, their effects can be detected by instruments, but they have nothing in common with physical objects, because they're not physical objects, and some of them are not detectable except in terms of their effects.
Quoting Terrapin Station
However, if number is included under the heading of 'universals', then it is clear that numerical reasoning has many consequences in the objective world, and enables many accurate predictions which otherwise couldn't be made. The history of science is practically built on such discoveries.
As to 'where universals are' - the idea behind this question is that everything real must be locatable in terms of space and time. But universals don't exist in that sense - instead they're inherent in the operations of the mind (they are, therefore, among what Kant would have classified as the 'transcendentals'). But that isn't to say that they're merely psychological or internal to thought. We have no choice but to think via universals:
Platonism vs Naturalism.
I mean that's generally why I don't see the point in calling things "physical", it inevitably leaves things out or is so broad as to be indistinguishable from simply "being" in the naturalistic sense.
But I believe that no matter how exotic things are, they nevertheless have properties that make them what they are.
As you could probably guess (or maybe already know), mathematical realism or platonism is no less a reification in my view. Our mathematical thinking certain is a handy tool, but that doesn't imply that it's something other than thinking.
Re the location questions to darth barracuda, that's simply in the context of him saying that realism on universals need not be incompatible with physicalism. So I'm querying how that would work, exactly.
It sounds like you're saying that under physicalism, "universals" are simply the properties that obtain via particulars. But that's not realism on universals at all--that's nominalism.
Not necessarily, realism about universals would be that these properties, obtained by particulars, are one and the same across particulars. They are not physical, they are properties, universals, just as physicality is a universal.
Okay, but if they're not physical, then it's not physicalism.
But it can still be physicalism, as long as we limit particulars that exist as being physical. The properties of particulars may not be physical themselves. But in order to talk about physicalism, we have to know what physical even consists in, and it won't due to simply say the tautology "everything that exists is physical, and what is physical is everything that exists".
It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers "physical" to denote, exactly).
This means nothing.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You're re-stating the law of identity.
To elaborate the point I'm making - universal characteristics or attributes are those by virtue of which the mind, in grasping one thing, can grasp many separate things. Universals are an aspect of what has been called 'the formal domain', that is, the domain of laws, rules, conventions, logic, and so forth. There's no point in asking where this domain is, as it is not located in space and time; rather it is inherent in both the structure of reality and the nature of thought itself. In that sense, it precedes and informs what exists, but does not itself exist. Because of the 'habit of extroversion' that has been bred into us by the culture in which we live, such ideas are incomprehensible to most of us; more fool us, I say.
LOL
If that is what physicalism entails then I doubt anyone would actually want to call themselves a physicalist.
So you've been thinking that "physicalism" simply amounts to people who believe that some, but not all, of "what there is" is physical? Contra people who think that nothing is physical, maybe?
I consider physicalism to be the doctrine that whatever exists "on the stage" so to speak is "physical", whatever that entails. "Physical" itself cannot be "physical" without being empty of meaning. It has to mean something, and it can only mean something if there are alternatives.
'In philosophy, physicalism is the ontological thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical,[1] or that everything supervenes on the physical.[2] Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality as opposed to a "two-substance" (dualism) or "many-substance" (pluralism) view.' ~ Wikipedia
'Physicalism (also known as Materialistic Monism - see the sections on Materialism and Monism) is the philosophical position that everything which exists is no more extensive than its physical properties, and that the only existing substance is physical.' - Basics of Philosophy
I'm not really familiar with that phrase, so I don't have an intuitive grasp for what it includes versus excludes.
Quoting darthbarracuda
What are you referring to there--the word? The concept (or meaning as you suggest in the next sentence)? Are you positing a necessary, real universal?
Concrete particular objects, the subjects of predicate statements. If we predicate the mind as physicalists, then the mind is a physical object. There are no concrete subjects that are not-physical.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, I am positing the necessary existence of a property, physicality, for the doctrine of physicalism. If everything is physical, then it needs to be explained what makes everything physical. Doing so, in my view, can only be accomplished by positing the existence of some"thing" that is not a concrete, physical object but nevertheless is necessary for concrete objects to even exist.
In your view, what's the difference for nonphysicalists, then?
Quoting darthbarracuda
I'm a physicalist who doesn't at all deny that there are properties. It's just that properties are physical particulars. Re this: "It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers 'physical' to denote, exactly)," to which you responded, "If that is what physicalism entails then I doubt anyone would actually want to call themselves a physicalist," I call myself a physicalist in the sense that you're saying no one would want to call themselves.
Quoting darthbarracuda
On my account, it simply refers to the fact that what there is is exhausted by matter, relations of matter and processes of matter.
I'm not saying that any of that is some "thing" that is not a concrete, physical object but nevertheless is necessary for concrete objects to even exist.
At any rate, I didn't mean to sidetrack this to a discussion of "what is physicalism" or a discussion of my general views as a physicalist. I was just trying to make sense of your view that realism on universals isn't incompatible with physicalism. After the exchanges we have on that, I'd say that you have a quite unconventional view of what physicalism is.
Nonphysicalists are those people who reject the doctrine that everything is "physical", whatever that entails precisely. Dualists are not physicalists, nor are idealists or anyone else like that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I can't say I understand what motivation you could have to hold such an extreme reductive view.
If properties are physical particulars, then what does is mean that the property of being a physical particular is a physical particular? This seems circular.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes, but are these different arrangements of matter themselves made of matter? That's what is at issue here. Matter can only be part of the explanation, there has to be a Form as well. Neither can exist without the other.
This is precisely what a (conventional) physicalist denies. You are imposing either Platonism or Aristotelian hylomorphism, and then trying to shoehorn physicalism into it. But a physicalist maintains that matter is the entire explanation, and that there are no (non-material) forms; the shoe does not fit.
This is simply not true.
A physicalist maintains that matter/energy as well as time and space are real.
Sorry, I meant matter in the broad modern sense that includes energy and space-time. The point is that the physicalist denies the reality of non-material forms.
But this is exactly what I am disputing, how can physicalism have a coherent definition of what "physical" entails or what "mass" or "energy" entail without appealing to something other than the physical, the massive, or the energetic?
As I understand it, a physicalist would say that those terms denote concepts, which are nothing more than (physical) brain states.
Say the physicalist argues that whatever is physical is whatever has mass or energy or what have you. Then we simply have to ask, well, what is mass, what is energy? What could mass and energy be other than a property something has, or a kind of "stuff" that everything has? And how is this not a universal?
I am not a physicalist, so I can only continue to speculate. My guess is that mass-energy is not considered a (universal) property in the same way that existence is not considered a predicate.
But we use mass and energy as predicates with power. Things have different amounts of mass, different amounts of energy. We can measure how much mass or energy things have.
I gather that those are considered particular properties that each individual thing has, not universal properties that multiple things have.
Units of measurements are particulars?
Physics is expressed via equations that quantify mass, energy, momentum and so on. Physicalism proper says that the things that are described in those terms are the only real things, matter-energy ( or matter-energy-space-time) being the only reality. That is why physicalism is called 'monistic'.
Concepts, in this view, are configurations of neural matter in the physical brain that is itself the consequence of the physical processes of evolution.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I think a physicalist would be quite entitled to argue that both mass and energy are irreducible, i.e. cannot be explained in other terms; analogous to the 'uncreated substance' of theism.
As I understand it, everything is a particular to a physicalist, because the only mode of being is actual existence.
Would you mind unpacking this a bit more? What does it mean for universals to explain? What does it mean for universals to be explained? On what basis would we ascertain which of these is the more appropriate pursuit? Surprising facts are what call for explanations, so we either hypothesize universals to explain certain surprising facts, or we need another hypothesis to explain the surprising fact of universals. Which do you advocate, and why?
They are universal particulars in that they quantify some quality absolutely everywhere. :)
Quoting StreetlightX
Yep. In a process philosophy view, both particulars and universals would be the product of mutual emergence. So it is the functional or telenomic level view that will get at it best. It is not about physical existence - either of abstracta, or concreta - but about the self-organised development of a stably persisent process.
Quoting aletheist
Physicalism is generally understood as a naturalism that excludes supernatural or transcendent causes. So it is against treating the mental aspect of reality as further kind of causal substance, as well as divine causes.
But physicalism can still pose its own ontic duality in terms of matter and sign - the semiotic approach. And this is essential for understanding life and mind as natural phenomena. More controversially - as pan-semiosis - it can even be applied to regular physics and cosmology.
So physicalism can indeed say there is "more" than just material cause. And that is important to discussions of the reality of universals like "cat", "cup", or even the colour "red".
Quoting Wayfarer
Note that a strict physicalism of this kind is really saying that all we know in the end is how to make measurements that seem to work (they are reliable, they serve demonstable purpose). So it is an epistemic point, not an ontic claim.
Words like energy, matter, time and space become signs of qualities that we consider universal. We know how to make those kinds of basic acts of measurement "whatever the physical situation". But in the end, we arrive at concepts so universal that they themselves lack visualisable properties. It is like trying to describe red if red were the only colour that everything is.
So in the end, we wind up talking about the ability to measure some naked difference. Energy density or spacetime is everywhere we look. And we know that there is "something" only in the sense we can scale its variation. With the three Planck constants in particular - c, G and h - we are down to primal measurements of a difference. What the difference is in, becomes hard to say, even if we give it names like the speed of light, the strength of gravity, or the quantum action.
In these cases, universality does not explain why the soap bubble or the snowflake looks like it does: rather one must explain the universality of both in terms of the (singular) processes which give rise to them.
But what explains the surprising fact that those (supposedly singular) processes are the same for all soap bubbles and snowflakes?
That is not so.
The speed of light is universal, it applies to any particular photon.
I am talking about the process that produces snowflakes. How can it be singular if it is the same everywhere? How can "a bunch of dust particles floating around in the right atmospheric conditions" occur in more than one place and at more than one time, if this situation is always just a collection of singulars? What enables us to predict the formation of snowflakes before it happens?
No, that's instrumentalism, which is an epistemic attitude. Strict physicalism says that the only real substance is matter, which is indeed an ontological claim (and monistic, as noted; however, since Einstein's discovery of the equivalence of matter-energy, physicalists are now obliged to use the term 'matter-energy' which is rather less crisp than they would have liked.)
I don't quite understand the perplexity here: the Earth has certain zones of climate, formed over the course of millions (billions?) of years of geogenesis, itself subject to differential processes of production, etc etc; Moreover, snowflakes are indeed all individual, their shapes differing depending on the trajectory they take as they fall through the air such that one can say that "the very structure of a snowflake ... embodies the conditions under which it was created" (Juarrero, 1999). It's singularity all the way 'up' - and all the way down. There is nothing not subject to history, to process, to becoming.
If we can predict - to some extent - the formation of snowflakes, it's because of certain climactic regularities, stabilized over time through the roughly self-regulating ecosphere that is the planet. Singularity doesn't entail pure randomness - rather, it entails that any regularities that do occur are themselves subject to processes by which they come into being. Even singularity is the product of a process. At no point do you 'bottom out' into the abstractions that are 'Forms'. The hard thought to think here is that generality - in this case climactic regularities - are themselves singularities (hard because we're we're cognitively - evolutonarily - wired to think of generality in terms of genericity*).
*Which is why I think the vocabulary of the general and the particular has a tendency to obscure more than it does clarify, bound up in a set of lexical associations which it is better to avoid. Better, I think, to speak in terms of ecologies, environments and contexts, all of which impart a flavour of the singular over and against the abstraction of the general.
But on your view physicalists don't believe that everything is physical. They only believe that concrete particulars are physical. So there doesn't seem to be a difference between physicalists and nonphysicalists.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well, because it's what the world is really like. My views are dictated by facts. I don't think things like, "Do I want an extreme reductivist view?" I don't judge whether I like the facts or not, or whether I'd rather they were something else. I see my responsibility as reporting the facts as they are.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If properties are physical particulars, then the property of being a physical particular (supposing there is such a thing) is a physical particular. That's not circular, it's obvious, because it's tautologous. The only reason something would seem off about that to you is that you are having difficulty seeing properties as physical particulars--you see them as universals a la real abstracts instead. So you'd tend to read "property" as "universal (in the sense of a real abstract)" rather than "physical particular."
At that, I wouldn't say that "being a physical particular" is a property in the first place. Properties are qualities of things such as redness, brittleness, heat-resistance, etc. "Being a physical particular" isn't a quality of anything. In other words, properties are characteristics that are exhibited (so that they produce qualia when perceived, for example, though exhibited qualities do not have to be directly perceptible by us--that's about our perceptual limitations) or characteristics with respect to how matter interacts with other matter. "Being a physical particular" isn't something that's exhibited or an interaction characteristic. It's not a property. That properties are only physical particulars is simply due to the fact that there are only physical particulars and there are no universals (Facts being states of affairs, that is, what happens to be the case re matter/relations of matter/processes (dynamic relations) of matter.)
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes of course. Relations and processes are of matter. It's simply how matter is situated with respect to other matter and how it moves/changes with respect to other matter. That's what form is, too--matter and its relations, processes (dynamic relations) and properties.
It is hard for me to think this because it is contradictory, at least as I currently understand the two terms. That which is general - including all processes and regularities - cannot be singular, and vice-versa. If everything is truly singular, then nothing is truly general.
Else when snow forms in two different places we have three particular singulars; the snow forming here, the snow forming there, and the shared manner in which they form.
What he's getting at there, though, is that universals are singularities. The story of universals is supposed to be that they're singular entities, however it is that they obtain exactly, that are then, somehow, through whatever mysterious process, wholly instantiated in concrete particulars.
The shared manner in which they form is just a way of saying that the particulars in question resemble each other in some way(s) (resemblance simply being a comparative measure of matter/structure/relations)
That is not my current understanding, although I am trying to do some reading up on this whole topic. Can you (or anyone else) suggest a good resource (preferably online) that clearly defines and distinguishes all of the relevant metaphysical terminology - universal, general, singular, particular, individual, etc.?
What is *real* then? Do there exist things that are not just arbitrarily chosen sets or instances of patterns that the mind recognize/identify? A stone is real? There is no stone: your mind is just arbitrarily giving a unique identity to a set of atoms. You are real? There is just an apparent sequence of perceptions and choices and an arbitrary grouping of them as it was a unique being.
It's been a while since I read it, but I remember D.M. Armstrong's Universals: An Opinionated Introduction being good. You can read parts of it for free on Google books. Do not pay a lot for it if you buy it--it's a very short book.
In a nutshell, the difference between nominalism and realism on universals is this:
Nominalists claim that properties are non-identical, particular qualities of particular objects, like this:
Realists on universals claim that properties are identical instantiations of a separately existing universal like this:
It's important to note that realists on universals are saying that the instantiations are identical, that is "one and the same," in a complete sense, of the universal at hand. Literally, they're not two separate things, but the same thing somehow multiply instantiated. Of course, the drawing doesn't reflect this exactly--but who knows how we'd even draw that? It's a mystery how the heck it's supposed to not only work, but make sense in the first place.
Realists on universals can't say that all there is to universals is what's going on in the first picture, because that's nominalism. They could say that what's going on is what's depicted in the first picture, only the properties are identical rather than just similar, but then we've got a separate, unified thing that's not identical to the objects, which are two different things. So you wind up with the second picture.
The intuitive objection a lot of folks have with nominalism is that the properties in Particular Object I and Particular Object II are not actually identical. But the problem with the realism on universals view is obviously that it makes no sense ontologically. Realism on universals is simply a reification of concepts and the normal way that language works.
Thanks, but it looks like Armstrong never uses the term "singular," and only mentions "general" and "individual" a handful of times. I am still wondering exactly what you meant when you claimed that "universals are singularities," because again, my understanding is that a universal/general cannot be a singular/particular/individual (and vice-versa). I would also like to get a better handle on what (if anything) differentiates universal vs. general and singular vs. particular vs. individual.
In that second picture, the universal is the big circle above the other two. That's one thing, not multiple things. Hence a "singularity"
As far as I can tell, you are just restating your nominalist position, which is not helpful. My understanding is that a realist would say that a universal is not a "thing" at all, and certainly not a singularity or a concrete particular. I am looking for a neutral explanation of the terminology.
The diagrams are neutral. That's what realists on universals are claiming. They say that there are universals. The circle above the particulars is the universal that there is for A-ness. By drawing that circle, I'm not saying that it's a "thing" or that it "exists." I'm not making any sort of commitment to a particular term like that (where people might take those terms to have technical ontological implications). Whatever it is, a realist on universals says that there IS a universal of A-ness (whatever property the A might be standing for). And there's only one universal of A-ness, where the whole point of universals, from the realist perspective, is that that ONE thing is instantiated in multiple particulars.
Just think about it logically. A realist on universals isn't going to say that there are not universals, right? They're going to say that there are universals (whatever it is that they believe universals are, exactly). And why would they say that there are multiple universals of the same property? Again, they can't say that each of the multiples is instantiated uniquely in a particular, because that's nominalism.
So far, I have yet to find a realist who affirms (in so many words) that universals are singularities; just William of Ockham, the arch-nominalist. I suspect that a realist would object to any diagram that does not clearly distinguish a universal from a particular as two distinct kinds of entities. That is the point, really - universals have a different mode of being from particulars. It still seems to me that someone who recognizes only one mode of being - concrete existence - is a nominalist by default.
Again, I also need some clarification on universal vs. general and singular vs. particular vs. individual. Any thoughts on that?
Again, I wasn't saying anything about "kinds of entities." I was just illustrating the logical relationships. I don't know how we'd illustrate different "kinds of entities" (in this sense) anyway.
Anyway, why do you think that a realist on universals would say that there is more than one universal of a specific property? Would they be saying that the multiple universals of that specific property are different from each other somehow?
I realize that, but I also know that you believe that there is only one kind of real entity. The whole debate is over whether there is at least one other kind of real entity.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The problem I am having is not with saying that there is one universal of a specific property, it is with saying that a universal is a singularity (or a singular). My sense is that the latter term has a very specific technical meaning in these kinds of discussions, such that a universal cannot be a singular(ity), any more than it can be a particular or an individual. However, as I keep saying, the distinctions among singular(ity), particular, and individual are fuzzy to me, as well as those between universal and general.
Okay, but forget about those terms for a minute and whether they have technical definitions.
The only logical options, at least if we're realists on universals, is that there is one universal per property or that there are more than one universal per property, right?
No. This just repeats the metaphysical mistake of encountering a dichotomy and trying to turn it into a monism where one pole of being is primary or foundational, the other somehow illusory or emergent.
So sure, existence might be singular in the sense that substantial being is always the hylomorphic outcome of some developmental history. But every snowflake is still the unique outcome of a common process. The geomorphic world has a general habit of producing particular snowflakes. So the general part of the story is as fundamental as the particularity.
I would agree that the usual conception of Universals is faulty because it does express the monistic fallacy. It wants to treat the general as the foundation of being - as in Plato's ideas. But it is just as much a mistake to turn around and argue some variety of nominalism.
Okay, but I have not been able to find anyone else who puts it that way.
I thnk the objection to nominalism is much deeper than that. This is because the similarities, likenesses and common attributes shared by like things, are more than arbitrary, but are real, and are not simply real in the mind or in language.
Aquinas' says of universals that they enable the intellect, by grasping one thing, to grasp many things. And surely if you dispute that principle, then how do you make any kind of general argument for or against universals, or for or against nominalism? I mean, every form of generalisation and abstraction relies on such a principle. If what you say is true only of a particular matter, and only meaningful for the particular individual who states it, then (as Lloyd Gerson says above), thinking would be impossible, as thinking is an inherently 'universalising' process. It relies on the ability of the intellect to abstract and recognise likenesses.
As to whether 'properties of different objects are identical' - it is the mind's ability to recognise likeness and unlikeness that is the very basis of rationality in the first place. If every single instance of a particular was unique, then how would cognition even be possible? Experience would be chaotic.
That is why I said your statement 'Our mathematical thinking certain is a handy tool, but that doesn't imply that it's something other than thinking' means nothing. I wasn't trolling. Such a statement doesn't allow for the reality that mathematical reasoning discloses previously unknown facts (which is abundantly obvious from the history of science since Galileo). Maths is predictive with respect to nature in such a way that it can't simply be 'about itself' or 'internal to the act of thinking'. So the very thing you're dismissing, is the only thing by virtue of which you're able to argue your case, such as it is. (Same criticism applies to Armstrong, who happened to be the Professor of the department where I was an undergrad.)
Not at all - generality is opposed to particularity, and not singularity; the particular is what is replaceable, interchangeable, amenable to generalization, while the singular is not. Singularity (and it's natural 'pairing', universality, which is in turn not generality) cuts across the general-particular dichotomy, such that a general regime may itself be particular. It's all a bit abstract when put this way, but it's quite pedestrian when, if your generality is 'climate', it's possible to recognize a singular, Earthly climate, which nonetheless remains general for the particular weather patterns that form in it (hence the very distinction between climate and weather - weather may change from day to day, climate remains constant).
Quoting Michael
But this is just a 'issue' of granularity, and how one pitches one's analysis: if your analysis is fine grained enough, literally every single snowflake - even in the 'same' weather system - is unique (hence the phrase 'unique snowflake'!). On the other hand if you loosen your analytic criteria, it becomes possible to generalize over a set of singularities by disregarding information and treating them as particulars. Generality and particularity are, in this sense, properly epistemic categories; they help us think.
And further, one has to recall (again) that singularity does not mean 'absolutely random/unique'. It simply mens that all singulars are subject to it's own, singular process of becoming which is generalizable only at the price of 'losing' information about that particular individual.
Perhaps part of the problem here is (human) scale: if you scale out and treat the Earth as a singular system with consistent weather patterns across it's various climate zones - if you take an entire planet as your 'base' unit of analysis, 'here' and 'there' don't really begin to mean all that much at all.
Quoting apokrisis
I'm not auguring for nominalism, and the whole appeal to process is to undermine, as I think you recognise, the rather stale debate over which 'side' to take between the nominal and the universal - both of which ignore the issue of ontogenesis. On the other hand, to give up the vocabulary of the general and the particular in favour of an ecology is precisely to short-circuit both 'poles' without, for all that, 'siding' with one or the other, as your charge holds. An ecology, environment, or even cosmos is precisely - a singular generality - a short-circuit between the poles that is precisely designed to avoid collapsing one into the other. That said, I realize that you're irrevocably wedded to your vocabulary, which in the end' works' much in the same fashion, but I'd rather avoid it all the same. It remains too musty for my liking, even when dusted off and treated anew (even 'hylomorphism' leaves a bad taste in the mouth...). But these are minor quibbles.
Well, folks will talk about, say, the universal "spherical" (or "sphericalness") for example, right?
They don't talk about the unversals (plural) "spherical" (or "sphericalness").
There's one universal for "spherical." And the whole gist of universals is then that particular substances that are spheres exihibit the universal "spherical."
I'm just going to cover one thing at a time with you, because otherwise it will be ignored (because for whatever reason, that's how you interact with me)
Nominalists are not denying the reality of similarities or resemblances. They're denying the reality of multiple things having an identical (in the A=A sense) property.
See, I understand universal and general on the one hand as being opposed to particular, singular, and individual on the other. That is why I keep asking for clarification of the terminology. Nothing personal, but I cannot just take your word for it; I need some references.
But they can't deny the 'law of identity'. Without it you wouldn't even be able to write that sentence. So surely they're saying that identity is in the mind but not in the world. The basis of identity is comparison, surely.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because a lot of what you write is predicated on the notion that meaning is subjective, which means that there is no way to respond to what you write, as there is no necessary connection between what you mean, and what others understand by it.
I still hesitate at this description, because I am contemplating the alternative that a universal (or a general) is not one single "item" exhibited by multiple particular things, but rather a continuum. In Peirce's words, "Thus, the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real?"
But my point is that this is to speak of the substantial actuality - following Aristotle's doctrine of hylomorphic form and other such tradititional triadic resolutions of the issue.
So everything that exists is the outcome of a history of process. Yes, that is the (singular) actuality. But then that still leaves the question of how best to deal with the two aspects that are required to produce such a history. And you did seem to be collapsing them in talking about this confusing thing of a "singular generality". Your choice of jargon seems unhelpful here.
Quoting StreetlightX
I'm not wedded to one particular jargon. I'm more interested in the multiple ways people have tried with varying degrees of success to get at the core metaphysical issue here.
I get what you mean when you say "singular generality". Well, I am understanding that as talk of the substantial actuality that arises as some particular history of a general developmental process. But it doesn't seem like good jargon as I don't think the singularity of some generality is the important thought here.
Instead, I prefer the constraints based approach that physics normally takes, and even better, the pansemiotic approach of infodynamics. This says that the generality is a symmetry - some state of constraint that imposes a symmetry condition on material possibility. And then particularity arises via spontaneous symmetry breaking. A history of material accidents develops via the locking in of "random" local acts.
So with a snow flake, the general symmetry in question is the charged configuration of a water molecule. The molecule satisfies its own internal tensions by having the hydrogen atoms forming a 104 degree angle. Then when the molecules are collectively cold enough to crystalise, they can minimise their energy by forming hexagonal patterns - the sixfold symmetry that accounts for snowflake branching growth patterns.
(Note that the individual molecules have to bend wider to 106 degrees, plus twist a bit, to fit the imposed "universal" geometry of a hexagon. So they deform in response to this new collective constraint in a way that increases their internal energy as part of the trade-off to achieve a collective minimisation of the crystal's energy.)
So anyway, the transition from water to ice involves a breaking of rotational symmetry. As water, H2O can spin freely and be "at any angle" in regard to its neighbours. (In fact this again is an idealisation as water has many of its unique properties because it is always fleetingly ordered in its orientation.) But anyway, :) , becoming constrained as a crystal is a breaking of symmetry. It reduces the orientation possibilities to some global hexagon form.
And this then becomes the new (more particular or singular?) symmetry to be broken - by accident. Because by now, nature doesn't care about how exactly a snowflake grows. The attachment of new molecules floating about in the air is a random and unconstrained process. It is different from a body of water freezing (and producing compact hexagonal crystal forms). The process has an extra degree of freedom in the way the snowflake grows.
The point is thus that the real world, in all its substantial actuality, seems like a really messy place. It is hard to pick apart the general and the particular, the symmetries and the symmetry-breakings, the constraints and the degrees of freedom (all ways of talking about the same thing) when dealing with any generative process or developmental habit. Remember, there is nothing much simpler than ice as a substance.
Yet once we get used to thinking hierarchically about these things - that is, used to a triadic logic - then we can see how every level of actuality is indeed a product of the interaction between the general and the particular. Complex structure grows in ways which are locally accidental and yet globally constrained.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yeah, well, talking about musty definitions....
So the singularity is to do with the most highly individuated or constrained state of affairs. And universality is the ability to then point backwards to a developmental history of constraints - the more generic "properties", or states of broken symmetry, like the fact that Socrates is a substance of the genera "Homo sapiens". And humans are in turn a substantial state of being qua the genera of "living things". Etc, etc, all the way back to the Big Bang or laws of thermodynamics. :)
So the central thought is that the singular is the most constrained state of affairs. But then the bit that I argue Aristotle misses (and Peirce gets) is that a constraint is a state of informational symmetry - a modelling or sign relation. It is basically nature saying this much is what I've locked down for sure. All the rest is a matter of indifference. Further symmetry breaking has no effect on what is the case. It becomes differences (or individuation) that don't make a difference.
Is Socrates still Socrates - the substantial actuality, the singular generality - when he trims his beard or perhaps loses his leg in an industrial accident? There is no doubt Socrates is being further individuated by these accidents of history. And yet also no doubt that then don't matter. As events, they are failing to rewrite the informational script that is "Socrates".
Though eventually, enough accidents can overwhelm the script. Real change is possible because states of constraint, conditions of symmetry, are themselves dynamical beings subject to development. So - as with avalanches - things can grow and seem stable, dispersing their forces in even manner, until the tiniest accident, one snowflake landing on the right spot, and it all tumbles down the hill.
This is how physics now understands reality - the new jargon of criticality and dissipative structure. And beyond that, the pansemiotic models of infodynamics which recognises the symbolic aspect to physical existence.
So the thread running through all this - from ancient Greece to modern science - is the need to think of reality in an irreducibly complex and triadic fashion. You need something like the general and the particular, the process and the event, the symmetry and the symmetry-breaking, as the two sides of the dichotomy. And then it is how they recursively interact which produces the third thing of the substantial actuality - the reality that most people take to be the concrete, nominalist, world of ordinary experience.
