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

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

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

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

Well, that is progress!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wayfarer:

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

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

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

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

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

Prof. Feser.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism, 39:00

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

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

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

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

Why not?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your computer is not an abstraction. — John

I did not say or imply that it was.

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

For the reasons given immediately after my assertion, obviously!

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

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

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

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

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

Try reading the post.

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

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

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

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

so how are things?

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

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

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

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

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

Why should your assertions be taken seriously otherwise?

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

They both involve existence. You said,

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

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

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