You have to read the whole sentence. "They're denying the reality of multiple things having an identical (in the A=A sense) property."
So then nominalism is now disproven by quantum mechanics? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles
Note how at the quantum level, identicality and indeterminism go hand in hand. So nature is telling us something there.
I tried just now reading through a bit of "The Logic of Relatives," which is what that quotation is from, but I'd have to spend a lot more time on it, read it a lot slower, etc.--because per the relatively speedy way I just read some of it now, I don't know what the heck Peirce is on about really (which unfortunately isn't an unusual response from me to the little I've read of Peirce in the past).
Not at all. It rather shows why (a) physics shouldn't be taken as doing philosophy, and sometimes by extension (b) physicsists shouldn't be considered to be competent philosophers (hello David Deutsch for example) simply due to expertise in another field.
That's why universals are best understood as constraints. (And why habits too are best understood as constraints.)
The puzzle arises because it is clear that information needs to be present to break a symmetry. If a particle is positively rather than negatively charged, something must have happened in its developmental past to make that be the case. It must have been marked in a way it remembers.
This becomes a problem if we take the nominalist approach and think about the particle as it is now - with its history locked-in by the fact the world is generally, everywhere, too cold for the particle to change its character, its properties.
But it is not a problem if we roll the history of the Cosmos back to when the particle was in such a hot and dense world that it simply existed as a fleeting fluctuation in a generic vanilla field - where effectively no identity was yet locked in.
So for a charged particle, its universality is ancestral. There really was a time it existed in a more generic form - a meaningless fluctuation in a Big Bang plasma. But now it has particularity because of a new generic universal condition - the continuity of a near Heat Death vacuum. And in good time, at the actual heat death, your charged particle will become re-assimilated to that generality. It will be de-materialised back to event horizon radiation.
So physics really does take a substantial approach to generality. The story of the Cosmos is about a phase transition from the vanilla generality of the Big Bang to the vanilla generality of the Heat Death. And more particular states of constraint or individuation - such as everything material we could be concerned about in practice as humans - are just habits of structure that arise to complicate the journey along the way.
So you think the discovered facts of reality oughtn't inform contemporary metaphysics? You don't think the truth of things ought to act as a constraint on our speculative ignorance.
Curious.
Haha--you can't discover that identical properties obtain in different particulars. You'd have to not understand the concept of them being identical properties to even think that that would be discoverable.
Yes, but then, I'm elaborating in 'enemy territory' as it were, and if I could give up the use of generality altogether, I would. In any case what I'm getting at with the singular is more akin to what Aristotle understood as the 'example' or the paradigm, which more or less explodes the general-particular matrix altogether. Consider the following passage by Agamben (which should have you thinking along the lines of Pierce's 'abduction'): "The locus classicus of the epistemology of the example is in Aristotle's Prior Analytics. There, Aristotle distinguishes the procedure by way of paradigms from induction and deduction. "It is clear,” he writes, "that the paradigm does not function as a part with respect to the whole (hos meros pros holon), nor as a whole with respect to the part (hos holon pros meros), but as a part with respect to the part (hos meros pros meros), if both are under the same but one is better known than the other." That is to say, while induction proceeds from the particular to the universal and deduction from the universal to the particular, the paradigm is defined by a third and paradoxical type of movement, which goes from the particular to the particular. The example constitutes a peculiar form of knowledge that does not proceed by articulating together the universal and the particular, but seems to dwell on the plane of the latter.
Aristotle's treatment of the paradigm does not move beyond these brief observations, and the status of knowledge resting within the particular is not examined any further. … The epistemological status of the paradigm becomes clear only if we understand - making Aristotle's thesis more radical - that it calls into question the dichotomous opposition between the particular and the universal which we are used to seeing as inseparable from procedures of knowing, and presents instead a singularity irreducible to any of the dichotomy's two terms. … A paradigm implies the total abandonment of the particular-general couple as the model of logical inference. The rule (if it is still possible to speak of rules here) is not a generality preexisting the singular cases and applicable to them, nor is it something resulting from the exhaustive enumeration of specific cases. Instead, it is the exhibition alone of the paradigmatic case that constitutes a rule, which as such cannot be applied or stated… A paradigm entails a movement that goes from singularity to singularity and, without ever leaving singularity, transforms every singular case into an exemplar of a general rule that can never be stated a priori." (The Signature of All Things - this is for @aletheist too).
Those familiar with Wittgenstein might recognise here the discussion in the PI regarding the meter rule in Paris which is neither a meter nor not a meter long, but simply an exemplar of a meter. Anyway, the point is that I don't align singularity with what you refer to as actuality: while actuality is indeed singular, what the above is meant to convey is that singularity runs diagonal or transversally to the general-particular couple, and that it is not confined to 'actually exiting things'. It applies no less to a (general) meta-stable system than crystalization of particularities engendered from it. So while I understand where you're coming from, I'm after something different. The stakes are ultimately ethical and political (and ontological, when it comes to thinking in terms of novelty and the new), but I'll not go into that here.
On a short or hot enough scale of "discovery", or measurement, everything could be anything. Which rather screws with classical notions of the principle of identity for a start, don't it?
You're getting loopy already. What does a "short (enough)" or "hot enough" "scale of 'discovery'" refer to?
I was looking at the Armstrong book I mentioned to you. It's been ages since I read it, so I forgot most of it--I especially forgot that he starts by mentioning Peirce!--surely you'd enjoy that. Anyway, so re the "THE" example and Armstrong mentioning Peirce, he sayd that Peirce would say that there are two tokens of one type. One type is the same as one universal per my earlier comments. And the issue is whether that type is something real, something that's identically instantiated in the two "tokens."
I don't see that as abduction. I would agree that Peirce failed to be completely satisfactory in accounting for abduction. But it is not that type of movement.
Instead, it is a retroductive leap. It is being able to see - vaguely - the deductive structure that would explain the particular situation in question.
So at a glance, we can suddenly see the hierarchy of informational constraints which would produce some phenomenon as its most likely outcome. But that retroductive insight is only "paradoxical" in that we know it to be right, in pattern matching fashion, before we have fully fleshed out its detail in our minds.
So in usual triadic fashion, we have the three things here of the general, the particular and - now - the vague. Instead of crisp possibility, we have vague possibility. We have the inkling of the right hypothesis accompanied by a neurobiological feeling of certitude - an emotional aha! of recognition. And the job then - as Peirce says - is to flesh out the hypothesis to make it a crisp and testable deductive statement. That is then followed by the inductive confirmation.
So yes, in human thought and also (more controversially) in metaphysical development generally, there are the three things of deduction from generals, induction from particulars, and abductive leaps - or the symmetry breaking of vagueness itself.
And it is this third thing - the abductive leap - that is the most inscrutable of all. As well as being the most important in being the genesis of all existence - either of our world of ideas or the actual Cosmos which had to guess itself into being in analogical fashion.
But talk of a movement from the particular to the particular is not the same thing as this kind of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Quoting StreetlightX
Thanks for the quote but isn't it just nominalism redux? I can't see any trace of Peircean sophistication here.
A Peircean "paradigm" is a triadic whole that includes the missing element of firstness or vagueness, along with the generality of habits and particularity of dyadic reactions.
So Peirce argues for an irreducible complexity that can't be simplified to nominalistic particulars in this fashion.
I did read it. And to deny that multiple things have the same property, is to deny that A=A. You only have 'that instance of A over there', and 'another instance of A here' - but they're not identical. So how can you even retain 'the law of identity' at all?
That's fine. It is obvious that processes seem separable. So they can be both wholes, in being some particular species of a process, and yet develop in isolation.
Indeed that is what gets designed in by biological information. That's how genetics works. Socrates can be Socrates and not some other bloke due to the particular DNA he carries around in every new cell he ever produces.
Well, of course, for bacteria, genetic material respects no such boundaries. It is hard to talk separably even of species let alone individuals.
And then if we are talking about physical dissipative systems and not complex biological ones, then processes - like plate tectonics - do seem far more actually universal. We can tell the difference between a mountain and a molehill (as we can feel the difference in terms of energy costs in climbing them, or building them), but the metaphysical issue is does nature care? Fractal geometry suggests not. Dissipation looks the same over all (classical) scales.
So the particularity of universals is evidence that complexity develops hierarchically via the having of some kind of memory (the essential thesis of pansemiosis). But a high degree of separability - such that we can talk about the wonderful variety of forms contained within Platonia, including cats, cups and triangles - is not the fundamental condition. The particularity of universals is itself a particular kind of late stage development, not something that is physically fundamental.
Again, this is why Peirce had to introduce the notion of vagueness into his logic and metaphysics. Before there can be particular universals, there must be vague universality. A quantum state, in fact.
Quoting StreetlightX
Yes, I'm fine with the definition. My point is that the Peircean paradigm resolves the "paradox" of the dichotomy by going triadic and hierarchical. He includes vagueness so that symmetry-breaking or individuation becomes something that is actually possible due to a self-organising developmental machinery.
Deleuze sometimes seems to be climbing the same tree with his repetition and difference, his generative plane of immanence. But it seems much less worked out than Peirce. And given modern advances in science, that would make it doubly obsolete.
Thanks, but that seems like a lot of material to digest. I am looking for a relatively concise and neutral summary of how the various terms are typically defined and distinguished, preferably online.
The quantum quandry is that you can neither ultimately tell if one thing is the same with itself, or if two things are indeed different. Both identity and separability go by the by as you wind existence back to its Planck scale origins.
When things are hot and small, they all dissolve back into a vanilla mush where the classical notions encoded by the laws of thought cease to apply with any counterfactuality.
I have been reading stuff by and about Peirce for two solid years, and only recently started to feel like I was finally really getting it. I was warned beforehand that this is how it would go, and for me it has been worth the effort, but it has definitely been a slog at times.
Yes, this brings to mind Peirce's use of "determination" in the sense of constraint.
Quoting apokrisis
And this is reminiscent of his cosmogony, which begins with a continuum of vague potentiality that eventually actualizes our existing universe.
Indeed, "the" was an illustrative example that Peirce employed more than once in his writings. Before coming up with type/token, he used legisign/replica for the same basic distinction.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am not convinced that "identically" is necessary here. It seems like two tokens of the same type could be different actual points on the same continuum of potential points. But I am still reading and thinking about all of this.
That's because they're on the borderline between potentiality and actuality, as noted prevoiusly, in relation to Heisenberg's comment on same.
"Dust particles in the right atmospheric conditions resulting in snowflakes" with their variations on an invariant pattern just is an expression of universality. You are making the mistake of putting the cart before the horse.
Peirce did not use the word, but he clearly employed the concept. In talking about the token~type distinction, for instance, he said:
So it is all about causality as the concrete limitation on possibility. And constraints - having that concreteness - are real (if not to be confused to that which they produce via their action - ie: the substantial actuality of in-formed materiality).
Quoting aletheist
Hopefully it is more than reminiscent. Peirce was already on to it. :)
Something like 'the form something must take in order to exist', right?
Yep. Materiality is free possibility. And it becomes concrete stuff by "fitting in".
The point in relation the OP is that most folk want the world to be constructed of materials which already have inherent form. The essence of nominalism is the belief that has to be the case logically. Substance gets the ball rolling by bringing inherent properties to the table.
But talk about universals is recognition that shape comes from without. Properties are the result of some process of moulding to fit. So wind back the creation far enough and at some point you must have just pure form as "the first moulding action". And you must also then have some kind of ur-material that is both a stuff receptive to such moulding, and yet not yet having any characteristics at all.
Plato called it the chora. Even he had to have something that was not actual matter, yet still could play the matching role of being the receptacle of his forms.
If you want to speak of INFINITE possibilities then that is a real possibility. Perhaps in 3.5 minutes an alien species comes down to earth with pineapple guns that turns everyone in to pineapples, such a circumstance must be included in all possibilities if we are speaking of INFINITE possibilities. Or where you using a misplaced hyperbole?
I would of thought that when we discovered that red is a certain wavelength of the EM spectrum that is exuded by the type of material light is reflected from it would've meant that we did away with thinking "redness" is something instantiated universally by objects, that it is a thing in itself rather than just a physical occurrence. ??
That is not how it works. Infinite possibilities do not entail that anything and everything is a real possibility. There are infinitely many possible triangles, but none of them have four or more sides.
Yes, well we can make distinctions between different sorts of properties. If we go the dualist route, we can plausibly say that there are primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are things like mass, volume, shape, distance to/from, velocity, etc. Secondary qualities are things like color, magnitudes of experience, etc.
"Red" is not an EM wave with wavelength 620-740 nm. That is what red is caused by, but the experience of red is something different. Again under a dualist schema. Red is not a property of an object, but rather a property that an object causes us to experience.
So how do we experience motion illusions under this kind of property dualism?
But it is a real possibility. Btw what is the difference between something being possible and it being a possibility?
If you are going to make that statement you better have evidence that aliens don't own pineapple guns and plan to invade earth within 3.5 seconds. Or any other process for that matter by which I may turn in to a pineapple. It is not physically impossible for the molecules in my body to rearrange in to a pineapple somehow, there will be a loss of certain molecular bonds and an excess of atoms of course but it is still possible.
Yes indeed thanks for the correction and that should therefor mean that "redness" is mind dependant and makes no sense for anyone to start talking about properties and universals outside of the experiences in the mind.
Is this supposed to be one of those knock-down a-HAH! arguments?
Something can be seen to be moving while actually not moving at all. Something can also be seen to be static and yet be quite dynamic.
So then, is motion a primary quality if what we experience doesn't have to be what is really there?
a-HAH!
I mean, illusory experiences happen all the time. What is actually happening need not correspond to what we register, just as wavelength is not identical to color.
So illusory motion and real motion look the same, but your primary and secondary quality distinction holds?
Sounds legit.
The appearance of motion is different than the actual motion itself.
But it's the case that the wavelength of two instances of light are the same. So one might say that this frequency of light is a universal.
Whether or not to be a realist or an instrumentalist with respect to scientific discoveries is a philosophical matter that quantum mechanics isn't going to help us with. And if we opt for instrumentalism then these so-called "discovered facts of reality" aren't really the sort of things that can inform our metaphysics.
Isn't a change in our phenomenal world exactly how we understand motion anyway? Science is an empirical thing, after all.
Right, but if you don't move out of the way, that baseball is going to hit you. We register that there is a change going on in our phenomenal world, but we make a further assumption when we believe this change correlates to something actually moving outside us.
Apo's strange presentation of optical illusions shows this. We register change when there actually isn't any. There is a disconnect between what is the case and what seems to be the case. What seems to be the case are secondary properties. What is the case are primary properties.
The experience of motion is more like the experience of changing secondary properties. Sort of like how programs can model three-dimensionally but it's actually just a two-dimensional design with shading.
This doesn't follow. If our understanding of motion is of a particular kind of phenomena then even if this phenomena is caused by something "beyond" the phenomena, it would be a category error to say that this "something else" is motion. Rather this "something else" is just the cause of motion, with motion just being the particular kind of phenomena. Compare with the colour red and the commonly associated frequency of light. The latter is (usually) the cause of the former, but isn't itself redness.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If the experience of motion is the experience of changing secondary properties then motion is changing secondary properties. Which is consistent with my claim that motion just is the phenomena.
I'm not sure I follow.
A ball moves towards me. In reality, this means that the ball is changing locations, traveling distance, in a specific discrete amount of time. But I do not actually experience the ball moving towards me, I experience a reconstruction of the episode, a painting of the real thing.
Consider how, if you cover up one of your eyes, it becomes much more difficult to see depth of field. The ball is still moving, but it's harder to register this because you aren't given enough information. Until it smacks you in the face, that is.
The phenomenal reality we experience everyday is a crude and limited reconstruction of the unknowable world beyond, a world apparently filled with mysterious dark matter and energy, curved space-time, and ruled by probability. Assuming there is such a world at all.
What I'm saying is that your very understanding of what it means to move/travel/change locations/etc. is in phenomenal (presumably for the most part visual) terms. Just as your very understanding of what it means to be red is in phenomenal (visual) terms. Of course, as a matter of instrumentalism we talk about things as moving and being red even if they're not being seen, but given how we actually understand motion and colour, this is strictly speaking a nonsensical fiction.
There might very well be stuff going on behind the scenes with a regular causal relation to such phenomena, but such things aren't themselves the motion and the colour that we're familiar with. We might indeed be referring to such things when we talk about things moving and being red even when we don't see them, but in such a case it's more of a metaphorical referencing.
Or we're reifying the mathematical models that are constructed in response to phenomena.
This is the "seduction" of metaphysics that speculative realism talks about. Phenomenology is all cool and all, but what's really interesting is what the rest of the world is like, because the rest of the world could be radically different than anything we can imagine.
If you had in mind Planck length or Planck temperature or "the Planck scale," you know what might be a clearer way of communicating that? If you'd write "Planck length," "Planck temperature," or "the Planck scale."
So how about "scale of discovery" or "scale of measurement"? Does that say anything different than just "the Planck scale"?
And what the heck is "everything could be anything" referring to?
And "classical notions" of the principle of identity?? What's a "classical notion" as opposed to modern or postmodern or just "contemporary" or whatever it would be "notion of the principle of identity" (and how is a "notion of the principle of identity" different than just the "principle of identity")?
With respect to the principle of identity, "A" on the left-hand side of the equality sign isn't referring to something different than A on the right-hand side of the equality sign, is it? They're not multiple things, right, but the same thing. That's just the idea of it.
If we were saying that the different occurrences of "A" refer to different, multiple things, we'd be equivocating.
This is even the case if one were to believe that there can be multiple instantiations of a property that we're referring to--the whole idea would be that each instantiation is one and the same property, not different, multiple properties.
However, that doesn't need to be what we're referring to. We can be referring to something numerically identical, and we can say that something not numerically identical can not in fact be identical. Perhaps with the principle of identity you're confusing use and mention?
Sorry. I was fooled by your pretence at having some familiarity with the topic in question.
That's a good excuse for flowery, poetic imprecision, yes.
The next step is responding to what follows "so how about" in my second-to-last post to you.
The statement at issue was:
I am saying that if two cars are both Fords, then that is an instance of 'identity'. Put 100 cars in a parking lot, only two of them Fords - one a Meteor, one a Mustang - and ask the question, 'which of those two cars are Fords?' There's only one right answer, and it relies on the fact that each of those two cars is ("=") a Ford. (And I reckon that if nominalism had held sway in ancient Greece, we probably wouldn't have cars, or computers on which to debate the point.)
Per realists on universals, sure. But denying that they share an identical property isn't denying the principle of identity in general. It's just denying identity for numerically distinct entites. The principle of identity doesn't necessarily refer to identity of numerically distinct entities.
The principle of identity doesn't conventionally necessarily refer to the identity of numerically distinct entities.
If you were under the impression that it did, you didn't understand the conventional sense of the principle of identity.
This is an important principle, but I prefer to express "singularity" as "unity", or in the old fashioned way, "One". There is an interesting dialectic on this principle near the end of Plato's Parmenides, I believe. It may or may not be decipherable, but the uninterpretability of it may be intentional, actually what makes the point. "One" is demonstrated to dissolve the categorical boundary between universal and particular, and complete confusion ensues.
Let me see if I can remember the basics. Same is opposed to Other. "Other" is the name of the category of particulars, difference being what constitutes other, and this is the determining factor of particulars. Same is the determining factor of universals, so "Same" is the name for the category of universals . Now we introduce the name "One". Each particular is a unit, a one, so each other is itself a unit, and in this way "One" participates in the category of Other, particulars. However, "One" is what "same" refers to, meaning that everything in the category of Same is by this means, one, the same thing. But "one" designates a particular.
There is no apparent way to resolve this. So when we use "one", or "unit" or "singularity", there is no resolution to the question of what is being referred to, a universal (Same), or a particular (Other). And since same and other are opposing terms, we are open to an infinity of possibilities with the name "One".
.
For contrarieties to constitute existence, then there must be some deeper symmetry state that they break. The dialogue makes that (triadic/developmental) argument. For there to be flux and stasis, etc, there must be a "prior" state that is neither yet has the potential to be so divided.
And note that the quandaries presented in Parmenides were resolved in the late Sophist in fully triadic fashion. Both sameness and difference, generality and particularity, have being. Dichotomies are separations towards mutually logical limits and so where there is distinctive being, it is the result of a successful process of division. Being needs the emergence of the two ends that thus bound a concrete spectrum of possibility.
Reading Paul Forster's book, Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism - thanks to for bringing it to my attention - is helping me to get a better handle on why this presentation did not sit right with me. It might be an accurate description of Platonism, but - as I have pointed out before - there are other forms of realism that do not claim that universals are "separately existing," even while holding them to be real by a different mode of being.
More to the point that we were discussing, it is not necessary for the realist to claim that the instantiations of a universal are numerically identical. Instead, they are different actualizations of the same inexhaustible continuum of possibilities. The nominalist, on the other hand, insists that what we call universals are sets or collections of discrete individuals. This is why Peirce said that "the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real?" It also gets at why I was suggesting that space and time would have to be discrete on the nominalist view - each instance of "here and now" has to be an individual.
It talks of how Peirce viewed Plato's take on universals - how the late Plato was foreshadowing the mature Peircean understanding. :)
Thanks, that was indeed a good read.
We need to respect what the argument demonstrates though, that the real existence of unity, represented as "One", throws confusion into our understanding of reality, if we maintain the traditional categorical separation of universal/particular. The conclusion to be drawn is not that "One" is some sort of unintelligible vague being or existence, but that our defined categories, particular and universal, are inadequate for understanding the nature of reality.
Quoting apokrisis
I think that what is demonstrated in those Platonic dialogues is that this dichotomy, between universal and particular cannot by maintained at the most fundamental level. The world becomes unintelligible at this level, in terms of these two categories, because there is something which violates the boundary between them, something more fundamental.
You'll notice that in the Timaeus, Plato introduces a completely new dichotomy, that of matter and form. "Matter" is a new term, and it has taken the place of the particular, as the possibility of a particular.
Form is what gives actual existence to the particular. This allows Aristotle to develop "form" as a category which includes both particulars and universals. The form of the universal is the essential properties, the form of the particular is the essential properties as well as all the accidentals. From this perspective both universals and particulars are intelligible objects.
Matter itself has been excluded from this category of intelligibility, in order that particulars and universal can both be included, as intelligible. Matter is still very real, as that which bridges the boundary between the possibility of a particular, and the actuality of a particular, but the categories have been redefined, such that particulars can be brought in with universals, as intelligible. The new categories as defined by Aristotle are "actual" and "potential". This validates what you say: "both sameness and difference, generality and particularity, have being", because both are in the category of "actual", as two distinct types forms.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't think this "triadic/development" is the right direction. What you propose only reinforces the designated status of matter (potential) as unintelligible. it asserts the position of the unintelligible (matter) as more fundamental than the intelligible, placing it out of reach of the intellect. A more appropriate approach, I believe, is to redefine the categories again, similar to what Plato and Aristotle did, but now to bring matter into the category of intelligibility. Plato and Aristotle made the particular intelligible by providing the principles necessary to bring it into the same category as the universal. Now we need to provide the principles necessary to bring matter into the same category, as that which separates a particular from a universal, within that category. This will bring matter (potential) out from the designation of vagueness, the apeiron, into the category of intelligible.
I just want to do this one step at a time, and I want you to think about this. Don't just defer until you get a chance to read something someone else wrote in order to provide you with an answer:
First, logically, I'd say that we only have two possibilities regarding the presence of properties (where we're accepting or assuming there are properties) with respect to the idea of universals: either (1) the properties are only in (or of) particulars, in which case they're not separately existing, or (2) the properties are (at least partially) separate from particulars and are instantiated in particulars. Or to state that in a less wordy way (though as always that makes it a way more prone to nitpicking): As long as we accept that there are properties and particulars that exhibit properties, there are only two possibilities: there are only properties "in" particulars or there are also properties separate from particulars.
Do you agree with this? Or do you believe that there is at least a third logical possibility? (And if so, what is a third possibility?)
I am suggesting that both of these statements are correct, but "there are" means two different things. Properties only exist in particulars, but properties are real - i.e., they have another mode of being - apart from particulars. Each actual property is an individual, but all potential properties are contiguous parts of a true continuum that exceeds all multitude.
On that note - do you agree that nominalism requires space and time (and everything else) to be discrete, rather than continuous? Otherwise, they would not consist of individual locations and moments.
What I'm trying to avoid in my last post, though, is any suggestion of what sort of ontological stuff anything is. It gets frustrating sometimes because I don't know what you'd accept as the most general term, and I don't want the conversation to devolve into haggling over "technical" definitions of "exist" versus "real" versus "there are" etc. That's why I chose "there are" because I was trying to find a term that would be neutral. Sometimes it can seem like we (not just me and you, but people on different sides of these issues in general) can't even have a conversation about this stuff in terms of logical relationships at all, because no matter what term is chosen to mention something, the response is, "Well, that doesn't 'exist'" or "That isn't 'real'" or "That isn't something there 'is'" etc.--because it turns out that the person is using some technical definition of "exist" or "real" or "there is" that doesn't include everything. (And of course, people will say, "That's not a thing," etc.)
It sounds like you'd maybe use "being" as the most general term?
If so, then what I'm asking is this: As long as we accept that properties have being and particulars that exhibit properties have being, there are only two possibilities: only properties "in" particulars have being or properties separate from particulars have being, too.
If "being" wouldn't do as the most general term for "having any sort of 'present' ontological status" (and hopefully now we won't have to haggle over "present"), then let's just use a made-up word, let's say, "ontogeneral." where we're going to use that to whatever the broadest ontological category would be that would cover anything that " <
As long as we accept that properties have ontogeneral status and particulars that exhibit properties have ontogeneral status, there are only two logical possibilities: only properties "in" particulars have ontogeneral status or properties separate from particulars have ontogeneral status, too.
In other words, I'm only speaking about a logical relationship fact on a very abstract level. I'm not saying anything that makes any sort of ontological commitment whatsoever about what anything "really is."
So do you agree that there are only those two possibilities?
I honestly have no desire to "haggle," but if "we accept that properties have ontogeneral status," are we adopting realism and rejecting nominalism? If not, I cannot understand what you mean by "ontogeneral status." As I said before, I am suggesting that properties "in" particulars are actualizations of real continua of potential properties.
What about my question - do you agree that nominalism requires space and time (and everything else) to be discrete, rather than continuous?
In talking about the logical relationship I'm focusing on, I'm talking ONLY about the logical relationship, and I'm trying to avoid any ontological commitments. So by answering you're not committing yourself to any stance a la realism on universals, nominalism, etc. The point is to only focus on the logical relationship at the moment. I'm merely trying to encourage clear thinking about the logical possibilities.
The logical relationship of what, exactly? And why do I have to answer your question before you address mine?
What I've been talking about. Again, it seems to me that there are only two logical possibilities (I'll give the nutshell version;)
Either
A. Properties only <
or
B. Properties at least partially <
(Where (a) "<
The logical relationship between a general property and its individual instantiations is the same as that between a truly continuous line and the discrete points that can be marked on it. Note that the line does not consist of these points, no matter how many of them are marked; rather, between any two actual points, the continuum includes potential points exceeding all multitude, all of which are also real. Likewise, a general property is not merely the collection of its individual instantiations.
Now - do you agree that nominalism requires space and time (and everything else) to be discrete, rather than continuous?
But my constraints approach to form would simplify this so that particular forms are simply more constrained versions of general forms. So even a particular form is "all essence". And then accidents are simply aspects of form which are a matter of indifference. They are "particulars" that don't particularly matter.
So you in fact get the largest number of possible accidentals under the most general forms. Generality can afford to be the least fussy - by inductive definition.
That is why the most general law or telos of nature - the second law of thermodynamics - winds up being the "law of the accidental". It is all about randomness and disorder.
Particular forms have to be the most particular, by contrast. A crucifix is a particular form. It can still vary a fair bit but you have to have at least two lines crossing at about a right angle.
So all form is tolerant of accidents to some degree. And particularity arises from generality by narrowing the definition of the accidental - making it also more particular. Or crisper.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yet it contradicts dialectical reasoning to not accept that there must be the unintelligible for there to be the intelligible. It can make no sense to claim the one except in the grounding presence of its other. So as soon as you commit to crisp intelligibility, you are committed to its dichotomous other - vague unintelligibility - as a necessity.
And that's great because it explains the mysterious nature of matter as naked potential. Material cause ends up being complete, yet undirected, action. Just limitless fluctuation. Then material cause becomes efficient cause when it's chaotic dynanism becomes directed, or in-formed.
Efficient cause thus is the material cause made substantial - concrete and crisp in its identity. Now it is transformed into the kind of static stuff that reliably does things.
Likewise, we have the same move from final to formal cause. Finality is a pure action principle - a vague desire. It may be all direction, in contrast to material cause, but it lacks any means as yet. Finality needs to be cashed out in the shape of some formal cause, some organised and enduring and anti-chaotic structure.
So the deepest causes - the material potential and the telic potential - are both active or dynamical. Then they cash out as static enduring substantial actuality by resulting in in-formed matter (efficient cause) and en-mattered purpose (formal cause).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But you need vagueness to make its inverse an intelligible possibility. The difficulty is then to represent this in some fundamental metaphysical framework.
I've just accounted for it with the familiar four causes organicism of Aristotle. Peirce offers an even more compact representation in his triadic sign relation, or semiotic.
Now in this view we have the three things of vague potential, definite reaction, and constraining habit. You get an actual developmental account of how substantial being occurs.
But it is very densely packed. And it requires familiarity with the new category of the vague~crisp, as well as an understanding of formal and final cause as constraints in a system, not constructive degrees of freedom.
And I should add that Peirce also brings in yet another foundational dichotomy in terms of matter~sign. So at the level of substantial actuality, he discovers the difference that divides the realms of the physical and the mental, the real and the fictive, the entropic and the negentropic.
It is all a bunch of dichotomies. And a triadic metaphysics is the only way to "rotate" them so they map to each other in a completely self consistent fashion.
You're not really addressing what I asked you though. Do you see this as a third possibility between properties only in particulars and properties that are also separate? Aren't the potential points separate from the actual points?
Being unconstrained by any demand for consistency, one can indeed claim to believe anything.
One could believe anything constrained by demands for consistency, too. Not everyone has the same views on what's consistent, and folks can rationalize any conceivable belief.
No, the potential points are continuous with the actual points. That is why I had such a hard time with both of the options that you presented. However, any two actual points are "separate" from each other in the sense that there are potential points exceeding all multitude between them.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If space and time are truly continuous, then they exceed all multitude of individual locations and instants. But nominalism holds that only individuals exist, and only that which exists is real; hence it entails that if space and time exist and are real, then they must be discrete, consisting of distinct individual locations and instants.
Ah--I'm not meaning separate as in "disconnected" or "having nothing to do with" or something like that. I mean that either they're the same in every respect, including numerically, to the actual points or they're not the same in every respect, including numerically. "Not the same in every respect" is what I'm using the word "separate" for. You're not saying that the potential points are the same in every respect to the actual points, are you--otherwise what the heck is the potential/actual distinction? If that doesn't peg some difference, the distinction would make no sense.
And if one's beliefs are constrained by empirical correspondence AND rational coherence, then one has truly arrived at the pragmatist's nirvana of it getting as it good as it gets.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yep. You need empirical test too. But logical coherence is a good place to start.
It seems to me that the whole concept of numerical identity only applies to determinate individuals. Hence we can say that no two actual points on a truly continuous line are numerically identical, but it makes no sense even to ask whether an actual point is numerically identical to any potential (i.e., indeterminate) point on the same line, or whether two "adjacent" potential points are numerically identical. The latter are contiguous, and therefore indistinguishable, yet potentially different; the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle do not apply unless and until individuals are actualized.
So you'd maybe say that two adjacent points are numerically the same?
No, there is nothing "numerical" about potential points on a truly continuous line. Every part of a true continuum is itself a true continuum. Between any two "adjacent" potential points, there are potential points that exceed all multitude.
You'd say there can be two adjacent points?
I put "adjacent" in quotation marks for a reason. No two points on a continuum - potential or actual - are strictly adjacent. Like I said, between any two points - potential or actual - there are potential points that exceed all multitude.
There can be two actual points. Again, potential points are indistinguishable unless and until actualized.
Sure. Isn't there something numerical about the two actual points?
Yes - I already acknowledged that two actual points on a truly continuous line are individual, and not numerically identical. What I denied is that there is anything individual or numerical about potential points.
Sure. So for one, that's a difference between actual and potential points, right?
Yes. Please get to the point if you can, I need to call it a night.
Right. So that's what I was referring to by "separate" for one. As I said above: "they're not the same in every respect, including numerically." If there's a difference, they're not the same in every respect, and that's all I meant by "separate."
Okay, but "separate" implies something that is obviously incompatible with true continuity, which is why I could not give an immediate and simple answer to your initial question.
Getting back to my question, then - how could space and time (or anything else) be truly continuous, rather than discrete, under nominalism?
I didn't mean anything like that by that term, though.
Of course, I wouldn't say that I really understand Peircean "continuity" talk in this context. It really makes very little sense to me.
Re your question, for example, you said this earlier: "If space and time are truly continuous, then they exceed all multitude of individual locations and instants." I haven't the faintest idea what "exceeding all multitude" might refer to. Individual locations and instants I don't have a problem with--it's simply a way of referencing extensions/extensional relations (in the case of space) or change-oriented/motion-oriented relations (in the case of time). I don't have any idea what we might be talking about re "exceeding or not exceeding a multitude" of individual locations and instants.
I also have no idea what anything like a mathematical/geometrical analogy (is it an analogy in Peirce's view? I don't know) of lines, points, etc. would have to do with the idea of universals and particulars, potentials and actuals, etc. in Peircean philosophy.
It might be helpful to remind folks that I'm not a realist on mathematics (or mathematical objects etc.), by the way. So I don't think that anything we refer to in mathematical terms pegs anything real. Mathematics on my view is a social and subjective psychological construction, a language we invented for talking, in the most abstract context, about how we think about relations. I do think that on a very rudimentary level that some of the relations we base mathematics on are real relations that we experience empirically, but "based on" doesn't mean "the same as" (think of how The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is "based on" the real-life story of Ed Gein)--the real relations in questions are not actually mathematical relations. Mathematics is our invented language only. And most of mathematics is a thought-based extrapolation of the based-on-but-not-the-same-as rudimentary relations that we experience.
Do space and time, as a whole, consist entirely of the actual aggregate of individual locations and instants? This is analogous to saying that a line, as a whole, consists entirely of the actual aggregate of individual points. The line with points serves as a diagram, because it embodies the significant relations of its object - in this case, space and/or time with individual locations and/or instants.
Well, first I don't think that the idea of points makes a lot of sense aside from a fuzzy abstract concept--that's because the idea of a "zero dimensional" something can't be a very exact idea in my opinion.
Re the empirical question, I've commented a couple times that I don't think we know whether extensional relations or change/motion relations are discrete or continuous . . . assuming the question even makes sense as an empirical question. If it does (I'd have to think about it a lot more to assess whether it makes sense as an empirical question), I don't think it's something we ever could know, and I don't know why it would make a difference either way.
Re lines and points, I'm not of the opinion that it actually makes logical sense to say that a line is comprised of zero-dimensional points.
The dimensionality of points (or lack thereof) is not relevant to the diagram. Think of a marked number line instead. If the marks correspond to all of the integers, then it is obvious that those discrete marks do not comprise the continuous line, because there are rational numbers (i.e., fractions) that can be marked between them. If the marks correspond instead to the rational numbers, then it is still obvious that those discrete marks do not comprise the continuous line, because there are irrational numbers that can be marked between them. If the marks correspond instead to the real numbers, then most mathematicians since Cantor and Dedekind have held that those discrete marks DO comprise the continuous line.
However, Peirce disagreed, calling this only a "pseudo-continuum" because the real numbers cannot be placed in one-to-one correspondence with all of the (potential) marks on a truly continuous line; this is what it means for them to exceed the multitude of the real numbers. He went on to argue that a true continuum is such that there is "room" for any multitude of (potential) individuals between any two (actual) individuals; this is what it means for them to exceed all multitude. He attributed this concept to Kant - that "a continuum is precisely that, every part of which has parts, in the same sense"; i.e., the parts of a continuum are not points, marks, or other individuals, but are themselves continua.
The nominalist must reject the reality of any true continuum, because it cannot be reduced to a collection of discrete individuals - it has no ultimate parts - and the nominalist does not believe that anything is real except discrete individuals. That is why Peirce said, "Thus, the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real?" Of course, as he also acknowledged at the beginning of the same lecture, "Of all conceptions Continuity is by far the most difficult for Philosophy to handle."
First, the stuff above this comment--your first two paragraphs--is about mathematical thinking and/or the conventions of mathematical thinking. It's a sort of game we play with abstract thinking about relations. What does that have to do with anything that's not itself mathematical thinking? In other words, what does that have to do with what space and time are like?
At that, by the way, I'm not sure the games being played re infinities really make much sense, especially when we're making claims about one-to-one correspondence, etc. Also, if a "multitude" refers to an infinity(?) of potential numbers in between two "actual numbers," how the heck would we "exceed" that? That seems incoherent to me.
Nominalism doesn't say anything about "ultimate" parts. That's not what it's about. Nominalism isn't about discrete versus continuous--again, assuming that that distinction is anything but a game we're playing with abstract thinking about relations. Re Peirce saying "Thus, the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real," I'd say that he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. I'd need to be convinced that it's not just nonsense. This is related to what I said earlier: "I think folks of [this sort of] cultural stature . . . often get a break simply because of that cultural stature, where I think that a lot of their work should be fit for the garbage bin aside from it being a matter of historical curiosity (and sometimes entertaining because it's so ridiculous). We could do with more iconoclasm and less reverence. Plato, Aristotle, etc. were just guys with ideas and biases etc. like the rest of us."
All forms of reasoning depend upon necessary reasoning, and all necessary reasoning is mathematical reasoning, and all mathematical reasoning is diagrammatic reasoning. It tells us all that we can ever know about hypothetical states of things; i.e., whatever is logically possible.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It has taken me a while to wrap my head around it, and I may or may not have explained it properly. If you are interested, besides Peirce's own writings about it, you could look into Cantor's theory of cardinal numbers, which Peirce considered to be a somewhat erroneous notion of multitude.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It is about individual versus general, or particular versus universal - right? Discrete versus continuous is another expression of the same contrast. If only (discrete) individuals are real, then nothing is really continuous (general).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Sure, and I am not likely ever to convince you - especially since I am still at the stage of trying these ideas out as a working hypothesis, and seeing how far I can take them.
No, that's a different idea. Say that space were continuous (whatever the distinction would amount to empirically--again, I'm not at all convinced that the distinction is coherent in this realm). That in no way implies that continuous space isn't solely particular continuous space. Use the line analogy, where a line is continuous. Well, it's that particular line. Same for a plane, etc.
As I understand it, nominalism holds that only individuals are real; therefore, space and time must consist of discrete locations and instants, respectively, rather than being truly continuous in the sense that I have been trying to describe. Are you suggesting instead that space and time are individuals - or rather, that space-time as a whole is an individual? If so, how would that square with your definition of time as change? I thought that your view was that each instant of time - each discrete change - introduces a new particular.
In any case, the approach to universals that I have been exploring ultimately entails that everything is continuous; there is no such thing as an individual continuum. This goes back to the thesis that a continuum is "that, every part of which has parts, in the same sense."
Wikipedia has a very straightforward explanation of the issue that fuels the distinction:
"In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green . . ."
The issue is not anything about whether particulars and/or universals are discrete or continuous.
Imagine that everything is continuous. Well, under nominalism, then, all particulars are continuous. If there's only one continuous existent, then under nominalism there's just that one particular existent. The only thing that makes a difference for universalism versus nominalism is whether we're saying that there are properties that somehow obtain where they can be identically instantiated, multiple times, in numerically distinct instances. In other words, re green, whether we're saying that green can be identically instantiated multiple times. That's the issue. Nothing about discrete versus continuous is the issue.
Quoting aletheist
Each change or motion results in the "thing" in question being different/non-identical to what it was. That's a given if we're talking about change or motion--it's change after all. I'm not saying anything about whether the changes or motions are discrete or continuous. That doesn't make a difference. The same thing would go for both discrete and continuous changes/motion.
This is incoherent to me. Particulars cannot be continuous; anything that is truly continuous can only be general. In Peirce's words, "Generality, then, is logically the same as continuity."
Quoting Terrapin Station
This is not what Wikipedia actually says - not in what you quoted, and not anywhere else in the same article. One of the points that I have been trying to make all along is that a property does not have to be identically instantiated multiple times in order to be a universal; hence the whole notion that a universal is an inexhaustible continuum of potential properties, only some of which are ever actualized in particulars.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am saying that the green in one chair is not identical to the green in the other one, no matter how closely the two colors may resemble each other. Nevertheless, they are two different actualizations of the same continuum - the universal, green. Likewise, the two chairs are obviously not identical; but they are two different actualizations of the same continuum - the universal, chair.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am suggesting that this requires a discrete step, since each change or motion constitutes the actualization of a new individual.
Quoting aletheist
The point is that the two don't have anything to do with each other. A universal is a property that can be instantiated in multiple particulars. A particular is what exhibits a(n instantiation of a) property. It has nothing to do with anything being continuous or discrete.
Quoting aletheist
Then per the conventional terminology and understanding of this issue, you're denying that there are universals. This is the case no matter what you personally call it.
Quoting aletheist
Would you say that there can't be change or motion if time and/or space aren't discrete?
I don't see how this can work, because the essence of the particular is that it is a material object, while the essence of a universal is that it is an abstract generality. You seem to want to remove the matter from the particular, making it purely form, or essence, but this actually denies the true essence of the particular, which is the matter. So even when we allow that a particular has a distinct form, we remove that form from the particular in abstraction, so we do not have the true particular form. That particular form is proper to the object itself, and cannot be abstracted to exist within the mind. This takes it away from the matter which is essential to it. If the desire is to allow that this form is somehow distinct from the matter, we must do this by other principles.
Quoting apokrisis
I don't see the basis for this claim. You are simply asserting that all things have a dichotomous other or else that thing is unintelligible. But the essence of the particular is that it is other, but not in the sense of a dichotomous other, as opposition, because it is still in some sense the same as the things which it differs from. And this is why its form may partake in universals, by being the same (in some sense) as the things which it is other from. So I think your claim that the only type of "other" which is intelligible is a dichotomous "other", is unjustified, because difference as a type of "other" which is not a dichotomous "other" is in fact intelligible.
So the principle of dialectical reasoning which you assert here will render the particular as unintelligible, and this is contrary to the philosophical mindset. We want all things to be considered intelligible, thereby denying the possibility of the unintelligible. Therefore all things are the same, in the sense that they may be classed as intelligible, but the difference between them, which makes them other, is not itself unintelligible, because as each one is different, they are by this designation of "different" all the same. So the same principle which makes every particular thing intelligible as a particular, also makes the difference between them intelligible, such that there is no such thing as the unintelligible.
Quoting apokrisis
That's not the case though. We do not need unintelligibility or vagueness to make intelligibility possible. Vagueness itself is intelligible. "Difference", which is essential to, and inherent within the material particular, and constituting the vagueness of matter, is itself intelligible. It is intelligible because it is itself a sameness. And since it is the most universal of all properties, the inherent difference, which is proper to all material particulars, it is actually the most highly intelligible. So the very thing which appears to us as other than intelligible (therefore unintelligible), because it is the basis for difference rather than the intelligible similarities which produce universals, is really the most intelligible because it is the most universal similarity. This is matter itself, it gives us the appearance of vagueness and unintelligibility, but it is really the most highly intelligible of all because it is consistently the same, as different.
.
And here I thought we were having a pleasant, respectful conversation despite our evident disagreements. I simply pointed out that you added the word "identically."
Quoting Terrapin Station
It does if a property is itself a real continuum and its instantiations are discrete individuals actualized on it. This is an (admittedly non-standard) attempt at explaining how universals might work.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, just that space and time cannot consist entirely of individual locations and instants.
What would you say it amounts to (what would you say it "means") for a property to be a real continuum?
I have already explained it as best as I can at this point.
Well, take sphericity for example, Is the idea that it would be continuous as a property the idea that there's not just one thing that counts as the property, but a range of "more or less spherical"? That would be my guess, but I'm just guessing based on common usages of the terms.
That is one aspect; there is a continuum of shapes that are roughly spherical, including the actual shape of the earth. Even for genuine spheres, there is a continuum of potential sizes, since any individual sphere has a particular diameter.
What would make them the same property in that case, though?
The whole point is that a universal is not an individual. People talk about the earth, the moon, basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, marbles, etc. as "spherical" even though none of these - in fact, no actual thing at all - is perfectly spherical. Likewise, there is no paradigmatic chair or shade of green, either; just a range of things that qualify as chairs, and a range of colors that qualify as green.
So re "universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things," you'd say there are no such things, then, right?
It depends on what exactly we mean by "repeatable or recurrent entities." I would say that there are no individuals that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things, but there are continua that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. Each such instantiation or exemplification is a different manifestation of the same continuum.
Do you think that there is any significance to the fact that Peirce preferred the term "general" to "universal" for this notion?
General: universal, genera
Specific: particular, species
You can say that universals are real but that they are not 'existing things'. If that basic distinction can be accepted, many of the issues will be resolved.
@aletheist - I believe this is similar to a point repeatedly made by Peirce with respect to the difference between what exists and what is real.
Yes, and @Terrapin Station is aware that I make the same distinction. That is why we switched to <
That is to be expected in a world where only particulars exist. Really it ought to be clear that it makes discussion pointless.
Just to be clear - what makes discussion pointless?
Maybe, but I appreciate the dialogue as an opportunity to sort out my own approach to these matters. As the saying goes, "I write to find out what I think."
You could never be sure you were not comparing like with like either.
I would answer 4?
But at the same time, they're 'mental objects' i.e. they can only be grasped by a rational mind, they don't exist in the way that particular objects exist. And this the stumbling block for physicalists: there is only one 'way' anything can exist, and that is, as a material object or physical force. As soon as you admit that abstract 'objects' (and as noted, they're not actually objects) are real, it's game over for materialism.
I fail to see the issue here?
Why can't mental objects be real, or physical?
Only to the eliminativists who equate existence with real. Non-eliminative materialists have no such issues.
Where logic is recognised as real in the first instance, as opposed to the illusionary and finite presence of an existing state (dependence on an existing object or mind), existence isn't required for logical laws and expression to be true. Logic or universals are true without existing. The mental/physical of substance dualism is a red-herring.
Logic's independence is given by its absence in existence, either as a "physical (e.g. brain)" or as a "mental (e.g. existing experience or mind)," in the first place. In the realness of logic, it is not materialism who loses the game, but substance dualism and its"mental" and "physical" substances.
Does '7' exist? You can't point at the symbol, 7, because that is arbitrary, and indeed physical - it can be written as VII, seven, or 7, but always has the same referent, which is a quantity. But only a mind capable of counting can grasp what the symbol refers to. And that is not a physical thing. You can add two apples and two oranges, and get 4 objects. (This is not the same as the problem of universals, but it's related).
Yeah sorry I don't follow here.
There are plenty of examples in nature where abstractions occur.
Golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, and an animal gives birth to a litter of 7.
All these things are real, the only difference I see here is you seem to claim there must be some mind for abstractions to exist, and the realist says these things occur in objective reality without any dependence upon minds.
The first two are proper constants of nature - nature being ultimately dissipative or growth based processes.
To call them abstractions is misleading as the ratios involved could not be more physically real as limits on rates.
The 7 in a litter is a stochastic process so the number is not special in a universal sense. It is just related to some particular genetic constraint.
The fact that an animal gives birth to a litter of 7 is not in itself an abstraction. It is an event. It is only when someone comes along and says 'aha, seven pups' that it becomes an abstraction.
All the natural symmetries such as golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, and the like, are attributes of nature that rational reflection has discovered.
Recall the initial discoveries of the relationship between musical harmonies and lengths by the Pythagoreans. Notice how 'ratio' is central to it. So the early rationalists, like the Pythagoreans, explored how 'ratio' of various kinds could be understood by abstraction and measurement. (I just read this morning, how Thales worked out how to measure the height of the pyramid, by working out what time of day his own shadow was his height, and then measuring the shadow cast by the pyramid at that time of day.) This actually was the beginning of rationalism and even 'reason' in the sense that science used to understand it. (Not so much any more, though.)
It was that kind of thinking that became fundamental to the origins of science. It was the abilitiy to count, compare (via ratio), understand laws (logos, logic) that enabled the birth of science. According to the Greeks, only man, 'the rational animal', was capable of this, it set man apart from beast.
The reality of the 'intelligible domain' was central to classical Greek philosophy, and was inherited by the Scholastics, who tended towards realism regarding universals. It was the early nominalists (William of Ockham, Francis Bacon) who challenged and then undermined that understanding and said that 'only particulars exist'. (Conceptualists are like a middle position, saying that numbers (etc) are real but solely as concepts.)
7 is a naturally occurring quantity whether there is some mind to count it or not.
Quoting Wayfarer
This is an important point.
The realist claims that we can model nature and reproduce results in nature by exploring rules of formal systems.
The implication is that nature has some set of rules itself, which we can discover, if this is true the realist insists that those laws exist independently and do not necessitate the existence of minds.
Quoting Wayfarer
The rational animal only reproduces natural laws with models, it does not cause them to exist in the first place.
.Quoting Wayfarer
It could be that only particulars exist, and our models only approximate particularism.
But it seems to me there is no way to prove conclusively that this is the case.
Let us ignore that though, even should it be the case that in nature there are only particulars, how does this diminish the practical benefits of universals in the course of human endeavor?
Surely you can't deny that universals are particularly useful?
7 is a number, and a number can only be grasped by a mind capable of counting; it is the ability of a rational intelligence to count that is one of its defining qualities.
'What exists anyway' is only a conjecture of naive realism.
Quoting m-theory
What kind of realist? I think the idea of 'scientific laws' is actually a bone of contention nowadays. In any case, objective idealists, such as Peirce, believe that such laws are emblematic of the fact that nature seems to have something resembling grammar.
Quoting m-theory
It is nominalism that denies the reality of universals.
7 is a real quantity without minds.
Understanding that there is 7 of something requires minds sure, but that there can be 7 things requires no minds.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think all realist agree that natural laws and reality do not depend upon minds.
Quoting Wayfarer
It is very real that universals are useful.
How is nominalism useful, what are the practical results of applying nominalism?
Help me understand why I should care that universals are not real.
The idea that there is a world in which no minds are present, is also a mental construction. You think you can imagine a world with no minds in it, but that is also an act of the imagination. We might imagine what the universe would be like without humans in it. That image might be realistic, but it still depends on a viewpoint or perspective. Without a perspective, what is the scale at which it is seen? Planck scale? Galactic scale? Cosmic scale? What is large, what is small, what is near, what far away? How about duration? An implicit perspective must be introduced to make sense of any kind of universe, even one supposedly without minds. But you're supplying the perspective without realising you're doing it by projecting into the Universe that which is actually in the mind.
This is not just idealist blather, either.
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271. Linde is one of the originators of 'inflation theory' in the Big Bang.)
Quoting m-theory
It's as much an historical question as a philosophical one. The debate between (scholastic) realism and nominalism was waged for centuries. In many ways, the nominalists were the precursors to scientific materialism. It's a big subject, I can't summarise the whole topic, but this blog post would be as good a starting point as any.
This is circular.
We know the quantity 7 depends on minds, because we have minds therefor the quantity 7 depends on those minds?
Quoting Wayfarer
This amounts to saying our physical models be might wrong/biased, they might be, but they might also be accurate and unbiased.
If we can't know the right perspective we can't know ours is wrong either.
What I am interested in is how you can be so sure our models are wrong?
Quoting Wayfarer
I regard the principle of relativity as dealing with this issue.
Perhaps you have some insight into why it must fail?
Quoting Wayfarer
Well I am not interested in debating the role of the observer in quantum mechanics.
Suffice it to say there are many interpretations of quantum mechanics and some are less controversial than others when it comes to observer role.
The point being that quantum mechanics does not disprove realism.
Would something like this work as a paraphrase of the general idea: "There are different actual properties, each unique, but where comparatively they are more or less similar, and we form conceptual abstractions where something like 'sphericity' is a range of those comparative similarities. Many not(-yet) actualized, similar-but-unique properties can be actualized that we count as sphericity, where those similarities are ideally in-between, in terms if relative similarities and differences, other actualized examples of the sphericity concept."
Which is globally the case. It's not as if the world hinges on your beliefs or preferences about this, so that just in case you have a view that meaning is objective and people can share meanings and be clear about that, etc. that doesn't magically avoid that you never be sure that you're comparing like with like or what the other party has in mind re meanings, etc.
As would I.
Quoting Wayfarer
What would that even have to do with me answering 4?
You had just brought up meanings and the issue of whether we can know that we have the same meanings in mind as someone else. What does that have to do with answering "4" to "What's 2 + 2"? Why would I care whether I have the same meanings in mind as you when I answer that? I'd be answering what I think 2 + 2 equals, because that's what you asked me.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't believe that's necessarily true, although I'd definitely say that in the vast majority of cases, someone isn't going to be both a realist on abstracts and a physicalist. But I'm sure that in the past, either in school or at a conference or something like that--so in person, not online, so that I knew this person had an academic philosophy background, I've run into someone who was a physicalist and who was also a realist on at least some abstracts, so that they believed that abstracts existed physically. I sure can't recall what the details of their view would have been (I can't even recall who it was exactly), and as with the Peircean approach to universalism vs. nominalism, I'm sure it wouldn't have made much sense to me, but at least in the person in question's view, it made sense.
In general, whenever I've thought something like, "If one believes x, then one must believe y," I'm bound to run into someone with a significant philosophical background who defies that--they believe x but not y. So although it can be difficult to avoid thinking things like "If one believes x, then one must believe y," I try to avoid it, because someone will usually come along who falsifies it.
That's correct, and the dog may give birth to numerous litters, so to single out one litter and say she gave birth to seven pups, is something which requires a mind to perform that abstraction.
Quoting m-theory
The point being made is that a mind must separate these seven things from the rest of reality, such that there actually is just seven things. You want to say that without a mind, there is those seven things, and that's fine, but there is all the rest of real things as well, and what, other than a mind, separates those seven things from all the rest? So perhaps all the things which exist, exist without a mind, but there are no numbers of things, because they exist as "all the things" and it require a mind to separate out groups, as Wayfarer says, of "like" things. Contrary to what you say then, "that there can be seven things", does require a mind, to individuate those things, and group them as like.
I believe that this principle is more easily understood if you think of reality in terms of events. We may talk about one particular event, such as me writing this "word". But really that particular event is just a part of a larger event which is me writing all these words. And this is part of a large event, my life, which is part of a larger event. We experience all the passing of time as one continuum, and there are no real breaks within the passing of time which allow me to validate writing that word, as a separate event from writing this entire passage, except as an arbitrary choice. This separation of a period of time, to create "an event", is a totally arbitrary division carried out by a mind.
So any time that we individuate an individual object in existence, we arbitrarily separate out a period of time which is proper to that object, allowing for its existence. This is completely arbitrary, and carried out by minds, in order to assume the existence of individual objects. Within a certain arbitrary time period, I am an object with existence. Within a larger period of time, I am just a small part of the existence of a larger object, the human race. Within a larger period of time human beings are part of a larger object, life on earth. Within a larger period of time, the earth is just a part of something else. The point now, is that to validate the existence of individual objects, and therefore "a number of objects", it is necessary to assume a particular time period, and this is an arbitrary thing carried out by minds only.
How is it that minds cause things to exist as they do, why should there not be 6 when we count at one time, and 8 when we count the next?
If there is no consistency in reality, as this is what you seem to be claiming?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Except it is not arbitrary, it is necessary to navigate reality.
Why should that be if reality is nothing like the models we form?
No, because it still seems to be expressing a version of nominalism, rather than realism. There are different actualizations of a property, each unique but falling within the same inexhaustible continuum of that property's potential manifestations - all of which are real, even those that never have been and never will be actualized.
Yeah, what I presented was nominalism. (Which was the whole point of that.)
It seems like the only significant difference, though, is that you'd be saying that what I'm describing as conceptual abstractions that we make are "real" (although where "real" refers to something about interaction on your view, after Peirce, right?)
No, interaction corresponds to existence. Peirce's definition of "real" is having predicates independently of the thought of any individual person or finite collection of people. It thus includes possibilities and regularities, qualities and laws/habits, not just actualities.
The point is that it takes a mind to distinguish one time from another time. So perhaps things "exist as they do", but it takes a mind to distinguish this time from that time, in order to say what exists at this time, and what exists at that time.
Quoting m-theory
I'm not claiming that there is no consistency in reality, the opposite actually. When there is consistency, as there is, what, other than a mind, separates out parts of that consistent reality to individuate separate entities?
Quoting m-theory
That's exactly the point, such individuations, distinctions, separations, are necessary for the mind to navigate reality, so the mind creates them. But the mind produces them in a way which is conducive to its own ends. That is the type of necessity we are referring to here. So to say that reality is necessarily individuated in any particular way (in the sense of some logical necessity), would be equivocation, because what we are referring to here is "necessary" in the sense of "needed" for a particular purpose (and that purpose is "to navigate").
The arbitrariness of the choice is only negated by demonstrating the reality of the end, and the end is what determines the direction. With respect to "navigating reality" then, what is "necessary" depends on which way one wants to go. And without demonstration as to why one way is better than another, the choice as to which way to go, is arbitrary. So all these distinctions, individuations, differentiations, are all arbitrary unless there is a particular end which is justified, and these determinations are demonstrated as necessary for that end. To "navigate reality" is not a justifiable end, because it fails to give us any direction, which is what an end is supposed to do, and it leaves "what is necessary" as completely arbitrary.
And my point is how do you know that it takes a mind and that it does not occur in nature without minds?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What do you mean by justifiable end?
Further this does not answer the question of why, if it is as you say one arbitrary abstraction is as good as the next, is it that our models prove so useful?
Sorry--I got mixed up on Peirce's definitions.
Okay. But it still seems like the only significant difference, though, is that you'd be saying that what I'm describing as conceptual abstractions that we make are instead "real" and not just conceptual abstractions that we make. In other words, that the difference amounts to seeing the conceptual abstractions as having the same qualities that they have as conceptual abstractions, only we're saying that they're not a mental phenomenon but some sort of phenomenon that obtains independently of people.
Because these are things which are done by minds, and all of our examples of them, are done by minds. If it happens in nature, then this is something other than what we are talking about, because we are talking about the instances which are done by minds. Why would we assume that the thing which minds do, happens in nature without a mind? We see that minds do very special things, creating products, manufacturing, and all sorts of artificial things. Why would we think that what a mind does would happen naturally without any minds?
Quoting m-theory
An end is a goal, so to be justifiable means that the end is demonstrably good.
Quoting m-theory
I don't think I said that one abstraction is "as good as the next". What I mean is that "as good as" is determined in relation to a particular end, a goal. So one abstraction may not be as good as another with respect to one particular end, but with respect to another end, it might be better. Usefulness is determined with respect to the end.
So whether or not our models are useful is not at all an issue. Of course they are useful, or else we would not produce them, we only produce them for a particular purpose, and if a model did not fulfil that purpose it would be thrown away, and we'd choose another instead. The issue is "what is that purpose".
To "navigate reality" does not answer that question at all, because this only constitutes a coherent purpose in relation to a further purpose, which tells us where we want to go in our navigation. Navigating is meaningless nonsense unless there is some place where you are going, because "navigating" refers to the means (how to get there) rather than the end (where you are going).
What would it mean to affirm that conceptual abstractions are not mental phenomena? I was under the impression that the whole debate between realists and nominalists is precisely over whether that which a universal signifies is real (independent of people) vs. strictly conceptual/mental.
I think you have it backwards.
Our minds reproduce what occurs in nature and not that nature arranges itself to conform with what occurs in our minds.
Also this does not really answer my question.
How do you know that these things do not occur in nature.
That you have a mind is not proof that these things do not occur without minds.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think that this follows.
We must know the ends that justify the means or we can not be sure the means are real.
To me it seems you are appealing to some teleology here.
How can you be sure that in order for something to be real it must rely upon teleology?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That is not what I asked, I asked why should they be useful at all if they are not models of something real?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Maybe it doesn't answer the question of where we are going, but it does seem odd, to me at least, that we should regard reality as a thing unknown and then marvel at the miracle that our arbitrary quantification of reality should meet with any results.
Or it could be that our quantification are not arbitrary they are tuned to obtain real results in a real world.
That seems intuitively obvious, but I think that the 'nature' which you say our minds 'reproduce', is also a mental artefact.
---
Quoting m-theory
Einstein said that 'The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.' Eugene Wigner, said 'The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. '
So what does seem odd is that physicists, those whose insights have completely transformed our understanding in the last century, themselves find the source of the ability of mathematics to reveal those insights impossible to comprehend.
I didn't say that "nature arranges itself to conform with what occurs in our minds". What I meant is that we individuate, separate, distinguish, and differentiate things in ways which make sense to our minds. So we arrange nature in a way which conforms with what occurs in our minds. That makes sense doesn't it? We arrange and classify natural things in ways which make sense to us.
Quoting m-theory
I don't see the meaning of your question. I am talking about what minds do, individuate, separate, differentiate, etc.. Why would I even consider that such a thing might happen without a mind? What would that even mean? I know that minds do this, so if I want to understand what this means, to individuate, separate, distinguish, etc., I should look at how minds do this. Until I get a good understanding of how minds do this, and exactly what minds are doing when they do this, how would I even know what to look for if I wanted to determine whether something other than a mind can do this?
Quoting m-theory
Yes, this exactly the point, you are putting forth means (to navigate reality) without any ends to justify these means. To navigate is to follow a course, but unless the course is plotted (the end is determined), there is nothing to navigate.
Quoting m-theory
The models are useful because they help to achieve some end, that's what being useful is. Whether or not they are "of something real" is irrelevant to whether or not they are useful. To make this conclusion, which you want to make, you would have to demonstrate how being useful is related to being real. I don't see this relationship, because one can make up fictions and deceptions which are useful for achieving some ends, but this usefulness does not make the deceptions real.
Quoting m-theory
What I've been trying to demonstrate, is that these moves, as any other human actions, and the actions of other living beings, are not completely arbitrary. They are directed toward certain ends, goals, things which these living creatures want. So human choices are not completely arbitrary, they are directed by what the human being wants.
The problem is that you want to bring "quantification of reality" into this. But our wants, desires, ends, or goods, are judged as qualities. So there appears to be an inherent incompatibility here. We proceed in these acts of individuation, separating, and differentiating, according to our judgements of quality, what is good and useful. As far as I can tell, that is reality. On what basis then, do you say that quantification is a "quantification of reality"? I don't see the relationship between quantification, and reality, which you apparently see.
Quoting m-theory
So I agree, the quantifications are not arbitrary, they are "tuned", as you say, but tuned to produce satisfaction. What is left is to determine the relationship between the satisfaction which they produce, and reality. As noted above, fictions and deceptions are not reality. And, as we know from the nature of different pleasures, satisfaction can be deceptive.
Yes, but what does this belief contribute?
What breakthroughs has it lead to?
Also I pointed out that if we can't know what is real because everything is a mind artifact then we can't know that those artifacts don't model reality accurately.
This is where we disagree.
If our models were not of something real then it seems to me that they should not produce useful results.
The important contribution this makes in modelling theory is that it makes it clear that models involve a reduction in information. If our goal is to make a sketch that captures the essence of a person or scene, the best artist is the one that can do so in the fewest and simplest strokes.
So the "accuracy" is not about the faithful reproduction of all the available information. That is a simulation rather than a model. Instead, what is "accurate" is the reliabilty with which a model allows the world to be traversed in terms of a purpose.
So epistemically, the purpose shaping the modelling relation is itself subjectively separate from the world. And then the relationship has the goal of being efficient - reducing the information involved to the bare minimum for the sake of reliable habit. The model wants to minimise its need for any physical interaction with the world - a single act of measurement to get the equations rolling is ideal.
The world then is whatever it is - some set of constraints that are reliably encountered.
I never said models should be simulations.
I implied that a model was useful if it produced results and assuming that our models are about reality rather than about our minds is extremely useful in that it produces very reliable results.
That models are as simple as possible but predict as much as possible does not negate that those models presume that nature is an objective thing that exists independent of the human mind.
What results are produced by the model that we cannot know what is really real?
Does this foundational assumption produce any results?
Does it unify different theories under a single model or produce better predictions than the models that presume the principle of relativity?
Given that all of science is conducted under this kind of pragmatism, yes, it has produced results.
I would have thought that if it had been discovered that the principle of relativity had been violated I would have heard about this.
Do you have some source?
So I'm failing to see your point.
The principle of relativity is the principle that the laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference.
It is the assumption that there is an objective reality.
My point is that this assumption is extremely useful.
The assumption that there is not an objective reality (different/no laws when there is no observer) appears to be useless.
It is a rational hypothesis about the nature of reality. We presume - because of the success of earlier models - that the reality is best described in terms of symmetry and symmetry breaking.
Thus we eventually elevate these ideas to the level of general principles. We insist on the most general possible symmetry with the principle of relativity just as we do with the least action principle as the most general description of symmetry breaking.
We hardly have to presume the existence of an objective reality. Being a modeller makes no sense except as purposeful interaction between a self and a world.
But being a modeller also means accepting we only form self-interested understandings of that world.
So you are going too far if you think that minds somehow reflect reality in some true fashion. As I say, you are leaving out the self-interested reasons of the modeller, as well as the modeller's desire for modelling efficiency.
So sure, the principle of relativity is a useful pragmatic maxim. And it is pretty true of the reality in that assuming the Universe is organised by its symmetries and symmetry breakings has turned out to be both a rationally intelligible idea, and one that has kept delivering results.
But the "objective" world could still be different. That is highly unlikely, yet also a possibility. So we can't assume our assumptions to be objectively true. It is core to the epistemology of science that all belief is provisional.
The Einstein-Bohr debates were all about this very point. Einstein - the scientific realist - insisted there must be an objective reality regarding the nature of sub-atomic phenomena, as a matter of principle, Bohr did not agree. I think the latter's interpretation have been borne out by subsequent discoveries.
[quote= "John Stewart Bell"]For me, it is so reasonable to assume that the photons in those experiments carry with them programs, which have been correlated in advance, telling them how to behave. This is so rational that I think that when Einstein saw that, and the others refused to see it, he was the rational man. The other people, although history has justified them, were burying their heads in the sand. I feel that Einstein's intellectual superiority over Bohr, in this instance, was enormous; a vast gulf between the man who saw clearly what was needed, and the obscurantist. So for me, it is a pity that Einstein's idea doesn't work. The reasonable thing just doesn't work.[/quote]
Again quantum mechanics does not disprove realism.
If it did that would be quite remarkable.
Further the Einstein Bohr debates were not about the principle of relativity.
In quantum mechanics there are no frames of reference where quantum mechanics does not apply.
I'm afraid you're misinformed. I've just completed the excellent Quantum : Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality Manjit Kumar. Notice the subtitle- it is precisely what is at stake. I know there are always other threads about this topic, and I don't want to derail this one, but be assured that 'the nature of objectivity' is precisely what is at issue.
Quoting m-theory
It did that, and it is remarkable.
How could you possibly know this?
This is just a bald assertion.
You would have to know what is true reality to say that minds do not reflect that reality, which then of course would be refuted by your assertion that minds cannot know true reality.
You have basically ignored my question in this post.
What useful results does the assumption that there is no objective reality bring?
How is it useful to assume there either are no laws of nature without observers, or that the laws of nature are different in frames without observers?
As far as I am aware no great discoveries or breakthroughs have come about as result of that assumption.
The same is not true about the assumption that there are objective laws of nature and they are the same in all frames of reference.
So for me there is not much point in pursuing that assumption, in fact I don't think it can produce results.
Again quantum mechanics is said to be true in all frames of reference.
I very much appreciate the spirit of enquiry you are bringing to this thread so I don't want to come across as being either dismissive or hostile. But, here were are dealing with a profound philosophical question which has been an issue for very great thinkers, like Einstein and Bohr. So it's a very difficult matter. What is being questioned here is the taken-for-granted nature of reality, our normal sense of reality. But I think philosophy has to do that, it is a critical discipline, the aim of which is to explore just such questions.
The truth of that statement depends on what you mean by "real", and what qualifies as a "model". I haven't seen any indication from you as to why you believe that a useful model is necessarily "of something real". Perhaps we could say that the useful model is something real, but why must it be "of something real"? We can create a very useful number system, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc., and set the rules of this model such that 4 is 1 more than 3, and 5 is 1 more than 4, etc.. Does this qualify as a model? If so, how does it represent something real? Is it that 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., are symbols which represent ideas, and the ideas are real? or is the whole system itself something real?
How about the concept of a circle, does this qualify as a model? How is this concept "of something real"? There is no such thing as a real circle, and this is evident from the fact that pi is an irrational ratio. A circle cannot have an exact centre. Despite this fact, that there is no such thing as a real circle, the concept remains very useful.
We could go on with many examples, and it is quite evident that there is a disjoint, a separation between what the model says, or indicates, and what actually exists in reality. I say it's two kilometres from here to the store, but it's really about 2.1. We say there's 365 and a quarter days in a year, but it's really closer to 365.24. You see, it's not necessary that the model is "of something real" in order that it is useful. So you might insist, that it's not necessary for the number, 365 and a quarter, to be exact, but it's necessary that the sun and the earth are real things. But that's not the case either. "Sun", and "earth" refer to our apprehensions, so again what is signified by these words here is something conceptual. If our concept of what the sun and the earth are, is not absolutely correct, how can we say that these words refer to something real?
Do you not think that we would be better of to say that the model is something real? Then we don't have to worry whether or not the model represents something real, because that requires a stretch of the imagination anyway. If the model is useful, then it is something real, and what exactly it is useful for is a completely different issue.
Of course there is a disjoint, our models are meant to be as simple as possible yet produce as many accurate predictions as possible.
Our models are not meant to be simulations of all reality.
But the reason are models are useful is because they are simple but reliable.
Which should not be the case if the laws of nature are not consistent or do not exist.
I don't agree with your opinion that the debates were about the principle of relativity.
You can claim they were about local realism, but that is not precisely the same thing as the principle of relativity.
You can even claim that local realism has not survived quantum mechanics and I would not dispute that, but realism philosophy has survived quantum mechanics.
So I would not agree with the claim that quantum mechanics proves there is no objective reality.
That is not the point that you believe them separate things.
The point is how should they be useful at all if they do not relate to reality?
Why do they produce consistent results if there is no objective consistency to speak of in reality?
No, the point is that you are drawing the conclusion that if they are useful, then they are "of reality". So the onus is on you, to justify this claim, by supplying an acceptable principle which would necessitate this conclusion. I've already given you the reason why I do not accept that conclusion. I see that in cases of lying and deception, it's very clear that models which are not "of reality" are indeed useful. And, as I tried to explain to you, in cases of simple misunderstanding, models which are not of reality, are still very useful.
There is a principle of efficiency here. One can be using a model, which gets the job done, until another person comes along with a completely different model that is much more efficient at getting the job done. Two completely different models and they are both useful, but one is much more useful than the other, because it is more efficient. Perhaps the more efficient one covers a wider scope, has less exceptions to the rule, or just makes the mathematics easier. The more efficient model might be useful to achieve many more different ends, replacing many different models, or it might just achieve the one end with much less effort. We cannot say that "being useful" is the principle of judgement for the reality of the model, because even the inefficient model was useful. We need to give "usefulness" some parameters, which can relate it to reality. Useful in which way, for what?
This is why we need to define the ends, what are we trying to achieve with the model, in order that we can properly judge its usefulness. If the goal is to deceive, then clearly being useful does not indicate that the model is "of reality". If the goal is to get more funding, then we have to consider the possibility of deception, because we know that the prospects of money may influence some to deceive.
Quoting m-theory
If your means for judging a model in relation to reality is "usefulness" then it is you who is implying teleology. Usefulness necessarily implies purpose, and you have designated this as your principle for judging the reality of the model. So your "reality" is necessarily tied to the purpose for which the model is judged, according to usefulness toward that purpose. Your reality is therefore teleological.
It is very real that our models are useful.
Or are you suggesting that this is only imagined as well?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The models that assume nature are consistent are useful because...nature does indeed appear to be consistent.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I thought I had done this.
Why is producing reliable results not an end?
You don't get more funding if you don't produce results.
That which is real does not necessarily turn out to be useful, and that which is useful does not necessarily turn out to be real; hence the notion of "useful fictions." What I think we can say instead is that if our models do not represent something real, then eventually they will produce results that are in conflict with our experience.
Getting back to the question posed by the thread title, it depends on what we mean by "thing" and "real." If "thing" refers only to an individual and "real" is equivalent to "actual," then that statement is true and no one (except maybe a Platonist) regards universals as "real things." However, if "thing" can also refer to a continuum - a quality or regularity - and "real" encompasses whatever has its characters regardless of whether anyone ever thinks so, then that statement is false. In this sense, any potential aggregate of possible points that are all in the same plane and equidistant from any other single point is a real circle.
Yep. Ideals like perfect circles, or the principle of relativity, represent bounding limits. They are as real as it gets in terms of bounding material actuality. They are continuums in the sense of being complete symmetry states with no brokenness.
So they show how "reality" is dichotomous. Nature has to be divided or separated in this actual way to have the possibility of being.
If there is be material action, some kind of process, then its bounding limits are also just as real, but real in the complementary sense of being the continua or symmetry state that is the formal limit on that materiality.
So if the criteria for being real is that we are encountering some brute or objective fact of nature, then universals or generals are real as limits on being. Action - being symmetry breaking - has to have a real symmetry that it breaks.
To clarify - universals or generals are not real because they themselves are brute or objective facts of nature, but because they govern the brute or objective facts of nature. Right?
Quoting apokrisis
Is this related to the notion that the actualization of any possibility necessarily rules out others?
I would say that they're not 'existing things' - to say that they are is to reify them - but they're nevertheless real, in the same sense that the natural numbers are real. Hence, as you know Peirce points out, there's a distinction between 'what is real', and 'what exists' - a distinction which is not generally recognised by modern philosophy.
Have a look at this review - Meaning and the Problem of Universals, Kelly Ross.
Yes, I know; you seem to have misunderstood my comment. I was asking @apokrisis to confirm that the reason why universals or generals are real is not because they themselves are brute or objective facts of nature, but because they govern the brute or objective facts of nature.
I'm not suggesting something else, I agree that models are useful. But "useful" implies purpose. So if it is real that models are useful, then purpose is just as real.
Quoting m-theory
Ok, but now consistency is something different than usefulness. And I would agree that observed consistency is useful, but I don't think we should jump the gun, and conclude that since some things in nature are consistent, and useful, therefore nature is consistent.
Maybe you will consider the following. Consistency is useful. Human beings (as well as other living things) desire to fulfill ends, i.e. they seek to satisfy their wants and needs. Therefore human beings will focus their attention on the consistent aspects of reality, because this is useful for fulfilling their wants and needs. But it would be a fallacy to conclude that all of nature is necessarily consistent.
Quoting m-theory
Reliable results are meaningless unless those reliable results can be used for further ends. That is why reliable results are just the means to ends. To produce reliable results is not an end in itself. Suppose I could accurately predict winning lottery numbers. Unless someone is to act on these "reliable results", this would be nothing more than an interesting party trick. It is what the reliable results are used for , which is important here. And. it all depends on what is wanted, what is the end, that dictates the type of reliable results which we seek. Depending on what we are doing, we might want reliable results in weather predictions, stock market predictions, whatever.
So this generality "reliable results" cannot be an end itself, because it is always used for something further. Furthermore, this "something further", which is desired, dictates where we will be seeking reliable results. So for instance, what is wanted, dictates whether we will be seeking reliable results with respect to the weather tomorrow, the strength of the concrete poured in the bridge, the size of the furnace installed in the house, etc.. Reliable results is dependent on what is wanted.
Quoting aletheist
Well, M-theory seems to base reality on usefulness, and this means successful at achieving an end. I don't have a strong objection against this basic point, but it is where we proceed from here which is critical. If anything which is successful at achieving ends is reality, then we have fictions and other nonsense as reality. So I think that it is only when a model is useful toward a particular type of goal, or end, that we can establish a relationship between the model and reality. This leaves the question of what type of end is best related to reality.
Quoting aletheist
But what the irrational nature of pi demonstrates is that there is no such thing as the aggregate of possible points equidistant from a single point. That single point which is supposed to be the centre of the circle, with equal lines to the circumference, is non-existent, just like the point where a tangent is supposed to meet the arc of a circle, is non-existent as well. Simply put, the curved line is incompatible with the straight line..
Exactly.
How does one get beyond the ambiguity that haunts this kind of philosophy? I'd say look at the results of thinking on that which is not "mere" or "only" thought.
Hi. Respectfully, does this not bring us back to the ambiguity of "exist"? Does there exist a fixed, context and practice independent meaning for the word "exist"? Does the straight line exist anymore than this central point except as a sort of less complex idealization?
I agree, and I think this is very important. Philosophy (seems to me) is at least as much about deciding what to pursue as it is evaluating the means for figuring out how to get there. Intellectual error is only to be feared in terms of failing to procure the desired state. It's a digression, but I think one can swat away various hyper-skeptical concerns along these lines.
I agree, but perhaps we experience this terms of reality changing on us. The models we live by are more or less reality-for-us until they break down. Of course there are models that are held at a distance and known to be models, also. But largest, most crucial frames/models (seems to me) are the ones we take for granted in order to construct the models and frames that we know to be such. Perhaps ordinary language is the more or less invisible frame that we have to mostly assume without criticism in order to debate the meaning of "universal" and "existence" in the first place. Of course we cannot doubt all of our language use at the same time, just as we cannot rebuild the boat from scratch as we sail it on the black and seamless sea of philosophy.
Man I will be honest.
I have no interest in readying all that.
Your posts are kind of long winded and seem to miss my point.
You always seem to end up saying because those models serve a purpose, but the purpose of those models is to confirm an assumption about reality, that assumption is that reality is consistent such that reality can be predicted if you apply the correct universal rules.
My point is there is no way to account for why our models are useful if those models are not of something real.
My point - in response to mtheory largely - was that they are as much a brute fact of existence as the material particulars which they govern.
But then I am arguing for a process ontology and so there aren't really any brute facts of existence anyway. Everything is emergent.
So if you are thinking of the Peircean position on real/existing, then I would reserve the term, existence, to mean substantial form.
The idea of substantial forms dominates ancient Greek philosophy and medieval philosophy, but has fallen out of favour in modern philosophy. The idea of substantial forms has been abandoned for a mechanical, or “bottom-up” theory of organization.' ~ Wikipedia.
I would reserve the term 'existence' for 'phenomena' - broadly speaking, any object which can be known by science.
Peirce says “Existence [. . .] is a special mode of reality, which, whatever other characteristics it possesses, has that of being absolutely determinate" - from here.
Right - we create our models with some goal or end in mind, and that is what guides us in ascertaining which parts of reality and which relations among them are significant, such that we then include them in the model and leave out everything else.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, if "thing" refers only to an actual individual, then that statement is true; but if "thing" can also refer to a continuum, then it is false - there is such a "thing" as a potential (not actual) aggregate of possible (not actual) points that are in the same plane and equidistant from any other single point. This is a real relation, not an existing object. The irrational nature of pi simply means that we cannot precisely measure the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter; it has no bearing on whether that ratio is real.
Right, and the "breaking down" is what happens when reality confronts us with its independence from our thoughts about it. We maintain our current beliefs until such anomalies create the irritation of genuine doubt, which compels us to undertake inquiry in an effort to reestablish the equilibrium of stable beliefs.
And my point is simply that the usefulness of our models does not, by itself, guarantee that they are of something real. Geocentrism was a useful model for many centuries. Phlogiston and ether were useful models for a while. Newtonian physics is still a useful model today, even though we know that it is not strictly correct.
I think that Peirce would disagree. He categorized all brute facts of existence under 2ns, but all generals under 1ns (qualities) and especially 3ns (regularities).
Quoting Wayfarer
The problem with this is that science does not just study "objects," it also studies laws - and in Peirce's terminology, laws are real (3ns) but do not exist (2ns).
Quoting Wayfarer
He continues, "Reality, in its turn, is a special mode of being, the characteristic of which is that things that are real are whatever they really are, independently of any assertion about them." He also writes elsewhere that existence is a "mode of being of that which reacts with other things," that "existence means reaction with the environment," and "I myself always use exist in its strict philosophical sense of 'react with the other like things in the environment.'"
Our subject is reality, what is real, and this is somewhat different from "exists", because "real" implies a genuine, or actual existence. So even if we allow that ideals or "idealizations" have some sort of existence, what we are trying to determine is their place relative to an assumed genuine, or actual existence, reality.
Quoting aletheist
To say that a possible, or potential thing (non-actual thing) is real, is self-contradictory. "Real", by definition refers to the actual thing, as indicating its difference from the possible, or non-actual thing..
Quoting m-theory
You've made this or similar assertions numerous times and all that it demonstrates is that you do not understand what "useful" means. That is why my posts get so long winded, because I have to say it in so many different ways, trying to get through to you what usefulness is. If you don't read it, then how are you going to understand what is present to my mind, when you use the word "useful".
Do you agree that "useful" is used to refer to something which can bring about desired results, goals or ends? Tools are useful because they can bring about a state which is desired. So the useful thing earns its title "useful" in relation to this desired goal, this end, which is an "ideal". Therefore a model is deemed "useful" according to its relationship to an ideal.
Unless we can establish as a fact, that ideals are what is real, or at least some sort of relationship between ideals and reality, there is no basis for your claim that models must be "of something real", if they are useful.
Quoting aletheist
What the irrational nature of pi demonstrates is that a circle cannot have both a circumference and a diameter, in any absolute, or "ideal" sense. These two are incompatible, the diameter and the circumference, as the ratio between them cannot be resolved, in any absolute sense. This has nothing to do with our capacity to measure, it is this way by definition. Since the line of the diameter is what indicates the position of the centre of the circle, it is therefore impossible that a circle has both a centre and a circumference.
This is because the point, which is assumed to indicate the centre of the circle, as non-dimensional, is inherently incompatible with the line, which is dimensional. Even an infinite number of non-dimensional points could not produce a dimensional line, we must assume something in between the non-dimensional points, line segments. Non-dimensional points, and line segments are incompatible. In the case of the straight line, the segments between the points are one dimensional. In the case of the curved line of the circumference, the segments are two dimensional. So in a similar way to the way that the point is incompatible with the line, one being non-dimensional and the other being dimensional, the straight line is incompatible with the curved line, one being of a single dimension and the other of two dimensions. So the circumference is incompatible with the diameter, one is two dimensional, the other is one dimensional.
And Newtonian mechanics is still useful, there are simply more accurate models.
I think it is you that does not understand that if nature were not consistent then models that predict consistently would not be useful.
No; you are ignoring the distinction between "real" and "actual," and instead treating them as synonyms. Realism regarding universals/generals is the view that the real is a broader category than the actual, such that possibilities and regularities (for example) are just as real as actualities. You are simply asserting nominalism - the opposing view that the real and the actual are one and the same. You cannot refute realism by simply insisting on a nominalist definition of "real."
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The model itself is ideal, but that which it is intended to represent is real. In particular, a mathematical model - i.e., a diagram - embodies the real relations among the parts of its object; and again, the modeler selects those parts and their relations as those that are significant, given the purpose of the model.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Huh? The ideal sense is the only sense in which a circle can have both a circumference and a diameter in the exact ratio of pi. The two lengths are not "incompatible," whatever that means; they are incommensurable, which simply means - as I said before - that their ratio cannot be precisely measured as a rational number, not that it is somehow "unreal." The same goes for the ratio between the diagonal and side length of a square. It is not by accident that what we call "real numbers" include not only all rational numbers, but also all irrational numbers.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I agree with this, since it is the very definition of a true continuum. No multitude of actual points - not even the infinite total of all real numbers - comprises a line; instead, a line contains potential points exceeding all multitude. Every part of a continuum is itself a continuum, not an individual; every part of a line is itself a line, not a point. The dispute between realists and nominalists may also be framed as the question of whether there are any real continua of this sort; realists say yes, nominalists say no.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This, however, is nonsense; if it were true, then the perimeter of a (two-dimensional) square would be "incompatible" with its (one-dimensional) side length, while the (one-dimensional) diagonal length of a square would be "compatible" with its (one-dimensional) side length. On the contrary, the perimeter and side length of a square are commensurable, but its diagonal and side length are incommensurable.
It provided very accurate predictions, especially as various ad hoc adjustments were incorporated over the centuries. For example, the sun rose and set right when the predictions said that it would.
Quoting m-theory
In other words, you now acknowledge that a model can be useful despite being inconsistent with some aspects of reality, as long as the modeler does not consider those aspects to be significant given the purpose of the model.
That the sun rises and sets was an observation not a prediction.
Quoting aletheist
Newtonian mechanics is not what I would call inconsistent with reality.
That would make it as useless as geocentricism.
I referred to when the sun rises and sets - i.e., the time of each event - which varies each day. That was a prediction, and it was quite accurate under geocentrism. Likewise for the locations of the stars and planets in the sky - again, with various ad hoc adjustments over time.
Quoting m-theory
Newtonian mechanics will give you incorrect answers for certain scenarios; therefore, it is (to that extent) inconsistent with reality, and thus useless for solving those kinds of problems. It is not entirely useless, though, because it is consistent enough with reality for many other scenarios. Again, whether a particular model is an adequate representation of reality depends on the purpose in for which it is being used.
Or as George Box famously put it, "All models are wrong, but some are useful."
The prediction of geocentricism was that the earth was at the center of the universe, not that the sun rises and sets.
Quoting aletheist
Newtonian mechanics is how we put men on the moon.
To this day Newtonian mechanics is still taught in the classroom because it remains useful.
Newtonian mechanics still produces reliable predictions.
But GR produces even better results as a model of gravitation, so it is currently accepted as the more accurate model.
It is true that models improve over time, as does our ability to observe the accuracy of our models.
That newer models produce more accurate results hardly explains why the older models produced consistently reliable but less accurate results.
You raise a fair point though.
If nature was inconsistent and had no universal principles why should our models be useful, and why should we be able to improve upon them?
If nature was inconsistent we might get lucky with a given model, and it remains useful but less accurate, instead what happens is we are able to improve our models by accounting for newly observed consistencies in nature.
That should not be the case should it?
No, the model of geocentrism was that the earth was at the center of the universe. Its usefulness was that it facilitated accurate (enough) predictions of certain phenomena, including when the sun would rise and set each day, and the locations of the stars and planets in the sky. It was when these predictions increasingly failed, requiring more and more ad hoc adjustments to the model, that it became imperative to come up with a different model.
Quoting m-theory
Yes - under certain conditions, and therefore for certain purposes, that model is accurate enough.
Quoting m-theory
Right - and, returning to the thread topic, the consistency of nature calls for an explanation. Realists believe that the laws of nature are real and genuinely govern actual events, including those that will occur in the future.
The only prediction it had was wrong, as soon as we were able to observe that it was useless.
Quoting aletheist
Why should they be useful at all though unless nature is consistent?
Quoting aletheist
I think it is more accurate to say realists claim the consistency in nature is real, and hence using models with universal laws produces useful results.
How have we observed that the earth is not at the center of the universe? Heliocentrism ultimately prevailed because it facilitated better predictions of things like when the sun would rise and set, and the locations of the stars and planets in the sky, without all of the ad hoc adjustments that geocentrism required.
Quoting m-theory
That is clearly how you prefer to frame the issue. However, nominalists do not dispute that "using models with universal laws produces useful results"; what they dispute is that those laws are real apart from how we use them.
How should we be able to apply those laws at all if they do not represent some reality?
Fine the models are not real, but it is real that there is consistency in nature, if there were not then application of models should produce no results, nor should those models improve as our ability to observe the consistency in nature improves.
None of what you have here addresses that question.
Why does science work at all if there is not something real out there?
Quoting aletheist
This is exactly how I see it, too.
I think that we philosophical types have very little genuine doubt about the meaning of "real" and "exist" in given particular contexts. As far as I can tell, there also seems to be little genuine doubt about the existence of the external-to-self everyday world. Would you agree that many metaphysical debates are debates about how to best name the shared experiences that the discussion takes for granted as a condition of its possibility?
I lean toward realism myself, but the usefulness of our models is not sufficient by itself to demonstrate that realism is true and nominalism is false.
Nominalism cannot be falsified, it cannot be true or false.
My point is how is it even useful?
What predictions does it make, what breakthroughs are the result of applying nominalist assumptions?
Why should nominalism be taken seriously?
No, because characterizing the subject matter of metaphysical debates as merely how to name things sounds like presupposing nominalism.
Again, I used "brute fact" in it is usual philosophical sense. And it would also apply in the Peircean sense because my point is that laws, symmetries and other notions of thirds are just as much something human minds will run smack into as examples of secondness, like an actual brick wall.
So mathematical-strength regularities like circles are as resistant to our efforts to think them otherwise as the stone we attempt to kick. Although the modes of that encounter may be more rationalist in one, more empirical in the other.
A tautology (e.g., "all nominalists are nominalists") cannot be falsified, and yet is trivially true - in fact, necessarily true. Therefore, it is not the case that something that cannot be falsified cannot be true or false. Some version of nominalism may be true, in which case realism is false; or some version of realism may be true, in which case nominalism is false; and this binary obviously does not exhaust the possibilities.
Quoting m-theory
You will have to ask a nominalist. Paging @Terrapin Station ...
I can see why you would say that, but I'm actually talking about an insight that trivializes the nominalism/realism debate in terms of its uselessness or disconnection from the "local" language use that gets things done. I assume, for instance, that you and everyone else lives in a world of houses and roads and automobiles and trees and grocery stores. We employ the words "exist" and "real" without worry in ordinary life. It's almost as if we intentionally forget the flexibility and context-dependence of these words in order to enjoy the "chess problem" of establishing a philosopher's version of the meaning. And yet consensus seems hopeless, especially since it would destroy the very game that we are apparently playing more for pleasure than anything else.
How would you propose this could be demonstrated?
I had in mind this notion from Peirce: "A compulsion is 'Brute' whose immediate efficacy nowise consists in conformity to rule or reason." However, I broadly agree that our experience of reality, not just existence, includes encountering resistance.
What does "ordinary life" have to do with philosophy? I say that only slightly tongue-in-cheek. "Ordinary life" is a matter of employing habits based largely on instincts and sentiments, rather than philosophical or even scientific theories.
Quoting m-theory
Are you claiming that only propositions that can be demonstrated may be true? If so, how would you propose this could be demonstrated?
In any case, again, you will have to ask a nominalist.
Greetings and welcome. Here are some web essays and articles on the (scholastic) realism v nominalism debate that you might find useful.
What's Wrong with Ockham?
The Theological Origins of Modernity Michael Allen Gillespie
Pierce and the Threat of Nominalism
I was claiming that there is no way to demonstrate that nominalism is true or false.
I don't think it is possible.
I read this book (the link is to a review of it) over the long holiday weekend and found it very illuminating. Thanks again for bringing it to my attention.
Do you think that there is some way to demonstrate that realism is true or false?
Yes, eventually all the anti-realists will die, and there will still be a reality around.
Thank you. Would you agree that we have little doubt in local or everyday contexts? I do of course see a connection to religion and culture here. I personally think it is clear that concepts exist. The first question might be: "In what way do concepts exist?" But the second question is fascinating, too: "What sort of conclusive answer to the first question can we really hope for?" Is there a shared criterion in place that allows us to agree on a correct answer-- assuming one "exists"?
That is not what we mean by "realism" in this thread. We are talking about whether universals are real, not whether anything is real. You might want to take a look at the links from @Wayfarer to understand the debate.
lol
thanks
Would you say that you are not terribly interested in philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom? I'd describe it as thinking about thinking in the pursuit of the good life and the improvement of one's character. I am aware that philosophy also occurs within a more scientific paradigm, but I find that as it becomes more specialized that it loses its grandeur as a central human concern.
There is no subject which not a subject of philosophy, it is the mother of all sciences and arts.
I can relate to that. It seems to me that as philosophers we have to relate or organize all of our less general forms of thinking. Philosophy is something like the apex of a pyramid.
However, I work in an objective field, and I am staggered by the amount of knowledge accumulated over the centuries. Is it still possible for one human to organize this knowledge for humanity at large? I don't think so. Life is too short. Knowledge continues to advance. So I experience myself as a sort of Hellenistic philosopher by necessity. While I would like to live forever and, well, learn and organize everything, I see that life passes swiftly, that such a goal is impossible. So I content myself with the pursuit (as a human away from my discipline) of the knowledge that is most essential, which I'd call "wisdom" perhaps.
No, I would not say that at all; but I am not only interested in philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom.
Quoting R-13
I see this as primarily a matter of cultivating practical wisdom (phronesis) - i.e., good judgment in the form of good habits of feeling (esthetics), action (ethics), and thought (logic) - rather than just intellectual wisdom (sophia). Instincts, sentiments, common sense, tradition, etc. are all better guides than philosophy for that pursuit, especially since we often have to make decisions without taking the time to work out a comprehensive theory.
Actually I largely agree. The importance of this practical wisdom, though, is one of the things that thinking about thinking can clarify. On the other hand, perhaps you'd agree that harmonizing the instincts and refining common sense are a part of this practical wisdom. Instinct alone or obsolete common sense both sometimes point the way to disaster.
As an easy example, I mention outrage. It's "common sense" or at least fashionable among some of those I know to manifest outrage. But my exposure to Nietzsche and the stoics and even perhaps to the detached tone of philosophy in general has taught me a distaste for this kind of self-presentation. It's a different issue, but linguistic philosophers (Wittgenstein in particular) have encouraged me to see merely terminological disputes in philosophy as a bit futile. I'm not sure that they succeed either as a sort of super-science or as the pursuit of wisdom.
I fully agree with this, and my own primary philosophical interest is "thinking about thinking." For example, I have been working for a while on adapting Peirce's "logic of inquiry" in science to identify a "logic of ingenuity" in my profession of engineering. Furthermore, I see it as being applicable to other types of decision-making, including ethical deliberation. That being the case, I hope eventually to integrate it with my virtue-based approach to engineering ethics.
Nominalism can be falsified: simply show evidence for a real universal.
Of course that's not so simple as there are no real universals, but if there were, one would just have to show evidence of one, and that would falsify nominalism.
How do you circumvent "the problem of abduction" - i.e. that it's just another name for induction, which never happens in reality, because it can't.
I checked out the links. Good stuff. I've looked into Pierce a little and pragmatism in general significantly. I roughly believe that the human being is "essentially" an engineer and that thinking is usefully conceived of in terms of engineering. Pure theory can be viewed as the quest to construct indestructible tools that never become obsolete. This explains our desire for "absolute" truth.Of course we want an unbreakable "wrench." And we would also like to resolve the problem of who we should be permanently in terms of some absolute authority (God or pure reason or the truth of heart). Anyway, I value the way that thinking about thinking allows us to "zoom out" and reframe local inquiries in terms of of our wider purpose. Determining this wider purpose is something that I particularly associate with philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom. The problem is establishing the most general or authoritative criterion, which occurs necessarily within criteria that cannot be questioned all at once. (I'm a fan of Hegel, at least when he writes clearly.)
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Quoting R-13
I have been puzzling over this question a long time, indeed my first post on the old Philosophy Forums, from whence hail many of the contributors here, was along these lines (in 2009!)
Sometime before that I had been struck by an epiphany of sorts, which was that natural numbers are different to phenomenal objects in two principle ways: they are not composed of parts, and they don't begin and end in time. (Later I realised that strictly speaking, this describes prime numbers.) I wondered if this was something that was understood in philosophy, and found that it was characteristic of the Pythagorean-Platonic attitude. I learned that the Platonism generally had the understanding that this enabled the mathematician to grasp a higher order of truth. (This attitude is dismissed as 'the romance of mathematics' by Lakoff and Johnson, in their book 'Where Mathematics Comes From' (see here) and is not well regarded nowadays. However there are always some Platonists around.)
The point I make is fairly simple but has profound consequences: that if numbers are indeed real, but not material, then this contradicts materialism and empiricism, as mathematical objects are precisely not object of experience, or really objects at all in the material sense. Yet they're real, and indeed indispensable for science. It's an interesting fact that this 'inconvenient truth' has been recognized by empiricist philosophers who have devised ingenious arguments to deflate the claims of the 'transcendent reality of numbers' such as The Indispensability Argument:
As indeed they are. However I would rather believe the rationalists.
Now, as to what kind of certainty we can arrive at in this matter, the answer can only be 'intuitive certainty'. But we can't demonstrate that in any empirical way, as it is by nature a metaphysical claim.
Quoting R-13
Beware the 'instrumentalisation of reason' ;-)
I think we start with what might be called "ordinary" experience. We live in a world where there are numbers, people, ideas, chairs, germs, atoms, etc. For "instrumental reasons," some people describe chairs or even people in terms of atoms. For me the mistake would be shifting from this reframing as a useful, temporary perspective to the position that chairs or peoples or even numbers are "really" atoms or waves or what have you. So there's a way to view the instrumental perspective as a transcendence of materialism, for instance. If we are building a cell-phones, it's useful to think reality in terms of electrons. But the poet dwells on reality as the place where people meet and feel and think. I don't think we have to choose. If we do choose, we can choose a sort of higher instrumentalism that doesn't ignore value or the intense "subjective" presence of concepts.
I think the rationalists got something important right. I like Hegel. I generally think in terms of assimilation --an increasingly complex synthesis --rather than in terms of refutation. The natural numbers are just about the paradigm of objectivity. I think that 31 is prime whether anyone wants it to be or not. It's "there" in an important sense for anyone who cares to look. And of course arguments against the presence or value of concepts depend on this presence and value. "Does matter somehow begin to think?" Yes and no, depending on one's investments in the words. Thinking happens, certainly, and most of us believe in the kind of non-thinking stuff that that thinking creatures manipulate. Again, we agree more or less on what's going on in a practical sense, so it's seems largely of matter of taste as to how we frame this all up metaphysically.
My own affinity to universals stems from belief in those that are, at least to some extent, experiential: the Good, the Aesthetic, etc. (all of which in more ancient philosophies tend to be different facets of the same given—or else different facets derived from the same given). I’m still fumbling, through this affinity, with mathematical universals. In this respect:
I’m very comfortable with the universals of rudimentary geometric figures, but I don’t take these to be numbers. Numbers, on the other hand, to me are cognitive models, or representations, of quantity. Geometric points then seem to naturally be the core root of all mathematical universals: via multiplicity of geometric points one attains quantity (numbers) and geometric forms, dimensions, etc. Yet geometric points as well are a human model, or construct. This leads me to believe that they too represent some universal that is independent of human models—such as, for example, can be stated of quantity and its relations being independent of human models.
I’d much appreciate your comments on this perspective. Disagreements are always welcomed.
What would you count as evidence for a real universal?
On the other hand, is realism is falsifiable?
I admit I’ve little hope of succeeding, but I’ll give it a try:
The innate notion of good--i.e., of what is beneficial--is, I argue, a universal. By this shouldn’t be interpreted concrete examples of what is good—be these either presumed relative to context or independent of context. Nor do I intend issues regarding good for whom. Instead, I merely intend that the innate awareness of what is beneficial is universal and stands apart from any sentience in and of itself: good is a property that can be divorced from the properties of an individual sentient being. Yes, what is good to you is not always likewise good to me (sometimes), yet despite this there is yet the universal awareness of there being something which we cognize and label “good”. For one extreme example, ameba won’t cognize the concept of good but will yet be endowed with awareness of what is good, i.e. beneficial.
In what manner would you then disagree with good being a universal?
Abduction is not another name for induction, and induction can and does happen in reality. The scientific method employs both of them routinely. It seems like you may not be familiar at all with what Peirce meant by these terms.
I would probably not go quite that far. However, I do think that Peirce's characterization of inquiry as the struggle prompted by doubt, which has the fixation of belief as its goal, is analogous to ingenuity as the struggle prompted by uncertainty, which has the fixation of decision as its goal.
I suppose it's just a metaphor that I find useful. Problem solving! Yes, the fixation of belief in response to doubt. Also the fixation of decision is crucial. We might even reduce the fixation of belief to the fixation of belief. That's why beliefs matter, right? We act on beliefs, and nothing manifests genuine belief as convincingly as action that involves risk. One might describe doubt as a sort of pain. Then we could look at metaphysical systems that address the problem of evil, for instance, as relief of pain or even as sources of ecstasy (rational "mysticism"). I like the trinity of prediction, control, and morale --but perhaps this boils down to control or power. We only want to predict so that we can be in the right place at the right time or not be in the wrong place at the wrong time --something like that. And we want to control or convert suffering so that it ceases or becomes pleasure.
Both abduction and induction are supposed methods of inference from data to a theory. That doesn't happen, it's invalid, and is certainly not part of the scientific method as expounded by Popper.
There is no method of inference from data to an explanatory theory. That's just a story we tell kids. The histories of quantum mechanics and relativity for example bear no traces of tales of abduction or induction, but then how could they?
Right - Peirce once described pragmatism as "scarce more than a corollary" of Alexander Bain's definition of a belief as "that upon which a man is prepared to act."
The Popper who wrote Conjectures and Refutations? Conjectures result from what Peirce called abduction (or retroduction), and refutations (or corroborations) result from what Peirce called induction.
Quoting tom
Do you really want to claim that quantum mechanics and relativity did not begin as plausible conjectures to explain surprising phenomena (abduction), which had predictable experiential consequences (deduction) that were subsequently evaluated through rigorous experimental testing (induction)?
Indeed. This is the point of view I was coming from as a critic of "terminological" disputes or "differences that make no difference." And that's actually what I value most in my exposure to pragmatism, that it shifted my mind away from some earnest wrestling with metaphysics that looked, in retrospect, like a waste of time. I'm currently in a Hegel phase, so I still like metaphysics. But I suppose I'm especially interested in the connection between value and epistemology. How does what we find authoritative, morally and in terms of objective truth, evolve? Clearly self-consciousness is a factor.
Peirce evidently believed that the realism vs. nominalism debate was very consequential, because he waged that battle quite vigorously over the course of almost his entire philosophical career. He contended that nominalism has an inherent tendency to "block the way of inquiry" in various ways, and thus violate what he considered to be "the first rule of logic." I again highly recommend Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism by Paul Forster if you are interested in exploring this further.
OK, so the scientific method is new to you? Popper wrote the Logic of Scientific Discovery (LSD) first, in which he expounded the scientific method. One pillar of this method is that induction is never employed, because following Hume, Popper shows it is invalid. Later (perhaps even in Conjectures and Refutations) Popper goes a bit further in stating his view that "induction is a myth".
Whatever you think abduction is, its fundamental error is the same as induction - i.e. inference of an explanation from data. This just can't happen. What does happen according to the scientific method is a problem is encountered and a solution is conjectured, and there is no method for this part of problem-solving. Science consists of the method with which these ideas are treated.
Quoting aletheist
OK, so why don't you list some of the phenomena from which the Schrödinger equation was abduced? Or how about the surprising phenomena from which General Relativity was abduced?
One theory that has struck me as a possible candidate for an example of abduction is the explanation of the photoelectric effect given by Einstein in 1905. I think it's a good one because all the data had been available for some time (it was a well known problem) and even those with a strong aversion to maths can grasp Einstein's conjecture: that light is quantized.
To claim the theory of the photoelectric effect was abduced as part of the scientific method is about as useful and accurate as saying the theory was produced by magic. The scientific method does not concern itself with how theories are come by, but how they are treated.
That was indeed Popper's view, but not Peirce's. The latter suggested - long before Popper wrote anything - that the logical form of abduction looks something like this:
Indeed, this is deductively invalid - reasoning from consequent to antecedent, which is why Peirce also called it retroduction and acknowledged that its outcome is merely plausible at best. However, it furnishes the components of a perfectly valid deductive syllogism in which the conclusion is the surprising fact (C), the minor premiss is the credible conjecture (A), and the major premiss is the reason why C follows necessarily from A. In other words, A explains C in light of other known information, so a well-prepared mind is absolutely essential to the generation of viable hypotheses.
Of course, a plausible explanation does not yet count as a scientific hypothesis. The next step is deductively explicating the conjecture to determine whether it has any necessary consequences that can be experienced, preferably under controlled conditions; this is where Peirce's "pragmatic maxim" comes into play. The third and final step is then inductively evaluating whether the predicted outcomes actually occur, by conducting appropriate experiments. Like Popper much later, Peirce acknowledged that the hypothesis is never confirmed with certainty, only corroborated or falsified. Nevertheless, the logical form of induction is such that if the hypothesis is false, this will eventually come to light - induction is by no means infallible, but it is self-correcting over the long run.
If you were doing one of those tests where they asked you to identify the anomolous members of a set, then 'numbers' and 'ideas' would certainly jump out, possibly followed by 'germs' and 'atoms'. Why? Because a dog would be able to perceive people and chairs, but would have no hope of perceiving numbers or ideas. Humans are able to perceive numbers, ideas, and rational relationships, because of the power of rationality. It is the distinguishing feature of h. sapiens. Our perceptions and conceptions are inextricably bound up with rational judgement; we see 'through' those judgements, without realising that we're doing it. That is the sense in which the elements of rational judgement inform and underlie our 'meaning-world'.
Quoting R-13
Afraid not (but anyhoo.....)
Quoting javra
Note I am not offering any theory of the nature of number. Far greater minds than mine have tried and failed. My sole point is that at least some such entities - rules, laws, numbers, universals, and so on - are real but are not materially existent. So if we ask, do geometric forms, scientific laws, and so on, exist, the answer is not obvious; they don't exist as phenomena, although geometric forms can clearly be represented phenomenally. And, even if number is 'the representation of quantity', it is still something that can only be grasped by an intelligence capable of counting. So what intrigues me, is that these are in some sense 'independent of any mind' i.e. they exist independently of anyone thinking about them, but they're still only perceptible to a mind. I think that is very near the meaning of 'objective idealism'.
I think I would stress people. So I agree that humans are special, central. Quoting Wayfarer
This is very well said, and I agree very much. I associate philosophy with (among other things) becoming more conscious of these judgments that function as lenses. We are free to question and possibly replace such a judgment only after we become aware that we've been taking it for granted all along as a sort of necessity. This is the value, as I see it, in questioning the question. Let's say that we assume that either nominalism or realism is correct. Would we not still need a criterion to establish the correctness of one or the other? And yet philosophy seems largely to be the endless construction, criticism, and refutation of such criteria. The dream or goal seems to be something like a self-founding or self-justifying criterion or authority.
There was a fork in the road 500 years ago, now we're so far along the road that was taken that the alternative has almost faded from memory. But the dream, or goal, is what it always was: the vision of truth.
I agree. We seek the truth. And this seems to include the truth about truth-seeking. We find ourselves debating about how truth is or should be established. It seems that one aspect of philosophy is particularly concerned with the truth about truth, rather than the truth about life, for instance. It aspires to be meta-knowledge. Religious traditions might have it easier. What assumptions motivate us to defend the truths we are sure of? Philosophy seems to assume that truth is the result of or at least subject to debate. So there's something revolutionary in its essence. It has an anti-truth potential, it seems, since it must seemingly die with the attainment of the truth it seeks. But perhaps this is the philosopher dying into the sage.
Quoting Wayfarer
This underlined part got me thinking. Other than universals being non-phenomenal, the same could also be said of any physical, phenomenal given. And the greater the sapience of the species, the more cognizance it holds regarding that of which it is aware—again, as applies both to universals and to the realities of the physical world (e.g., though amebas could be innately aware of quantity--say in terms of rudimentary quantity concerning prey or predator--they certainly aren't aware of numbers and their relations). So, I view these attributes underlined within the quote as only part of the picture. Some would say that universals hold constraints upon particulars; else stated, that there is a top-down causation imposed upon particulars by universals. And I’m in agreement with this view. But that might be another story altogether.
Somehow, the more experiential universals (such as that of the good) are easier for me to contemplate, relatively speaking. In thinking of how maths and nature intersect—like fractals in plants—the notions become … well, no longer all that accessible. I know, I’m in long waiting list to have these things finally become easily intelligible, but I'm still somewhere there in that line.
You might say religions make it too easy, that the kind of truth they offer are rather too settled - 'sign here'. That's where the Platonist tradition is so interesting and still so important. Plato was determined not to be taken in by 'mere belief' but to arrive at a greater truth through the exercise of reason, which is still what distinguishes philosophy from religion as such (although there are many overlaps). But your observation of 'knowing how we know' is crucial to that. What motivates that, is something like a religious type of instinct, but again it is more questioning and more critical than what we generally take religion to be. (Have a look the abstract for [url=http://katjavogt.com/belief-and-truth/]Katja Vogt's Belief and Truth, I think she's on the money.)
Quoting javra
I think that is a very widely-accepted view nowadays - you're in good company.
One area of biological research that I think bears that out is the idea of 'convergent evolution' - for instance, if you want to fly, then you have to have a wing, whether it's an insect wing, bat wing, bird wing, or pterosaur wing. So could that be understood in terms of the 'idea' (eidos, form) of a wing? Given that it has to perform a particular function, then it has to assume a certain form - never mind what route it takes to get there. And there you see a nice kind of dynamic between necessity, on the one hand, and freedom, on the other.
(And Happy New Year to all, I'm in Sydney so it's New Years Eve here already, be back later.)
Sure, and no matter how many times I ask for an example of abduction or induction, I never get one.
So, here are a few surprising facts (C) that have been encountered. Perhaps you could give a rough idea how the best theory may have been abduced to explain one:
Perihelion of Mercury
Quantum Entanglement
The Higgs Boson
Gravitational Waves
The Cosmic Microwave Background?
Abduction doesn't happen, and would be useless if it did. It seems nothing more than an appeal to some sort of justification for an idea.
Quoting aletheist
There is no "logical form of induction" it is a fallacy.
We'd need to be able to somehow "point" (in quotation marks because it wouldn't have to be a literal, direct pointing) at a property that particulars can instantiate, where it's clear that what we're pointing at isn't simply us thinking about the property/formulating a mental concept of the property.
Quoting aletheist
Asymptotically. The more we look for the above and don't find it, the stronger the falsification is.
You're explaining what you take a universal to be here. You're not showing evidence that there are real (extramental) universals.
What would you count as an example of each? Abduction happens every time someone devises a new theory. Induction happens every time someone experimentally tests a proposed theory.
Quoting tom
To take one of your examples: No one "observed" the Higgs boson until they went looking for it (induction) because it was a necessary consequence (deduction) of an explanatory hypothesis (retroduction).
Quoting tom
Your view of logic seems too narrow. Again, no one is claiming that retroduction or induction is deductively valid.
Doesn't this requirement effectively beg the question, since realists affirm that our only "contact" with universals is via the mind? In fact, realists usually assert that all of our knowledge is of generals.
Peirce's "proof" of realism was holding a rock and asking his audience whether they knew that it would fall if he let go of it. In other words, our ability to make reliable predictions about the future behavior of individual objects requires the reality of the laws of nature as generals that govern particulars.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But that is not falsification in the same decisive sense that "discovery" or "observation" of one real universal would falsify nominalism. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Refuting realism seems to require proving a negative.
But you can't give a single example of either. Just to point out, you previously claimed testing of a theory was a deductive process. What changed your mind?
For the sake of argument, if we assume that Special Relativity was abduced from surprising observations, then what? How does that affect the status of the theory or what we do with it?
Quoting aletheist
Could you explain the inductive process of going to look for a particle predicted 50 years previously?
Quoting aletheist
But you are claiming that they happen, they are useful, and that you can appeal to them for justification. All false!
I mentioned the Higgs boson, since it was one of your own examples. Scientists posited its existence as a plausible explanation of certain surprising observations (retroduction). They predicted certain results if certain tests were undertaken (deduction). They subsequently carried out those tests and compared the actual results with the predictions (induction).
Quoting tom
I claimed no such thing. Explicating a theory - identifying its experiential consequences - is a deductive process. Evaluating a theory - carrying out experiments in order to ascertain whether those predictions are borne out - is an inductive process.
Quoting tom
Retroduction justifies nothing - it merely formulates a plausible hypothesis. Deduction only justifies a hypothesis to the extent of showing that it can produce testable predictions. Induction further justifies a hypothesis to the extent of showing that those predictions are experimentally corroborated. This is the maximum extent to which any scientific theory can be justified - we are always fallible, and thus can never achieve certainty. As Popper maintained, theories can be falsified, but never confirmed.
Our "contact" can be via the mind, but what you're claiming to "contact" isn't itself mind, right? (Otherwise, you're really a nominalist.) So if what you're "contacting" isn't itself mind, there should be some evidence of that (and that evidence should be the reason you believe that it's something other than mind). Whatever that evidence would be, that's what you'd present.
Of course, I don't believe there is any such evidence, and it seems to me that people are simply projecting/reifying the way they think about this issue--they're projecting/reifying concepts. But just in case I'm wrong about that, there would be some evidence regarding real universals, and that would falsify nominalism.
Quoting aletheist
Think about what that would be assuming, though: it would be assuming that either (a) nominalists believe that there's no way to account for regularities of "behavior" such as rocks falling under nominalism/under anti-realism on physical law as something separate from properties of particulars, yet despite this, they'd still be nominalists, or alternately and more crassly, it would be assuming that either (b) nominalists do not believe that there are regularities of behavior, or (c) they've not had the philosophical acuity to think through such cases. All of those should be dubious. No one is denying regularities of behavior. Nominalists simply believe that they're (particular) properties of particulars.
To show evidence that the regularlties are rather separate, real abstracts, we'd need to show evidence somehow of those separate, real abstracts.
Quoting aletheist
Which is why I said "asymptotically."
Quoting aletheist
Which isn't a very good saying, because it's wrong.
For one, it's very clearly wrong when we're talking about something that's very limited. For example, consider "my keys on top of this table." Absence of evidence--evidence of your keys being on top of that table, is very clearly evidence of absence of your keys being on top of that table. You know they're not on top of that table when you look at the top of that table and your keys are not there. That tells you that your keys are somewhere else instead.
But even when we're talking about something that's not limited in the same way, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. For example, say that someone says, "Someone in our solar system, there's a gang of cigar-smoking purple and pink polka-dotted turtles who sing Judas Priest songs five hours per day." You can't check everywhere in the solar system for them--at least not very easily yet. But the more you look for such a thing, the more you can rule it out.
(Aside from that, it becomes increasingly clear that there's no good reason to believe such a thing, but I'd say that that is different than falsifying evidence. We also have no good reason in my view to believe that there are real universals.)
Quoting aletheist
"You can't prove a negative" is also not a very good saying, because it's also wrong. We prove negatives in logic and mathematics all the time. For example, we can prove that there's no largest prime number.
Of course, empirical claims are not provable period. So we're not talking about proofs for this issue anyway.
I was just following the accepted definition of "real", which defines real as actual. I find there is a problem with your suggestion, that possibilities are real, because then all logical possibilities are equally realities. Unless we allow for some way to distinguish real possibilities from unreal possibilities, then we have all sorts of counterfactuals, possible worlds, multiverses, and many worlds, as realities, simply because they are logically possible. If we attempt to separate real possibilities from unreal possibilities, we do so by grounding them in what is actual. But if a real possibility is one that is grounded in an actuality, then why not just adhere to the proper definition of real, and maintain that what is real here is the actuality, and that the so-called "real" possibility is somehow related to the actuality. Then we have different types of possibilities, depending on the way that they are related to (or lack of relation to) what is real, actual.
To provide evidence for extramental givens requires rational justification for the particular given addressed being extramental. Yet, I’m so far not finding a difference between such justification as it applies to universals and such justification as it applies to physical objects. (And yes, I’m arguing for extramental givens.)
So, if multiple unrelated organisms hold awareness of good, then it seems safe to presume it justified that awareness of good, or of the beneficial, is not a given culturally transmitted from one organism to another (unlike mores and morals). The disparity between ameba and humans may be too extreme, so one can merely think of the disparity between great apes and humans. Like our awareness of a physical rock as object, awareness of good is an awareness of a particular object that is independent of other minds and invariantly present in all minds: all minds are aware of good as a given object, though this awareness is not gained culturally; just as all minds concerned will be aware of the same physical rock perceived, though this awareness is not gained culturally. (Rather than the example of good, the same can be stated of awareness of circles—though awareness of circles is more restrained to our sapient minds.) Therefore, though the physical rock is a phenomenal object and goodness is non-phenomenal object, the same justification here applies to both these objects of awareness being extramental.
What form of justification would one propose for a physical rock being extramental (say, rather than a mirage) that does not simultaneously also justify universals being extramental?
Or an objective idealist, such that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws." Peirce sometimes defined reality as that which is independent of the thoughts of any individual person or finite collection of people, but not necessarily independent of thought in general. He also once said that thought "appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world." That is a different debate, though.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Could you elaborate on this? How can particular properties of particular objects exhibit the same regularity, such that my choice of which particular rock to drop does not affect the universality of the outcome?
Quoting Terrapin Station
This is what Peirce called "crude induction" Interestingly, he considered it to be the only legitimate way to infer a universal proposition, because a single counterexample would suffice to refute it - i.e., it is instantly self-correcting.
But that is certainly not the technical definition within philosophy, especially in the context of the debate over the reality of universals, which is the thread topic.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The claim is not that all possibilities are real, it is that some possibilities are real. Likewise, the broader claim is not that all generals are real, it is that some generals are real.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
On the contrary, the actual is grounded in the really possible. A continuum is more fundamental than any individuals that happen to be actualized on it. As I went on to say in my post that you quoted, no multitude of actual points comprises a line; instead, a line contains potential points exceeding all multitude.
I generally agree. This seems to imply that concepts are either Divine or reflect the light of the Divine. The phrase "religious instinct" especially resonates for me. Thinking is passionate. Its object of love or desire is concept that reveals, or reality revealed in the concept. Thinking about thinking seems to concern itself with the revelation of revelation itself. I suppose the big question is whether there is something like a final or complete revelation. If there is not, then we seemingly never have absolute truth --but only the best truth of the day, necessarily perishable. If concept reveals reality, then a final Truth seems to require that the truly real be in some way fixed or complete. If concept creates reality to an important degree, though, we may never catch our own tail. In this case, the final truth might be a realization that all is process and fire and novelty.
Well I have no clue of what you mean by "the technical definition". Unless you specify it, where is that technical definition supposed to be found? To say that real is a broader term than actual does not provide a technical definition.
Quoting aletheist
What then, distinguishes between a real possibility and an unreal one. It cannot be something real, nor can it be unreal, because it has to create a boundary between these two. In your system of definitions, what creates that boundary between a real and an unreal possibility?
And if you say that there are real generals and unreal generals, then I suppose there is a similar boundary between real inductive conclusions and unreal deductive conclusions. None of that makes any sense to me. All inductive principles are of the same type, "inductive", some are better than others. To say that some are real and some are unreal would create a categorical separation within that category, and this is an unnecessary complication. Furthermore, you still need to account for something which substantiates your distinction between real and unreal inductive principles, this boundary cannot itself be something real.
Sorry, I just assumed that you were reading all of the posts in this thread. Briefly, reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so, while existence means reacting with other like things in the environment.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Good question, I will have to think about it. However, whether we can distinguish between real and unreal possibilities is not germane to whether there is such a distinction. In other words, it would be a real distinction.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Huh? This would entail that the distinction between the actual and the non-actual likewise cannot be something actual or non-actual. Is that your position?
I did not follow your last paragraph at all. Where did I say or imply anything about "inductive principles" being "real and unreal"?
So, doesn't it make sense to say that whatever is, regardless of whether any person says so, actually is, and therefore real is synonymous with actual? And how would you support the claim that a possibility is anything other than what some one says is possible?
Quoting aletheist
But don't you see the problem here? Whatever it is that creates the boundary between real and unreal cannot itself be real or else it would be part of the real, and therefore not the boundary between real and unreal?
Quoting aletheist
Well, you might state it like that, what lies between the actual and non-actual is the possible. But that's simplistic, and incorrect, as the possible is the non-actual. The problem may be resolved through dualism though. I'm dualist, so I allow two distinct forms of the actual, both are real. What separates them is the unreal, possibility.
Quoting aletheist
You said "not all generals are real". I assumed inductive principles are generals, so I asked how would you distinguish between real and unreal inductive principles. If they are all unreal, then what type of generals would be real?
A real possibility is an intelligible, or non contradictory, particular. So it speaks to the reality of constraints or generals. A real possibility is what the general conditions of regularity allow - or more accurately, can't forbid.
Again, this way of thinking is only true if you are locked into standard issue reductionism. In a holist, four cause, view of causality, existence becomes self organising development.
So we begin with a vagueness - everything is possible, anything might be the case. And yet embedded in that is the further constraint that most of these possibilities are in fact going to be contradictory and so cancel each other out.
Thus given an initial condition where everything is possible, that most general possible state is already going to suppress the actualisation of most of that possibility.
If I can shift a foot left just as easily as I can shift a foot right, then freely doing both will immediately cancel each shift, leaving me not able to move at all in effect.
So possibility is only actual when it meets the general constraint of being inteligible. It has to pass the test of not being self contradictory. Or rather, not being self cancelling in regards to some more general condition or constraint.
This is why you need a metaphysics that can distinguishes the two classes of potentiality - the possible vs the vague.
The vague is that state of everythingness to which the law of non contradiction fails to apply. In vagueness, there is no possibility that is not intelligible - because, symmetrically, there is also nothing to rule a possibility intelligible.
But a real possibility is a degree of freedom shaped by a context. It is something that actually could happen, in that it's happening is not already ruled self-defeating.
Wait--but you're just noting that goodness is an idea that multiple people have. What would be the evidence that it's not simply a mental phenomenon--that it's simply a way that brains function? (And by the way, I don't actually buy that mores/morals are culturally transmitted. They're culturally influenced,but that's different than them being literally culturally transmitted.)
Re rocks, we perceive them, we can observe them as something external to us. We can manipulate them, measure various aspects of them with machines, etc.
No, not given the technical distinction between real/reality and actual/existence. The whole point of making the distinction is to clarify that the two concepts are not equivalent. The nominalist holds that, indeed, only the actual is real; but the realist holds that there are some realities that are not actual. Philosophers have been arguing about this for centuries, so it seems like there must be something to it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, that does not solve the problem. What separates the unreal (possibility) from each form of the actual? Merely making a distinction does not "draw a boundary," and even if it did, the boundary would (by definition) be on neither side of itself. What color is the perimeter of a black ink spot on a white piece of paper? In what state is the border between Colorado and Wyoming?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I am still not following you at all here. What do you mean by "inductive principles"? What do they have to do with the realism/nominalism debate?
Well, arguably that would still amount to nominalism, though it depends on just what thought amounts to on that view, I suppose.
Quoting aletheist
Note that it wouldn't be literally the same. Just similar. And it would simply be a (brute) fact of how particular matter in particular dynamic relations behaves.
I have been talking about real possibilities as an inexhaustible continuum of potential individuals - general, not particular. Do you disagree?
But that sounds just like a universal, except for the "brute" part. Why would particular matter in particular dynamic relations predictably behave in the same way, or even in a very similar way? Calling it "brute" implies that there is no explanation. Why should we accept that?
Hey, as I mentioned initially, I don’t have high hopes of me being convincing. This, by the way, due to goodness being here evidenced experientially—and not through rational(ist) justifications (whatever these might be).
I use goodness as example, rather than maths, because it isn’t applicable only to some beings’ awareness. It’s ubiquitous to anything sentient—human or otherwise--while yet superseding all particular sentient beings. For example, hypothesize there being a superlative god (for the philosophizing of it) and good will supersede even this being as a universal. If an ameba in any way senses attraction and repulsion, it too will hold innate awareness of good—no brains are required for a sentient being to be innately aware of it. Like quantity, “good” is a property, or form, that is both imbedded into and apart from any individual being’s mind—or, at least, so the argument would go.
But I fold my cards for today. (May it be a good new year for all.)
Or perhaps "final truth" has nothing to do with concepts, in any determinate sense, at all.
I agree in that a continuum is the continuity of a habit or global constraint.
But a wrinkle may be that I'm avoiding treating a continuum as causally generative. So rather than creating possibilities - like a line producing always more points - it is all about suppressing vagueness, with crisp possibility being then the degrees of freedom that get left over.
So if the continuum simply generated the points that populate or construct the line, then where is the secondness, where is the reaction? The points are being imagined as static existents - at which point the reductionist will just say forget all the other causal apparatus and just take the points as real, treat the line an emergent fiction.
But I am stressing that the nature of the point is open ended. It is characterised only in terms of what about its spontaneity or tychism is actually constrained.
Of course in geometry, there is nothing more constrained than a zero dimensional point. Except it then has the open ended inertial freedoms of Newtonian mechanics - specifically the freedoms to translate and rotate.
So rather than calling the continuum inexhaustible - which suggest it is itself the generator of endless distinction - I would stress that it is instead a limit, and quite exhaustible. It can't restrict what is not within its scope. And what is unrestricted is the truly free.
That's an idea that has a certain appeal to me. I am tempted to use the words "mystical" or "intuitive." This would be something like the Philosopher dying into the Sage or Dialectic completing itself in Silence. I capitalize to stress the concepts as protagonists in an abstract narrative.
Quoting aletheist
There error there is in assuming that sans universals, there shouldn't be similarities.
Quoting aletheist
At some point you're going to posit things for which there is no further-down-the-turtle-pile explanation. For one, you have to, because you don't have infinite time to keep positing more.
I have been very interested in Hegel, too. With his "The Rational is the Real", though, I think he objectifies spirit and intuition. I don't personally believe there is an evolution of spirit in a dialectical sense, although there may certainly be a logical evolution of ideas in that kind of sense.
So, the Philosopher "dying into the Sage" has been going on from the beginning of self-consciousness, in various spiritual forms in various cultures, I would say. I don't believe there will be a general culminating vision of Absolute Knowing.
You still seem to be treating a universal as another kind of individual - "something separate" - that is somehow "in" particulars. In this case, it is rather a real habit - a law of nature - that governs particulars.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But why there should there be predictable similarities; i.e., regularities? What is the alternative explanation to real universals?
Quoting Terrapin Station
But why does the nominalist stop here? How do we determine that there are no further explanations to be found?
Because that's the concept of universals. A different concept is different (obviously). It's not the same issue.
Quoting aletheist
If the "law of nature" obtains separately from the particulars (regardless of whether we're talking about potentials versus actualities, etc.), then that would be separate, woudln't it? Otherwise it's not separate from the particulars, whatever it is, and we're talking about nominalism.
Quoting aletheist
Let's try it this way: what is your answer to why there should be predictable similiarities when we posit universals?
Quoting aletheist
I don't see it as a matter of explanations. I see it as a matter of talking about what there is. There's no evidence that there's anything other than particulars.
No realists (except maybe some Platonists) believe that universals are determinate individuals.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because the particulars are being governed by a real universal - the same general law. Now, what is the nominalist's explanation? Why should observations of particular events in the past be reliable indicators of particular events in the future? What good reason do we have for being confident that the rock will drop now - and tomorrow, and next week, etc. - just because we have seen rocks drop in similar situations in the past?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Predictable regularities are evidence that there is something other than particulars.
I suppose I understand this objectification in terms of concepts. The "objective" self swims in language, is "made" of language. So, yeah, a "logical evolution of ideas," but driven on by something that is not well represented in language: emotion. Music and visual art seem like "objectifications" of the desire that drives the evolution of ideas.
Quoting John
I tend to agree. I think highly of Epictetus and Epicurus. I think Hegel paints these positions as stations on the way, but I experience this as the bias of a state philosopher. I don't think the individual has to wait for the end of history to find some kind of wisdom, though clearly we inherit our very individuality largely from what has evolved before our births. I'm reading his philosophy of history at the moment, and it's pretty great, but he's pretty blatantly an ideologist. A joker might call him a cheerleader for Reality, but what's really so bad about that? If we want to be wise, happy, dignified.
[quote=Hegel]
In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself, — that is, he has given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation of the Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product of active Reason, which the History of the World offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in Universal History? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. But Divine Wisdom, i.e. Reason., is one and the same in the great as in the little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims at realising the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which Leibnitz attempted metaphysically in his method, i.e. in indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonising view more pressingly demanded than in Universal History; and it can be attained only by recognising the positive existence, in which that negative element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. On the one hand. the ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design has been actually, realised in it, and that evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position.
[/quote]
Compare that with this:
[quote=Milton]
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men.
[/quote]
I would agree in thinking about the self as swimming in a sea of language, at least in terms of its intersubjective dimension; but I do not think of the self as 'made" of language. For me it is more like it is made by something that might be called 'emotion'; perhaps 'affective disposition' is a better term. affective disposition and the creativity it engenders is "not well represented in language" if you mean by "language" something along the lines of discursive analysis. I think you're right that emotion, or as I would prefer, affective disposition, at least contributes towards driving the evolution of ideas, but I do also think that ideas have their own supplementary dialectical engine, with its own logical momentum. So, I think the evolution of ideas is an interplay of free creativity and logic. I don't find any place for genuine freedom in Hegel's system. He wants to make philosophy into a science, even an exact science one almost feels; I think it is and always should be more like an art.
Nice passages from Hegel and Milton. Perhaps Milton's puritanism and Hegel's Lutheranism are not too far apart. I think both probably later came to reject, or at least to distance themselves from, institutionalized religion. Both were wary of the "aegis of tutelage" and the limitations on speculative and creative freedoms that it represents.
I'm not saying anything pro or con about "determinate" (especially because I don't even know what it would be to say something pro or con about it). I'm just saying something about universals not being identical to particulars but having a relationship with them.
Quoting aletheist
No that doesn't answer the question I'm asking. Why should there be predictable similarities with the same universal? In other words, events at time T2 compared to T1. Why should there be predictable similarities--why shouldn't it change instead? You can't answer something like "because it's (the universal) the same" or "because it doesn't change." I'm asking why that is the case. I'm asking you about the properties of the universal.
As you may well know, I don't belief in this concept of self organising development. I think such organising requires a cause, and the cause is something active, and necessarily prior to the self which comes to be from the organising.
Quoting apokrisis
As I am arguing with altheist, I don't think possibility is real. When we refer to a "real possibility" it is only said to be real because it is supported by some actuality. The actuality is the substance of the possibility which makes it real, and therefore the essence of why we can call the possibility real. The possibility isn't actually real then, it is the actuality which is real. We call the possibility real simply because it is supported by something real. Therefore a "condition where everything is possible" is not a real possibility. That described condition is actually impossible, it's just a fiction, because according to the description, there is no actuality, no substance to make that a real possibility.
Quoting aletheist
Well I'm asking you to give me the technical distinction. What you gave me supports my position as well as yours. You say that it doesn't support my position, "given the technical distinction", but I haven't been given the technical distinction.
Quoting aletheist
If you accept this, that some realities are not actual, I want to see your principles, your reasons, what gives substance to this idea? That is the whole problem which Plato ran into with Pyhtagorean Idealism, the Ideas were described as passive entities which individual human minds partake in. But he slowly came to realise that this passive existence, independent from minds, could not be supported. Then he introduced "the good", which threw a whole new light on the intelligible objects, allowing him to understand Ideas as active Forms, active in creation. From here, Aristotle soundly refuted Pythagoren Idealism, while the Neo-Platonists went on to develop the concept of actual Forms.
Quoting aletheist
You are exactly making my point for me. The boundary is nothing real, as you demonstrate with your examples. I assign "possibility" to the boundary, because if the boundary is vague, there is the possibility of assigning the area within the boundary, to either one of the two actualities.. So possibility is nothing real, just like in your examples, it is a boundary. What is separated by the boundary is two distinct actualities. It is the vagueness of the boundary, which makes possibility appear to be something real. Consider that there is a grey area, between the black spot, and the white of the paper, or a grey area in the Colorado/Wyoming border terrain, such that in this area, it is not definitively one or the other, we are open to possibilities. It is the failure of the human being to properly define the boundary, which creates the illusion that possibility is something real.
Quoting aletheist
I didn't know we were involved in a realism/nominalism debate. I for one, do not know the fundamentals of these positions, and I am not arguing one side or the other.
Inductive principles are any conclusions derived from inductive reasoning. Say, liquid water always freezes to solid ice at the same temperature. That's a generality produced from numerous observations of particular occurrences, an inductive conclusion. You have asserted that some such generalities are real, and some generalities are unreal. How would you differentiate between real and unreal inductive principles?
A key difference between universals and particulars is that no universal is determinate, while all particulars are determinate. A lion in general is not any particular age, size, color, etc. within the ranges of properties that encompass all possible lions; but a particular lion is always a particular age, size, color, etc. This is what it means for a universal to be a continuum, and a particular to be an individual that is actualized from that continuum.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, you still have not answered the questions that I asked first. Why should there be predictable regularities in the world if everything is particular? What is the nominalist's alternative explanation to real universals? How else can observations of particular events in the past be reliable indicators of particular events in the future? What good reason do we have for claiming to know that the rock will drop now - and tomorrow, and next week, etc. - just because we have seen rocks drop in similar situations previously?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because that is what we mean when we talk about universals - when we talk about laws of nature, in this case. There is something real that governs events in such a way that whenever certain conditions obtain, certain outcomes happen. Without it, no mere aggregate of particular events that occurred in the past can warrant the confident expectation that similar events will occur in the future.
This implies that the only real possibilities are those that are actualized - i.e., determinism; there are no genuine alternatives when we make choices. Since I did not actually ignore your message, it was not really possible for me to do so. Is that your position?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Did you somehow miss this post from yesterday?
Quoting aletheist
Everything that exists is real, but not everything that is real exists.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Are you monitoring my ongoing conversation with @Terrapin Station? A real law of nature governs actual things and events, but the law itself is not actual - it has to do with what would be under certain conditions, not what was or is; not even what (determinately) will be.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But a boundary between two areas cannot itself be an area, it has to be a line. If it is an area, then there are two additional boundaries - in your diagram, the boundaries between the area that represents possibility and the areas on either side of it that represent the two kinds of actuality.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Who said anything about a grey area? In my first example, there is a black spot on a white piece of paper - no grey, nor any other color. Nevertheless, you are on the right idea here - the color of the boundary is indeterminate between the colors of the two areas; but that does not make the boundary itself any less real. The actual is determinate, but the real need not be.
Likewise, there is certainly no "area" between Colorado and Wyoming; again, the border is a line of infinitesimal width. However, to be fair, state borders are arbitrary creations of particular human minds, and thus do not qualify as real in the sense that we are discussing.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The title of the thread is "Why are universals regarded as real things?" This is the fundamental question in the realism/nominalism debate, asked from the nominalist perspective.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Then why didn't you just call them "inductive conclusions"? To me, "inductive principles" have to do with how and why one goes about the process of induction.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I assume that what you meant by "real and unreal" in this context is "true and false." The only way to differentiate between true and false inductive conclusions is to keep experimenting and see which ones are corroborated vs. falsified. I have no problem granting that we can only evaluate our hypotheses about real universals, such as the laws of nature, by observing their instantiations in what is actual.
No, that's not what I said, the so-called real possibility is based in an actuality, it is not one that's been actualized. The possibility for you to ignore my message is based in the actuality of there actually being a message from me. Without that message, the possibility is fictional, unreal. The existence of the actual message is what substantiates the possibility.
My argument is that the possibility itself is not real, it's just a way of interpreting the actuality. You interpret the situation as the existence of a message, and assume that you are capable of reading it. There is one actuality which is the situation to be interpreted, and another actuality of you, as an active living soul, which is interpreting, and between these two, is produced the possibility of reading the message.
Quoting aletheist
No, what I am talking about is the grey area which is the boundary. Take your black ink spot on the white paper, and look at it under a microscope, the boundary looks completely different from how it looks to the naked eye. The description, or defining, of the boundary depends on the perspective. Different perspectives produce difference in defining of the boundary, and this creates possibilities.
Quoting aletheist
No, that's the post which I demonstrated supports my position. How does "reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so" differ from "actual means being whatever it is regardless of..."? That's what I brought up, as you were arguing a difference between real and actual. You replied that the difference is evident based on the "technical definition" of "real". I'm still waiting to see that technical definition which demonstrates the difference.
Quoting aletheist
None of this makes any sense to me, you've got some explaining to do. How can a non-actual thing govern an actual thing? You imply that the actual thing is active, acting in events. How is it possible that a non-active thing can have any causal influence (in the form of governing) over an active thing? This is why I said that dualism solves these problems, it allows for another class of actual things.
Quoting aletheist
This is where you are wrong, unless you propose a third thing, which separates the two things, the boundary is always an area, it is an area where the two things on the opposing sides of the boundary are intermixing. In my model, the third thing, possibility is not real, so there is no third thing. There are two actualities, with intermixing at the boundary between the two, because the boundary is vague. This intermixing of the two actualities creates possibilities. But possibilities aren't real, they are an illusion created by the fact that the two actualities are mixing where thy meet at the boundary, i.e. the boundary is vague.
Quoting aletheist
But how can any boundary be itself real unless you assume a third element which acts as a separation between the two contiguous elements? This would be a real boundary. And if you assume a third element which acts as the boundary, then we have the problem you referred to, two more boundaries between this element and the two which are separated. I assume no such third element. The two elements are contiguous, nothing between them, but on one side of the boundary is the one element, and on the other side the other, like the boundary between water and air, or the boundary between water and the glass which it is in. However, depending on your perspective (as explained with the microscope example), the boundary is more or less vague. It is this vagueness which gives rise to possibility.
I suppose "made of language" is an overstatement. I was pointing at the way that selves are manifested or crystallized socially. Of course direct bodily interaction also occurs, so I suppose I was focusing on the cultural and especially the philosophical self --which to say the "self-for-others" that is in this special case made of language.
On the emotion issue, I was thinking of the sort of things that composers and painters are able to "say" that philosophers are less able to say. Is human desire rational? Are the objects of human desire necessarily "high-resolution" or "sharp" for the intellect? I don't think this is always true. When I think of the sage, I think (with a certain admiration) of a whole that is greater than its parts. No particular belief that I might ascribe to this image of the wise man or ideal philosopher would, in my view, capture gut-level appeal that encourages us to imitate or incarnate wisdom. I think we all want to be wise and noble, so perhaps the issue is the way our conceptual elaborations of wisdom and nobility differ. I like Hegel for examining the historical evolution of such conceptions. I do think there is a sort of "logical momentum," depending on how that phrase is understood. The desire at work isn't blind.
On the view that I am exploring, it is the other way around - the actuality is based in a continuum of real possibilities, like a single point that is marked on a line. On your view, how can a possibility that has not been actualized be real at all?
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It is my thought experiment, not yours; and as I said before, there is no grey, or any other color besides the black of the ink spot and the white of the paper. No matter how powerful a microscope you use, you will always see black on one side of the boundary and white on the other. More below.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You seem to be ignoring the definition that I gave of existence. Something that is real, but not actual, does not react with other like things in the environment.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
By being real per the definition that I gave, despite not being actual per the definition (of existence) that I gave. This is why the terminological distinction is so important - it obviously makes no sense if you insist on treating reality and actuality/existence as synonyms.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Only in your diagram. In mine (ink blot), a boundary is not a third thing at all - it is the demarcation between two things that do not intermix. It is a real boundary in the sense of being a real distinction. Your later examples of water and air, or (especially) water and the glass, are closer to the mark. A more pertinent case is the "boundary" between P and not-P with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both P and not-P, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither P nor not-P.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Despite our clear differences, we seem to agree that possibility is associated with vagueness. What this means from a logical standpoint is that the law of non-contradiction does not apply; both P and not-P are real possibilities, until one or the other is actualized. On the other hand, generality means that the law of excluded middle does not apply; neither P nor not-P can be attributed to a real general, even though each actual instance of it must be either P or not-P. This is another important distinction between reality and actuality/existence - only the latter is determinate enough that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle both apply.
That's exactly what I'm arguing, a possibility cannot be real at all. "Possibility" refers to the way that we relate one actuality to another, therefore it is entirely something produced by the human mind, and is not real at all. That possibilities are real is an illusion.
Quoting aletheist
I don't understand why you would equate "actual" with existence, instead of with "real", as per standard dictionary definitions. What's the point in producing inconsistent definitions? As I understand, "existence" refers to all being, including both forms of actualities and their relations. Thus potential, or possibility, is included within existence, as relative, or illusory being. In dualism, the human being occupies a position which consists of both types of actualities, allowing for numerous illusory possibilities.
Quoting aletheist
It seems you have never looked through a microscope before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally incorrect.
Quoting aletheist
My argument is that there is no such thing as a demarcation between two things, which do not intermix. That is why I said to look at the ink blot in a microscope, there is intermixing. Any time there is two substances side by side there is some degree of intermixing, you might just have to take a more microscopic perspective to detect that intermixing. The only way to prevent intermixing is to put a third substance in between, but then you have mixing on each side of that boundary.
Quoting aletheist
You said that existing things interact with other existing things, and this is what it means to be actual. But "real", you say is something beyond this. So I ask you how is it possible for a real thing to interact with an actual thing, without that real thing itself being actual? If an actual thing is interacting with something else, as per your definition of existing, isn't that something else necessarily an actual thing? How do you sneak in this real thing to interact with actual things, without itself being actual? By your definition, actual things interact with other actual things.
Quoting aletheist
But this is not an actual boundary, it is just fictional. You have assumed a fictional thing, P, and claimed that there is a boundary between P and not-P. This is exactly why we need to restrict such fictions from reality. Otherwise you can claim any logical possibility as a reality, and all kinds of sophistry follows. "P" is not an actual thing, it is just a symbol which signifies absolutely nothing. If P signified an actual object, we could go to that object with microscopes and find out that the boundary between P and not-P is vague. But your P and not-P are totally fictional, so there is no boundary between them because each of them refer to absolutely nothing. You are making this all up, saying that there is a P and a not-P with a boundary between them.
As I said before, this entails that what we call "free will" is an illusion. If there are no real possibilities, then whatever actually happens had to happen; there were no real alternatives.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This is a philosophy forum, so I am using very specific philosophical definitions that have been employed for centuries, rather than "standard dictionary definitions" that reflect current popular usage. If you are unwilling to use the same definitions, then there is probably no point in continuing the conversation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
It seems you have never discussed a thought experiment before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally irrelevant.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I have never said that it was possible for a real thing to "interact with" an actual thing. I have said that every actual thing is grounded in a continuum of real possibilities, and that actual things are governed by real laws.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
This suggests unfamiliarity on your part with how logic works. P is a variable here; we can substitute anything real for P, and the logic is the same. If it helps, we can talk about purple and not-purple instead.
So now the "boundary" is between purple and not-purple with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both purple and not-purple, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither purple nor not-purple. We seem to agree that possibility is associated with vagueness, which means is that the law of non-contradiction does not apply; both purple and not-purple are real possibilities until one or the other is actualized. On the other hand, generality means that the law of excluded middle does not apply; neither purple nor not-purple can be attributed to a real general, even though each actual instance of it must be either purple or not-purple.
To reiterate: this is another important distinction between reality and actuality/existence - only the latter is determinate enough that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle both apply.
Or, I didn't answer it so that you consider the response satisfactory. The whole point of my comments to you on this is to demonstrate the problem with coming up with a satisfactory response.
We have just the same issue when we ask, "Why should there be predictable regularities in the world under real universals?"
Quoting aletheist
But I'm not asking you about what you mean when you talk about anything. And on that ground, we could say, "Because this is what we mean when we talk about regularities of particular properties. We interpret that as 'physical laws.' There is something real about particular properties that makes them 'behave' in certain ways, including when interacting with other particular properties, so that when particular conditions obtain, particular outcomes will obtain."
That's surely not satisfactory to you. You're not asking for how we talk about it. You're surely not asking for simply a summary of nominalism where we demonstrate that to nominalists, that this is how the world is, that it works this way, is so obvious that it needs no explanation. What you're rather asking for is something like an explanation of how/why it works this way ontologically.
But that's the same thing that I'm asking for in this demonstration. I'm not asking for how universalists talk about universals, what they mean when they talk about universals, or a summary that seems intuitively obvious to universalists re how the world works re the universalist picture. I'm asking for something like an explanation of how/why it works the universalist-picture way ontologically.
How/why would the world work so that there are regularities just because there are universals and particulars? What is the explanation or the mechanics of how those regularities come about with respect to that universal/particular relationship?
No, free will is not an illusion, because there are two distinct types of actuality with dualism. To say that something is actual does not mean that it is necessarily constrained by efficient causation. Efficient causation, and determinism is what creates the idea of "whatever actually happens had to happen". But we can allow that the soul is free from efficient causation and therefore free from determinism.
The soul and God are actualities which are inherently free from the constraints of efficient causation (the actuality involved with material existence), God being free in an absolute way, the soul having some degree of this freedom. Possibility refers to material existence in time, and we need to allow our minds to completely transcend this material existence in order to understand the pure actuality which is prior to, and the cause of, all material existence. Possibility is the essence of the material world, as it appears to the mind which partakes in the realm of pure actuality. But this, "possibility", is the abstracted form of matter, how it appears within the mind, it is not matter itself, and this is why "possibility" is an illusion. It is not the case that the soul is not free. By means of partaking in the pure actuality of God it is free. But it is the case that the actuality of matter appears to the free soul as "possibility", and this is an illusion of misunderstanding.
Quoting aletheist
Most thought experiments I reject, because they tend to ask you to imagine something fictitious, which is usually impossible, like your proposed boundary between P and not-P.
Quoting aletheist
As I said, if we look at the edge of a purple thing under a microscope, we will see that the boundary between purple and not-purple is vague. Even if we took the concept "purple", we would see that it is a mix of red and blue. But if there is not enough blue in the mix it might just be said to be red, and if there is not enough red in the mix, it might just be blue.
In reality, the boundary between a purple thing and non-purple is vague, so the law of excluded middle fails here. And also many colours, depending on how they are blended, would cause disagreement between people as to whether they are purple or not, so the law of excluded middle fails here as well. Your though experiment is asking me to assume something which is impossible. But we are talking about reality here, and if I accept your impossible premise, we are no longer in a world of reality, but in a world of some claimed "logical possibility" which is really an impossibility. This can only be a negative procedure when we are talking about reality.
Quoting aletheist
So I think you have this backwards. It is with particulars that the law of excluded middle does not apply. We look at a particular purple thing under a microscope, and find that there is a vague boundary between purple and not-purple. We look at particular coloured items and find that in some instances we cannot agree as to whether the item is purple or not-purple.
In the case of the general, we can provide a very clear and concise definition of what it means to be purple, so that generals can exist with no vagueness. Vagueness can be excluded from universal principles by means of definition, and this is very evident in mathematics and geometry. It is when we look at a particular, to class it according to the general principle, that we face vagueness. So vagueness, and failure of the law of excluded middle is a property of the particular, not the general. By positioning vagueness as a property of the general, rather than as a property of the particular, you produce a misrepresentation of reality, a reversal of what is actually the case.
The problem that I am having is understanding how this statement is somehow denying the reality of a (general) law of nature. If everything is particular, then there is no warrant (as far as I can tell) for making confident assertions about the future - e.g., that if particular conditions were to obtain, then particular outcomes would happen.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am still not sure exactly what you mean by this, and - to be honest - I am even less sure that I am capable of providing it right now. Remember, I am treating realism as a working hypothesis and seeing how far I can get with it. I appreciate the dialogue and will continue reading and thinking about these matters.
You have missed the whole point of the P/not-P discussion. We are no longer talking about a boundary between an area that is purple and an area that is not-purple; we are talking about one thing that is capable of being any single color. If the thing is actual, then it has to be either purple or not-purple; it cannot be both or neither. If the thing is possible, then both purple and not-purple are still possible. If the thing is general, then it is neither purple nor not-purple.
That's fine. Again, as I noted, I didn't expect that parallel to your response to be satisfactory to you. But that was just the point. I wouldn't say there's any warrant for making confident assertions about the future just because we're positing universals/generals. The same problem is present in both cases.
Quoting aletheist
Which is understandable, because really I'm asking a question that no one has an answer to. At least no one has ever attempted an answer to it to my knowledge. But that's just the point. Folks are comfortable with not having answers to some questions and simply treating something as a given or a brute fact--especially when it's a view that they buy. People want explanations or reasons for claims that they don't buy. For the claims they accept they make no such demands.
So the point here is that if not having a "mechanical" or blueprint-like explanation of how/why something works some way is sufficient for you to not believe that view or claim, then you shouldn't believe universalism, either, because no one has a "mechanical" or blueprint-like explanation of just how/why it works as it does.
Whether or not the thing is purple depends on a judgement concerning the definition of purple, and a judgement as to whether the thing fulfills the criteria of that definition. If we cannot agree, on those judgements, then we have to accept the likelihood that the thing is neither purple nor not purple, or possibly both. To say that the thing must be one or the other, despite the fact that there is no agreement on this, is an appeal to fiction.
If you and I are looking at an object, you say it's purple, I say it's not, your claim would be that it has to be one or the other, there must be some objective truth to that subject. I say this claim of objective truth is a fiction. To say that it must be one or the other is a fiction, because whether it is purple or not, depends on your perspective. To me it's one, and to you it's the other. This is where we find vagueness, amongst actual things. The description of the thing depends on one's perspective.
Quoting aletheist
Whether the thing itself is possible or actual, has no bearing on the applicability of the law of excluded middle, which is being applied to the attribute, "purple", not to the subject itself, which may or may not be an actual thing. When I say "the ball is purple" it makes no difference whether "ball" refers to an actual or a possible ball, when I proceed to say "therefore it is impossible that the ball is not purple. . Both possible and actual things can be either purple, not-purple, or indeterminate, the difference being that a possible thing may not have actual existence.
Once again, nothing you are saying is relevant to the point that I was making, let alone the thread topic; so I will stop wasting my time. Cheers.
Then what (if anything) does warrant our confident assertions about the future, which we make all the time? Specifically, are law-like counterfactual claims - e.g., if I were to let go of a rock, then it would fall to the ground - ever warranted? If so, why? If not, how do we explain their predictive success - not just for well-established scientific theories, but in how we routinely navigate the mundane features of everyday life?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Are you saying that you see no distinction between treating predictable regularities as a brute fact vs. explaining them as the logical consequence of there being real laws of nature that really govern actual (and counterfactual) events?
The similarity is in the lack of an explanation for how/why something would work so that the predictive regularities in question would obtain rather than a lack of those predictive regularities.
Are you saying that you do not see how real laws of nature would work to cause predictable regularities? It seems to me that they would be final causes, rather than efficient causes.
Again, on your view, what (if anything) warrants our confident assertions about the future, including law-like counterfactual claims?
Yes, there's no explanation for that just like there's no explanation for it in terms of particulars. Classifying it in Aristotlean terms doesn't explain it.
In that case, are you saying that nothing warrants our confident assertions about the future, including law-like counterfactual claims? In other words, we have no good reason to believe that a rock would fall to the ground if we were to let go of it.
No, I'm not saying that. Again, I don't think that it's inadequate to simply believe that that's how particulars "behave." The point was that a lack of an explanation for how/why particulars behave that way isn't an argument against it because there's a lack of an explanation for how/why universals in relation to particulars behave that way on the alternate view.
I know that this is getting repetitive, but I still would like to know - on your view, what warrants our confident predictions that particulars will "behave" in the future as they have in the past? Are we ever justified in making law-like counterfactual claims about circumstances that may never actually occur?
I think that induction is good enough, especially since in my view, certainty isn't something to be concerned with.
Quoting aletheist
I'm a subjectivist on justification, so that probably won't be a satisfactory answer to you--justifications are simply what an individual considers to be good reasons for support. And sure, I think that plenty of counterfactual claims are justified--"If static electricity hadn't built up, the gasoline vapors wouldn't have ignited" for example.
I agree with you about certainty, but my question boils down to why induction is so successful as a mode of inference. Is this just another brute fact? As I see it, realism does explain predictable regularities, and thus warrants inductive inferences, by acknowledging that such consistency is a real feature of the universe - i.e., it works that way regardless of what any person or group of people think about it. Why it works that way is another matter - one that calls for further inquiry, rather than giving up and treating it as inexplicable.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That is a counterfactual regarding something that actually happened in the past. I have been asking about counterfactuals regarding something that may or may not actually happen in the future. "If I were to drop this rock, then it would fall to the ground."
In general the future does not resemble the past, and it is the role of science to explain the regularities and irregularities.
There is no such principle in science (or anywhere else that I am aware of) that "the future will resemble the past".
Quoting aletheist
Justified? Why would you seek justification? Our knowledge permits us to make counterfactual claims. Interestingly, we can even test counterfactuals these days.
So successful that you can't give a single example of a scientific theory arrived at by that method.
If so, what's the explanation? It wouldn't be the same as a description of what realism is (Because otherwise we could say that nominalism does explain predictable regularlities and then say that the explanation is a description of what nominalism is).
It would have to be something like an explanation of how it works, kind of mehcanistically or in a blueprint-like way, metaphysically.
Quoting aletheist
Nominalists aren't saying that particulars and their regularities aren't real. And we're not saying that particulars and their regularities depend on people to obtain. We're simply saying that those are properties of particulars, not something other than particulars.
Quoting aletheist
It's not that I'd discourage trying to answer that question, but at some point, one just can't answer those questions any longer. For every answer, we can ask how/why it works that way. At some point, you can't answer any longer, because you don't have an infinite amount of time.
Quoting aletheist
Counterfactuals are conjectures about something contrary to fact. So they have to be counter to either past or present facts. I wouldn't say that future facts have obtained yet. Instead, when we're talking about the future we're talking about possibilities. Anyway, sure, we can be justified in talking about future possibilities in my opinion.
It rather seems dubious to me that there are any scientific theories that are not arrived at via a combination of inductive, abdutive and deductive reasoning, with the first two being more prominent than the latter--after all, a deductively-arrived-at theory would at best only need experimentation to confirm its premises, otherwise it's not deductive at all.
Nominalism treats predictable regularities as inexplicable brute facts, and thus does not seek an explanation for them. Realism, on the other hand, explains predictable regularities by positing real laws of nature that govern individual things and events. As I said before, this calls for its own explanation, which requires further inquiry - but even if we were to treat it as an inexplicable brute fact, I think that it still helps us make better sense of our experience.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But you are saying that those are particular properties of particulars, right? How can regularities across different particulars be explained in terms of other different particulars?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Scientific progress would cease altogether if we adopted this approach. Why not just treat everything that happens as an inexplicable brute fact? What justifies stopping inquiry at this point, rather than taking another step farther?
Right, but the question is how we can know that a counterfactual claim is true, if - as the nominalist asserts - there are no real laws of nature, just individual things and events.
Quoting tom
We have been testing counterfactuals for centuries - that is what experimentation is, and this is precisely what Peirce called "induction." It is not the same thing that Popper rejected, since both men affirmed that theories are never verified, only corroborated (or falsified).
. . . has inexplicable regularities as real abstract/non-particular laws of nature that govern individual things and events.
Quoting aletheist
Yes, of course.
Quoting aletheist
?? Why other? They're regularities of those particulars. We're not positing something other.
Quoting aletheist
But that's unavoidably the approach we have! The only way to not have that approach is to have an infinite amount of time to answer successive "whys/hows."
Quoting Terrapin Station
But at least we recognize that there is a real reason why there are regularities between individual things and events.
Quoting aletheist
Quoting Terrapin Station
If everything is particular, then there is no good reason for anything to be regular. Why should there be any consistency at all in the behavior of something over time - since every change to it, no matter how small, creates a new particular - let alone consistency between two things that have nothing real in common?
Quoting aletheist
Quoting Terrapin Station
We keep seeking answers in the finite time that each of us has, and then we pass the torch on to the next generation. Just because we (individually) will not have enough time to explain everything does not entail that we (collectively) should stop seeking further explanations. We operate under the regulative hope that the final opinion - after indefinite inquiry by an infinite community - would reflect complete knowledge of reality.
Just for the record, here is Peirce's conclusion about the rock-dropping example (CP 5.100-101, EP 2:183; 1903, emphases in original):
"With overwhelming uniformity, in our past experience, direct and indirect, stones left free to fall have fallen. Thereupon two hypotheses only are open to us. Either: first, the uniformity with which those stones have fallen has been due to mere chance and affords no ground whatever, not the slightest, for any expectation that the next stone that shall be let go will fall; or, second, the uniformity with which stones have fallen has been due to some active general principle, in which case it would be a strange coincidence that it should cease to act at the moment my prediction was based upon it.
"That position, gentlemen, will sustain criticism. It is irrefragable.
"Of course, every sane man will adopt the latter hypothesis. If he could doubt it in the case of the stone, - which he can't, - and I may as well drop the stone once for all, - I told you so! - if anybody doubts this still, a thousand other such inductive predictions are getting verified every day, and he will have to suppose every one of them to be merely fortuitous in order reasonably to escape the conclusion that general principles are really operative in nature. That is the doctrine of scholastic realism."
Before you complain about the words "inductive" and "verified" in that passage - it is clear from Peirce's other writings, including the other lectures in the same series, that this was shorthand. What he meant was that deductively explicated predictions based on retroductively conjectured hypotheses are constantly being inductively corroborated through experimental testing (and everyday life). Again, there is no significant disagreement between Peirce and Popper about this overall process of scientific inquiry, even though they clearly had different views about some of the details.
Nominalism vs realism is a pretty archaic metaphysics on both sides of the debate these days. Science has moved the conversation on.
In particular, a pan-semiotic approach based on hierarchy theory accounts for the way that particularities have regularities due to downward acting constraints - downward acting constraints being the modern version of formal/final causes, and thus the modern version of a realism that believes in universals.
The key idea is that global constraints make the particulars - a system's degrees of freedom - what they are. The global regulative action shapes the parts by limiting their possible actions, forcing them to become the "kind of things" that must re-construct the globally-prevailing state of constraint ... the thing that makes them.
So it is a classic cybernetic feedback story. The whole shapes the parts so that the parts make the whole.
The key metaphysical shift is switching from thinking of existence as a mystery of how something appears from nothing to instead an account of how it is inevitable that regularity will arise to simplify variety.
If everything is possible, then everything is also going to have its reaction against everything else. Most of these reactions will cancel each other away, leaving only some simple general form of reaction that dominates as the steady equilibrium actuality.
And this is hardly an esoteric way of thinking. It is central to science from evolutionary theory to thermodynamics and quantum field theory. Variety is self-winnowing. Generic simplity is what the least action principle requires of any natural system.
So the particulars of any system are emergent. They are variety pared down to form a part. The regularity of particulars is due to the higher level fact that to exist means being made to fit.
Why is sand composed of billions of the same tiny grains? Is this really a mystery to anyone?
It apparently seems intuitively obvious to you that if there are universals, then that is a good reason for particulars to behave regularly, but that doesn't at all seem intuitively obvious to me.
Quoting aletheist
All I was getting at in this part is that we have to accept all sorts of things as more or less brute facts where we don't or where we're not going to worry about how or why the furthest-back-reason we've reached for it works as it does. We do this all the time in both the sciences and in philosophy. (And in fact, in the sciences, the majority of scientists tend to get very annoyed if we ask how/why things work just as they do too much.)
Quantum entanglement provides a straight-forward example. What series of observations resulted in the induction of the theory? What was the "surprising observation" that resulted in its abduction?
Given that both induction and abduction are purported by some to be part of the method of science, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for an example of them being used?
When do you consider the theory of quantium entanglement to start--with the EPR paper? Schrodinger's response to it?
It is a puzzle that you don't see this as an exemplar of the Peircean account of scientific reasoning.
Schrodinger cites the surprising fact that demands an abductive leap - the EPR paper:
And then he offers "entanglement" as his abductive leap to the best retroductive explanation. As Schrodinger says, his hypothesis is based on a holistic or constraints-based take on reality, as opposed to EPR's more conventional deterministic (and nominalistic) metaphysics.
And then from this abductive leap to a different viewpoint, Schrodinger fleshes out the deductive consequences that might allow inductive corroboration of his position.
So what we have here is a classic example of the scientific imagination at work - there were none better at this than Einstein and Schrodinger.
But there maybe a "mystery" about abduction itself when it is seen in a typical reductionist light as a constructive, and non-creative, mental exercise.
It is indeed a problem how "induction" - of the bit by bit, step by step, variety - could ever get started. But that computational view of generalisation is simply wrong because it depends on a reductionist view of epistemology.
Actual brains work differently - naturally. They operate using a holistic Peircean logic.
So it is no surprise that abduction is not induction in any simple sense. It is instead all about the ability to relax states of constraint, ease up on existing habits of conception, so as to enter a suitable state of vagueness - a state in which the whole of a different story can pop out as a hierarchical symmetry breaking.
Creative thought starts with an inkling that this new generic principle could explain these particular kinds of observable particulars. You suddenly have the right kind of whole in mind. And the test of that is whether it has sturdy enough deductive structure to produce the right kind of inductive measurables.
So - ironically given the OP - Schrodinger's abductive leap regarding entanglement as a hypothesis was a break with the old nomimalistic order.
Einstein was all for retaining local determinism or nominalistic realism at all costs. (Not because he lacked imagination but because it was a principle that had served physics so well for so long - so inductively it ought to hold.)
But Schrodinger was willing to imagine a reality in which wholes are more than their parts because wholes shape their parts. Reality is at base indeterministic or vague. Existence is only crisply actual to the degree it has been collapsed or decohered by the universality of some global form.
Since the shock of quantum mechanics, the whole of physics has got used to thinking about existence in terms of this kind of top-down constraints logic. It is the new normal. Which is why Peirce has really started to catch on as the guy who pretty much got it all before the 20th century got going.
Yes, and as is often the case in such circumstances, I have a hard time even imagining what it is like not to find it intuitively obvious. In my mind, a universal or general is a real type of relation (vs. token) that transcends the individuality of particulars as something that they can (and often do) have in common. To say that something has a property means that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. To say that a rock has weight means (among other things) that if we were to let go of it, then it would fall to the ground; and this is the way things really are, not only regardless of whether anyone thinks so, but also regardless of whether we ever actually let go of the rock.
If I may interject, I find it hard to distinguish between "predictable regularities" and "real laws of nature." In other words, I don't see how "real laws of nature" explain rather than differently refer to the same predictable regularities. Do we not experience the order we find as a "brute fact"?
In my mind, predictable regularities are what we experience and observe, while real laws of nature are what we hypothesize to explain them. In other words, there must be something about reality that results in things and events exhibiting those predictable regularities.
I think that the order we find in the universe calls for an explanation. Why should we just accept it as a brute fact? If we did, why would we engage in philosophical and scientific inquiry at all?
Under real deterministic natural law, counter-factuals can be regarded as meaningless. In the block-universe of general relativity, there is no room for them it seems.
Quoting aletheist
If general relativity is wrong, and we don't inhabit a block space-time, then perhaps, but have we really been testing counter-factuals? We have been reasoning about them, but if we had tested them, they wouldn't be counter-factual.
Peirce committed the error of seeking to justify a theory, or render it more probably via "induction". Didn't he claim:
Why don't you propose a principle of "Predictable Regularity", then we can use it to describe the universe from the big-bang to the heat-death, with a brief interlude for life on earth? All so predictable and regular after all!
Start wherever you want. But remember, we need a set of observations from which to induce the theory an an unexpected observation if you want to abduce the theory. Since these are purported to be part of the methodology of science, I trust you will be able to do both in this case.
I wouldn't say that that's what "property" means. That's an upshot of properties, but properties are simply qualities/characteristics.
Anyway, it seems like you keep thinking that I don't believe that properties are real. That's not at all the case. I just don't think that they're something other than particulars.
The problem is that it's no explanation, and it just adds other things to have to explain.
The reason I'm asking is that we could argue that the EPR paper isn't actually a scientific theory, for example.
Do you accept the real laws of nature as a brute fact? Or must they also be explained?
What is mathematical proof for then? Given that there are thousands of books and papers on properties of the primes, which have been discovered, you might be forgiven for thinking (as mathematicians do) that they are about something real.
Not all mathematicians are platonists. At any rate, I'm definitely not a realist on mathematics.
In that case, how do you define qualities/characteristics? Again, to say that something has a quality/characteristic means that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. To say that a chair is green means (among other things) that if we were to measure the dominant wavelength of light reflected by it, then it would be within a certain range; and this is the way things really are, not only regardless of whether anyone thinks so, but also regardless of whether we ever actually shine light on the chair.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, I get that; I just continue to have trouble understanding how you make sense of common properties and predictable regularities on that view.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It explains the consistencies among individuals that we observe in the world, rather than settling for treating them as inexplicable.
Quoting Michael
As I have acknowledged previously, they call for an explanation; and that would presumably come from cosmology.
And again, I do not agree with that. I'd agree that it's an interactive upshot of properties, but it's not what they are. Properties/qualities/characteristics are definitions of each other, as they're synonyms. Another way to put it, although I hesitate to state this because I doubt that after I do so folks will be able to remove themselves from a particular groove of misunderstanding, is that properties are simply what something is like (the particular groove of misunderstanding being to read that as necessarily being from the perspective of a sentient being).
Quoting aletheist
Simply by them being similar, not literally identical.
Quoting aletheist
I don't think it does because how the universal "gets into" the particular is left as a complete mystery.
But there exist necessary truths about the set of primes. Some of these truths have been set out in proofs. So what is going on if the subject of these proofs does not exist?
A proof is a type of computation that models the properties of an abstract entity (e.g. the set of primes) and establishes that the abstract entity has a certain property. So we can grant the abstract entity a list of properties, but not the property of existence?
Are you going to give the cicadas the bad news?
Here's something I wrote just last week in this very thread:
Quoting Terrapin Station
So what's going on in the case of a proof about the set of primes? We're playing with the language game we've set up re thinking about relations at a high level of abstraction.
Abstractions, by the way, are strictly mental. Any properties abstractions have is simply properties of the concept we've formulated.
The idea is that the meaning of any concept is the aggregate of its conceivable practical effects - i.e., the pragmatic maxim. If three different words - in this case, property, quality, and characteristic - all pertain to the same set of conceivable practical effects, then they designate the same concept.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Synonyms are not definitions. I am trying to understand what you mean by a property or a quality or a characteristic. "What something is like" is not really any more helpful.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If everything is particular - i.e., no individual has anything real in common with any other individual - then how can anything be similar to anything else? What exactly does "being similar" mean on your view?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The issue here is what it means to say that the universal "gets into" the particular. Again, I am suggesting that meaning has to do with conceivable practical effects, so a property/quality/characteristic is really "in" an individual only in the sense that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. Hardness is "in" a particular diamond only in the sense that if we were to apply a knife-edge to it, it would remain unscratched. It is a real habit/disposition/capacity of every individual diamond, regardless of whether anyone thinks so, and regardless of whether any particular diamond is ever actually tested.
The more we'd talk about this the more of a mess it would become, because I have very unusual views on what meaning is/how it works, what concepts are, etc. So we should probably just skip that.
Quoting aletheist
I coudln't more strongly disagree with this. Insofar as a proposed definition is not a synonym, it fails to capture, or it adds, something to what it's defining. And that's no definition. (Note that I'm not saying that it has to be a single-word synonym--it can be a paragraphs even. But synonyms aren't demarcated by their length.)
Quoting aletheist
My reaction to comments like that is always, "How could this person not know what property and/or quality and/or characteristic refer to"? I can't understand how you'd not be able to understand that.
Quoting aletheist
It's not at all a difficult concept. It's simply relative degree of resemblance (at least in respects considered). ( is more like < than it is # in terms of there being a single line in both cases, in terms of the orientation of the curve/angle, etc. But ( isn't the same as < obviously. It's just relatively similar.
Quoting aletheist
And how is that incompatible with nominalism?
So, Information Theory is a complete waste of time, rather than an explicitly counterfactual theory of a type of abstraction, underlying much of technology? Computation doesn't happen, and in particular virtual reality is impossible?
You've got it the wrong way round. What we can know about the necessary truths of abstractions is limited to how closely we can instantiate, or model abstractions physically.
Why, in your view, (a) would information theory be a waste of time, (b) would technology based on information theory not be possible, (c) would computation not exist, and (d) would virtual reality be impossible just in case concepts/abstractions are purely mental?
We typically call the latter a definition, not a synonym. Besides, you only offered single-word synonyms, plus the multi-word (but not much more helpful) "what something is like."
Quoting Terrapin Station
I understand the colloquial meaning of the concept, but I am trying to get at the technical meaning that you attribute to the concept from your philosophical standpoint.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yet ( is just as obviously the same as (. They are two different tokens of the same type, just like "the" and "the" are two different instantiations of the same word.
Quoting Terrapin Station
As I understand it, nominalism denies the reality of habits/dispositions/capacities, since (in this context) they are general laws of nature distinct from their individual instantiations in particulars. If hardness is merely a particular property of particular objects, rather then a general property that is instantiated in particular objects (such as diamonds) that have something real in common, then I see no warrant for claiming that any particular object (including any particular diamond) would remain unscratched if we were to apply a knife-edge to it.
There's no restriction that definitions can't be single words. But the idea is that the definiens has to be synonymous with the definiendum, however many words the definiens is.
Quoting aletheist
I wouldn't say that I see properties as being anything different than the colloquial senses of those terms.
Quoting aletheist
First, so do you understand similarity as opposed to identicality from my example?
With ( and ( the idea is that those aren't any more identical than ( and < are. They're rather just more simllar than ( and < are.
Re the last part--Just to review, I had said this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
To which you responded:
Quoting aletheist
That response above is completely compatible with nominalism.
Your response to the description above being compatible with nominalism included this:
Quoting aletheist
"A general property that is instantiated in particular objects" is what I was asking about when I said "how the universal 'gets into' the particular is left as a complete mystery." I was saying something about the notion of the universal, the general property, being instantiated in a particular not being explained.
If all there is to "a general property that is instantiated in particular objects" is "that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow" and if "Hardness is 'in' a particular diamond only in the sense that if we were to apply a knife-edge to it, it would remain unscratched." then there's a problem:
(1) the latter descriptions are compatible with nominalism: "if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow" is true of particular properties (which is what particulars are). And "Hardness is 'in' a particular diamond only in the sense that if we were to apply a knife-edge to it, it would remain unscratched" is also consistent with hardness being this particular property of this particular diamond (as well as that particular property of that particular diamond, and so on).
(2) But the first description doesn't make a lot of sense in context. If a general property is something real that isn't identical to the particular properties of the particular objects in question, then how it is instantiated in particular objects remains unexplained, and comments like "Hardness is 'in' a particular diamond only in the sense that if we were to apply a knife-edge to it, it would remain unscratched" do nothing to explain how a non-identical (to the particulars) general property winds up instantiated in particulars.
Quoting aletheist
That's not actually true. Nominalism just says that we're talking about particular properties there.
Quoting aletheist
That's part of what nominalism denies. But per nominalism, that part isn't necessary for the reality of "habits" etc.
No, because the scope of the subjunctive conditional that represents a general property or law of nature is not limited to one particular object. Any rock - in fact, any object with mass - that is dropped will fall to the ground. Any chair - in fact, any object at all - that is green will primarily reflect light at a wavelength within a certain range. Any diamond - in fact, any object that is hard - will resist scratching.
On the other hand, if all properties and objects are particular, then there is nothing real that the different objects have in common. Hence there is no good reason to expect similar results to follow for different objects, even if those objects and the conditions are similar.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It is instantiated when particular objects behave in accordance with the law of nature that is the general property. Rather than being "in" those objects in any literal sense, it governs those objects, as well as their relations with other objects. The general property is still real apart from these instantiations, because it is always the case that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow - again, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, and regardless of whether those conditions ever actually obtain for any particular object.
Nominalists are not saying that regularlities of behavior are limited to one particular object. So again, what you wrote there is compatible with nominalism.
Quoting aletheist
That is NOT an explanation for WHY or HOW they do that. It's just a claim that they do it.
By the way, it's become increasingly clear that in your view universalism is ONLY about laws of nature. That's not at all what the traditional issue is about.
Universalism is traditionally about types that aren't identical to particulars being instantiated in particulars.
Quoting aletheist
I don't know why you keep stressing this, because no one is denying it.
Well, or wait--actually I do know why you keep stressing it. You see universalism vs. nominalism strictly as being about whether there are "laws of nature," and you see what you're describing there as being a description of laws of nature, where you're not realizing that the way you're describing it is compatible with nominalists saying that with respect to particular properties, if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow - again, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, and regardless of whether those conditions ever actually obtain for any particular object.
I still do not understand how there can be any predictable regularities/consistencies among particulars that have nothing real in common. If everything is particular, then why should we expect one rock/chair/diamond to behave the same as any other under any circumstances, no matter how "similar"? If every rock/chair/diamond has its own unique collection of properties, then why would they not all behave differently?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am playing around with the idea that all universals - including all properties - are, in fact, laws of nature. It is indeed an alternative to the more traditional view, or perhaps an attempt at reframing it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yeah, I was getting rather repetitive; sorry about that. However, my impression is that nominalists do deny the reality of anything that is not actual - such as the subjunctive conditionals that I have been posing. Am I mistaken?
Is the issue perhaps that the realist wants to say that there is something about rocks/chairs/diamonds that causes them to behave similarly, while the nominalist wants to say that we call things rocks/chairs/diamonds because they behave similarly?
If abstractions were purely mental (whatever you might mean by that) then they could not be instantiated in physical reality by physical objects like DNA molecules.
Abstractions/concepts are particular, concrete phenomena in brains. Mentality is simply specific dynamic brain states.
Concepts are particular? My impression is that nominalists agree with realists that all of our knowledge is only of generals; the disagreement is over whether any of them are real vs. mere names. Again, am I mistaken?
Abstractions are concrete? Given the usual definitions of the two terms, that is a direct contradiction; and in any case, I would suggest instead that abstractions are mental representations of real relations.
Despite being surrounded by abstractions instantiated in all sorts of physical systems, from DNA to computers, you simply deny this and assert that the only physical system of instantiating abstractions is the (human) brain.
Denial is always an option.
Re your earlier post, too, there are a number of things I should clear up. And I should have cleared all of this up a few days ago. I overlooked it as I was concentrating on responding to you from under the umbrella of my own views.
* Nominalists do not necessarily reject that there are real abstracts. The only real requirement for nominalism is that nominalists believe that only particulars exist. Hence, for a nominalist who accepts that there are real abstracts, they believe that real abstracts are particulars.
* Nominalism doesn't imply physicalism. In fact, a nominalist could be an idealist, even. If so, they'd simply believe that ideal objects are particulars only.
* So nominalists do not necessarily reject that there are physical laws either. Again, if there are physical laws in a nominalist's opinion, those physical laws would be particulars. Objects that aren't physical laws would operate per physical laws through whatever interactive system one buys. The only requirement for it to remain nominalistic is that the physical laws aren't identically instantiated in both a real abstract and a particular that's not the physical law.
I don't buy that there are real abstracts however. And I'm not a realist on physical laws either. So that's why I was responding in that context.
Quoting aletheist
The "just names" thing is pretty much limited to an expression of nominalism in Scholastic philosophy, and the consensus is that no one meant just names (and not concepts, for example) literally.
Functionally, concepts are abstractions--and that exhausts what abstractions are. In a nutshell, concepts are originated simply by noting similarities (which are not logical identities), grouping together like items while effectively ignoring differences, and "siphoning off" what one considers to be the most pertinent necessary and sufficient features of those like items--that happens via what one cares about or is concerned with or interested in re those items, tempered by what one notices, and so on. That forms the concept. This is a concrete particular ontologically, because it's a specific set of dynamic brain states in a specific individual. So that's why abstractions are concrete. Abstraction is what it is functionally. Concrete is part of its ontological status.
What would be objective, physical evidence of DNA or a computer, or detail of a computer, that's an abstraction? What would you point to so that you're pointing at an instantiated abstraction in DNA or a computer?
I appreciate it, along with your patience throughout the discussion.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I apologize for nitpicking, but moderate realists agree that only particulars exist - i.e., react with other like things in the environment. I assume you meant to say that nominalists believe that only particulars are real.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Realism does not hold that a physical law is "instantiated" in (or even as) a real abstract. Instantiation properly applies only when and where the law governs actual particulars. The issue is whether the law is just as real at times and places when and where it is not, at that particular instant and location, being actually instantiated. This is what I have been trying to get at with subjunctive conditionals.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Can the object of a conception - i.e., its content - be a concrete particular, and thus absolutely determinate in every conceivable respect? Or is some degree of generality unavoidable, as the scholastics on both sides seem to have agreed?
More, "If you were to inventory everything there is, you'd have only particulars on your list"
That way we avoid whether anything is interacting with anything else, whether it's mental or not, etc. It's just a complete inventory of everything, regardless of any properties it has. To a nominalist, there are no entries in that inventory that are not particulars.
Quoting aletheist
I don't want to get wrapped up in terminological issues. In other words, nominalists can believe that there are physical laws as real abstracts. Nominalism doesn't imply that that's not the case.
Quoting aletheist
I don't recall how you're using "determinate." Concrete here simply refers to it being a particular, physical "thing," (Where I'm not using "thing" technically.)
I just don't want to add a "false" layer. Order looks to me like a brute fact. Along the same lines, saying God created Nature doesn't explain the brute fact of Nature's existence. It passes the buck. Why God?
The metaphysician and theologian both tend to dodge brute fact. Somehow there's always a reason offered that itself doesn't require a reason. I prefer to think that human cognition just discovers its own limits here. Reasons are local and relationship. The system of objects must as a logical necessity remain a brute fact, or that's my current position, anyway.
I agree that we look for reasons. But I think eventually crash into brute fact as we seek the most general explanation. As I see it, we link events or objects by postulating necessary relationships. But there's nothing "outside" of everything (the system of related objects we might call nature or reality) to relate this everything to. So as a whole reality looks like a brute fact. I think we want prediction, control, and morale. Metaphysical debates are largely theological or "feel-good" debates. Like Nietzsche, I question the existence of a will to pure truth for its own sake. Metaphysics often looks like an atheistic or agnostic post-theology. Claims to predict and control are pretty easy to evaluate. But claims that appeal to our morale (our sense of beauty, justice, etc.) are more complicated. We have different "irrational" investments that steer even our choice of norms. (We are playing a game where writing the rules of the game is the game. One can't win this game, since there's no stable rule that makes victory possible.)
Got it, thanks.
Quoting Terrapin Station
To clarify, would they have to be "real abstracts" in particular minds (i.e., concepts), or could they be real abstracts independent of any particular mind?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The content of a concept - not the concept itself, but what it represents, what it is about - would be absolutely determinate if and only if it either has or does not have every conceivable predicate. As I understand it - again, I could be mistaken - scholastic nominalists and realists agreed that all objects of finite human cognition are indeterminate (and therefore general) to some degree, since there are infinitely many conceivable predicates of any such object.
If this were true, then how could we ever know that we have reached the brute fact that has no further explanation? What would be the unmistakable indicator that any further investigation would be a waste of time?
Quoting R-13
This sounds like the nominalist view - we invent laws of nature that are descriptive; things seem to behave with a certain consistency. The realist, on the other hand, believes that we discover laws of nature that are prescriptive; they really govern things such that they behave with a certain consistency.
"Real" is mind-independent, extramental, or "outside of minds."
Quoting aletheist
I just have no idea what that would be saying. What would it be for a concept to "have every conceivable predicate"?
Okay, I just wanted to make sure that we were using roughly the same definition of "real." I take it that "real abstracts" would then be mind-independent abstract particulars - like tropes or numbers, according to some. (I know that this is not your own view.)
Quoting Terrapin Station
Not the concept, its object. The point is that when I am contemplating a particular rock/chair/diamond - even one that is sitting right in front of me - I am not cognizing every conceivable aspect of it. In fact, I cannot do so, because there are infinitely many of them, especially when we include temporal instants and spatial locations. Consequently, in all my thoughts about that particular rock/chair/diamond - and thus in all my knowledge of it - it is general.
For me it's all about the ambiguity of "explanation." Is explanation anything more than increased prediction, control, and the linking of the unfamiliar to the familiar? This looks like explanation as mastery. The apple falls and the planets orbit "because" of gravity. But in this context gravity is a brute fact. Matter is just attracted to matter. If we generalize further so that gravity is a local manifestation of some greater abstraction, then that greater abstraction is the brute fact. If we have a theory of everything, then that TOE is just the way things are. It is the brute fact. In short, I think analyzing the concept of explanation unveils the brute facticity of reality as a whole. Mastery is great, but I think it's conflated with some other, deeper sense of explanation --the kind of explanations humans give for their actions and which theologians found plausible in terms of a personal god.
Quoting aletheist
To me the language doesn't matter. I like pragmatism as the thinking about thinking that liberates the thinker from merely linguistic or terminological problems. What difference in the world does a position on realism or nominalism make? If there are worldly differences, then perhaps they should be at the center of the debate. Anyway, the order becomes "visible" with the right postulation, whether we call it discovery or creation in our inexact inherited language, with this rightness being most persuasively established in terms of prediction and control. We live in this order slowly extended kingdom of order. It's the background of our practices. The realist/nominalist talk is a game for metaphysicians who trust their lives to these regularities every day, despite Hume's very cute problem of induction. We as a species keep building skyscrapers and cellphones and trusting lasers to reshape our corneas, without waiting for the metaphysicians to tell us what is "really" going on. (I'm not trying to hate on the metaphysicians but only to paint a vivid view on the pursuit from something like the outside.)
Inquiry is the struggle by which we seek to ameliorate the irritation of genuine doubt by achieving the satisfactory fixation of our beliefs - our habits of feeling, action, and thought. If nothing ever surprised us, then there would be no need for explanation.
Quoting R-13
I think the opposite - explanation unveils the rationality of reality as a whole. The more we come to know, the more we want to know.
Quoting R-13
I suspect that it boils down to a choice between two presuppositions: that reality is fundamentally rational, such that logic and inquiry give us genuine knowledge of it; or that reality is fundamentally brute, such that logic and inquiry are purely conceptual exercises, as you seem to be suggesting.
Here is an oversimplified argument for realism that I was contemplating while writing my last few posts:
In order to deny the conclusion, the nominalist who accepts the first premiss has to reject the second, and thus hold that no objects of cognition are real. This amounts to treating reality as consisting entirely of incognizable "things-in-themselves" - i.e., inexplicable brute facts. The only alternative is to claim that all objects of cognition that are real are also absolutely singular - i.e., determinate with respect to every conceivable predicate, including place and time. Again, this seems impossible for a finite human mind. Is this right, or am I missing something?
Your terminology feels very awkward to me, but that's simply because you're heavily rooted in Peirce's work, and Peirce was so idiosyncratic, whereas I'm not that familiar with Peirce's work--in fact, it's often impenetrable to me at this point, and I'm so rooted in 20th century and contemporary analytic phil, and I'm also a highly idiosyncratic and fairly iconoclastic philosopher with respect to that (as I am with respect to philosophy in general).
Anyway, I wouldn't expect that any contemporary nominalist would accept the first premise. I don't accept the first premise either. I'd also add that what "generals" are in the first place are concepts, and concepts are particular, concrete abstractions that we subjectively create. So "knowing a general" is actually knowing a particular--namely, the particular that is the siphoning off of necessary and sufficient similar properties we require in order to call some x an F. That's called "abstraction," and it's what concepts are, but it's a particular set of dynamic brain states at a particular set of temporal points in a particular brain. In other words, ontologically, everything is a particular (or a "specific" I suppose you'd say), including concepts. It's just that some of those particulars are a "game" for calling two different things by the "same" name (the name isn't literally the same ontologically on two different occurrences, by the way)--that "game" is what a concept is.
So what I'd say is that you can't know anything that's ontologically general, because there are no such things. That's what makes me a nominalist in the first place.
Anyway, so I don't think it would make any sense for a nominalist to accept your first premise. They'd be saying that they can only know universals--so why, if they were to believe that, would they be nominalists? They'd be saying, "I can only know universals. Nevertheless, I have this theory that no universals are real (or that no universals exist, as many of us who call ourselves nominalists would say)." What could possibly be the impetus for them to say something so crazy? Usually an epistemological x-ist is not going to be other than an agnostic on ontological non x-ism. And that's to be expected. Their position is that they can't know not-x, so why would they assert that ontologically, not-x? Why would they assert that there is something that they can't even know?
And for that matter, if you believe that you can only know universals, how in the world could you say that you can know there are any particulars?
Re the "determinate with respect to every conceivable predicate," when you perceive something, say, you perceive particular properties from a particular reference point.
More food for thought, thanks. You are right that I am immersed in Peirce at this point; since philosophy is a hobby for me, my interests tend to run narrow and deep.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But whenever we think about something - i.e., conceive it, not merely perceive it - we always do so in general terms: "heavy stone," "green chair," "hard diamond," etc. We do not cognize anything as singular; in fact, we cannot cognize anything as singular. The best we can do is use some sort of index - pointing, a demonstrative pronoun, a proper name - to pick out individuals; and when we do so, we are still thinking about them in general terms.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The alleged "similarity" is then an arbitrary construct of an individual mind, right? There is nothing real about the x that makes it an F - or that makes it really similar to other Fs, because then similarity itself would be a real general. Instead, every instance of someone calling something an F is just that person's subjective mental classification. In that case, how is it that different people manage to agree on most such judgments?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Isn't this precisely Kant's position regarding the noumenon or "thing-in-itself"?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The point is that nothing is absolutely particular; everything is general to some degree, including individuals that persist over time.
It occurs to me that even if this were true, then particularity itself would be a real general - something that all things really have in common. Therefore, nominalism is effectively self-refuting. 8-)
I still need to answer your other post, by the way, which I'll do when I'm not on a mobile device as I am now.
Anyway, particularity isn't a property that things have, it's not something identical that's instantiated in multiple things.
Why not? How can you claim that all real things are particulars, and then deny that particularity is something that they really have in common? It certainly fits the colloquial sense of "property" (or "quality" or "characteristic") that you explicitly endorsed previously:
Quoting Terrapin Station
In any case, it should be clear to you by now that I am not defining a real general as "something identical that is instantiated in multiple things." Rather, a real general is a continuum of potentiality that is actualized in multiple individuals, each of which is also general to some degree.
It's not a property because of what properties are. Properties are characteristics or qualities of matter/structure/process relations, what matter/structures/processes are "like" in other words. Particularity is not a characteristic or quality of matter/structure/process relations. Particularity is merely the fact that there's nothing that's identically instantiated in numerically distinct matter/structure/process relations.
That's not to say that particularity isn't real. It's an extramental fact that there is nothing identically instantiated in numerically distinct particulars. It's just not a property of matter/structure/process relations. And the colloquial sense of property isn't other than I'm describing.
Quoting aletheist
Sure, but it's as if we're simply talking about another topic than the traditional universals vs. particulars topic, which is what I've been talking about. You're kind of changing the topic like Dennett does when he talks about free will vs. determinism.
What blocks me from restating your view as effectively holding that particularity itself is identically instantiated in (all) numerically distinct matter/structure/process relations? or that "numerical distinctness" is likewise a property/characteristic/quality of all matter/structure/process relations?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Did you mean to say "not real" here?
Quoting Terrapin Station
What distinguishes an "extramental fact" from a (real) "property"? Whatever term you use for it, you are attributing the exact same characteristic or quality to everything that is real. What makes particularity somehow different from other predicates?
Quoting Terrapin Station
You have acknowledged that you hold some idiosyncratic views about certain aspects of nominalism; likewise, I am suggesting some idiosyncratic views about certain aspects of realism.
You can say whatever you like, of course. What I'd say if you were to say that is that it misunderstands my view. Particularity isn't instantiated at all. It's not a property. Properties are what are instantiated.
Quoting aletheist
Again, that's not a property, so it's not instantiated at all.
It would just suggest, especially in light of my explanation above, that you don't at all understand what properties are on my view.
Quoting aletheist
"Isn't real"--I made a typo initially and corrected it after you read the post apparently. Real=extramental. An extramental fact in this case, by virtue of there being no properties that are identically instantiated in numerically distinct things, as I explained.
Quoting aletheist
I defined properties above, so I won't repeat that again. Facts are states of affairs. They include properties, but aren't limited to them.
Quoting aletheist
But I'm not at all. I just explained this. I'm not saying that "particularlness" is a quality or characteristic or property that objects have. I explained what properties/characteristics/qualities are above.
(Everyone sing along: "Repetition is very good")
"Predicate" is a synonym for "property." Particularness is not a property. Properties are what matter/structures/relations are like, the qualities they have by virtue of being the matter/structure/relation in question.
Quoting aletheist
Sure, but that the universal vs nominalism issue is traditionally about whether there are properties that are identically instantiated in numerically distinct particulars isn't at all idiosyncratic. The word "traditional" should have clued you in to that.
I have asked you for your technical definition, but you keep claiming that you mean nothing other than the colloquial sense of quality or characteristic. My dictionary says that a property is "an attribute common to all members of a class," a quality is "an inherent feature" or "a distinguishing attribute," and a characteristic is "a distinguishing trait, quality, or property." It even has a discussion of four synonyms: "QUALITY, PROPERTY, CHARACTER, ATTRIBUTE mean an intelligible feature by which a thing may be identified. QUALITY is a general term applicable to any trait or characteristic whether individual or generic ... PROPERTY implies a characteristic that belongs to a thing's essential nature and may be used to describe a type or species ... CHARACTER applies to a peculiar and distinctive quality of a thing or a class ... ATTRIBUTE implies a quality ascribed to a thing or a being." By these definitions, particularity is a quality/property/character/attribute.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Without begging the question with respect to particularity, can you provide any examples of states of affairs that do not involve properties?
Quoting aletheist
Sure. Another is that it's a fact that there are no objective aesthetic evaluations.
Yes, and here is what you "explained."
Quoting Terrapin Station
I then cited my dictionary and provided a lengthy excerpt from it, confirming that "quality," "property," "characteristic," and "attribute" all refer to the same basic concept. I still fail to see how particularity does not qualify. You claim that matter/structures/processes (and everything else) are all particular; in other words, that is what they are "like." I am not trying to aggravate you here; I am honestly not seeing the distinction that you seem to be making.
Quoting Terrapin Station
"Fact," "objective," "aesthetic," and "evaluations" are all properties. Anything that you can state as a proposition will include predicates, which you acknowledged is a synonym for properties.
Oaky, so a few examples:
The property of being ionized obtains via an atom or molecule gaining a positive or negative charge via gaining or losing an electron.
The property of being blue obtains via atoms/molecules reflecting electromagnetic radiation between the range of 450 and 495 nanometres.
The property of being phaneritic obtains via being igneous rock with a microstructure consisting of crystals large enough to be distinguished by the unaided human eye.
So, just what would you suggest that a "property of particularity" obtains via?
Quoting aletheist
I'm not saying that properties have something to do with the grammatical analysis of sentences.
Those are all excellent examples of pragmatic explications of concepts, which (from where I sit) demonstrate the reality of generals. Possessing a positive or negative charge via gaining or losing an electron is what it means to instantiate the general, "ionized." Having the disposition to reflect electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength between 450 and 495 nm is what it means to instantiate the general, "blue." Being igneous rock with a microstructure consisting of crystals large enough that they would be distinguished by the unaided human eye is what it means to instantiate the general, "phaneritic." Many different things really are "ionized," "blue," or "phaneritic" in accordance with these definitions, regardless of whether they are ever actually observed to be so.
Quoting Terrapin Station
As a first attempt, in accordance with your view: The property of particularity obtains via having no other property that is identically instantiated in anything else.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Does this indicate that we are now starting to run up against your (self-described) idiosyncratic views about propositions, truth, etc.? I have been studiously trying to avoid that landmine throughout this long discussion.
"Having no" isn't a property that things have, though. It has to be something that's present, not something that's absent.
That seems rather arbitrary; having the property not-F is equivalent to lacking the property F. I suppose that your reply would be that F in this case is not something that you recognize as a real property. As you could probably tell, I was just quoting your own definition of particularity; I was hoping to avoid quibbling over what exactly it is.
As a second attempt: The property of particularity obtains via being absolutely determinate with respect to every conceivable predicate.
If this is unsatisfactory, then I have to ask - is there any positive definition of particularity that you would endorse, or is it strictly a negation of generality on your view? The latter, of course, would effectively beg the question.
I don't think it's arbitrary at all. There are no properties that are absences of something period. The only way that there's a property of not-F is if not-F equals G, in which case G is the property something exhibits. The idea that something has a property that's (a) nonexistent is ridiculous.
Quoting aletheist
First off, what the heck would we be talking about there re the matter in question and its structure and the processes the matter/structures are engaging in?
Quoting aletheist
Well, ontologically, it's strictly another way of saying that something doesn't exist. It's a fact that that thing doesn't exist, but it's not a property of anything that it doesn't exist.
Re being question-begging, what is the argument and conclusion you have in mind?
It sounds like I was right - your reply is that F in this case is not something that you recognize as a real property, so not-F is also something that you do not recognize as a real property. How convenient.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Particularity is strictly a way of saying that generality does not exist? There is no other way to explain particularity that does not amount to explicitly denying generality?
Quoting Terrapin Station
The reductio that I have proposed is along these lines.
Your objection is to the designation of particularity as a property that something real possesses, on the basis that it (supposedly) can only be defined as the absence of generality, which you deny to be a property that anything real possesses.
I didn't say anything like that. First off, F is a variable--it depends on what we're even talking about whether I'd say that it's a real property or not.
Re not-F, I already explained this above. It would only be a property if not-F is identical to something we're saying is present, G. Properties aren't absences. They're present qualities that obtain via what matter/structures/processes are like (not what they're not like).
Quoting aletheist
There are other ways to explain it. What you'd been asking about, however, is what it is as a real (read extramental) fact. As a fact, it's strictly that the inventory of the world doesn't contain any universals (on the traditional sense of universal as explained above).
Quoting aletheist
Wait--first, I objected that that particularity is a property that anything possesses on the basis that particularity is not a property, based on what properties are--which I defined above. There's nothing circular about that, not to mention that it's not actually a logical argument per se (and circularity only pertains to logical arguments per se, and even then it's only fallacious in a logical argument when it's framed as an explanation for something and it's not a simple case of P therefore P for example).
I didn't say anything about "particularity can only be defined . . ."
Again, you asked me what particularity is as a real/extramental fact.
And the denial of universals has nothing to do with definitions of anything or whether they're properties or anything like that. They would be properties if there were any universals. The denial has to do with (a) empirical evidence--everywhere we look, we can't find any (real) universals of the traditional sort, and (b) the fact that the very idea of them is incoherent, as for one it requires real nonphysicals, and even aside from that, no one will even suggest how in the world universals are supposed to work (in the sense of how it is, exactly, that particulars "participate" in them to fully instantiate them identically to other particulars).
F is generality, not-F is particularity. You reject not-F as a real property because you reject F as a real property. Basically, your contention (as I understand it) is that F is a real property if and only if some real things are F and some real things are not-F. That actually seems reasonable to me, so I am now willing to concede the point.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Again, I consider the undeniable fact of ubiquitous predictable regularities to be empirical evidence of real generals; namely, the laws of nature.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This just privileges physicalism, which I reject.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I have tried to lay out an alternative to the traditional notion that a real universal is one thing that is identically instantiated in multiple individuals, which I agree is problematic. Instead, I have suggested (following Peirce) that a real general is an inexhaustible continuum of potential individuals that is non-identically instantiated in multiple actual individuals. I find this conceptually more plausible (YMMV).
This seems like a good summary of our positions, and I will be traveling over the next couple of days anyway, so I think that we have carried the thread out about as far as we could - unless you want to go back and address this post. Thanks again for the good discussion.
Properties are particulars on my view, and there are real particular properties. I'm only rejecting properties as universals. F would presumably represent a property, and using "real" as "extramental," it could very well be an extramental (particular) property.
Quoting aletheist
F is a real property iff F is what some particular matter/structure(s)/process(es) is/are like.
If you're referring instead to the concept of F, the concept can't be real (concepts are mental constructs), And the concept would be applied by an individual just in case we're talking about something or somethings that their concept "ranges over." In other words, just in case we're picking out things that fit their concept per the necessary and sufficient properties they've settled upon for bestowing the name "F."
Quoting aletheist
And I don't because that's how particulars behave on my view. If you ask "why" again, I'd just ask why universal/particular relations work as they do again. And that would go nowhere.
Quoting aletheist
The problem is that I don't believe that the idea of nonphysical existents makes the slightest lick of sense. It's completely incoherent on my view. That obviously privileges physicalism, because it's sense being privileged over complete nonsense. ;-)
Quoting aletheist
One simple problem with that is that if a continuum can't be distinguishable, you can't have a plural there--you only have individuals if they're distinguishable. You could only have an "inexhaustible" contiuum of one thing, potential or not.
Anyway, re "an inexhaustible continuum of potential individuals that is non-identically instantiated in multiple actual individuals. I find this conceptually more plausible" I'd not be asking for some abstract-level description that seems conceptually plausible to you. I'd be asking for a description of how it works, on the level of "Well, atoms come into proximity and electromagnetic force is a factor . . . " and so on. Presumably the description like that isn't going to be about atoms, but whatever it's about, it needs to be an account of exactly how the relations in question work.
One quick clarification - it is not that the potential individuals in a continuum are indistinguishable, it is that they are potentially distinguishable but actually indistinct. In other words, they only become distinct once they are actualized.