Do abstract entities exist? — darthbarracuda

Is this question the same as the question "is anything abstract?"

Again, a great deal hinges on the meaning given to 'exist'. The root of the term 'ex-' outside of, '-ist', to stand, so something that 'exists' is by definition separable from the whole.

There used to be a good essay on this by Paul Knierem, previous owner of Philosophy Forum, called Reality, Existence and the Atom, in the Articles section of the old forum, but the section seems to have gone missing.

One of the points it makes is that to say that something 'exists' is to speak of something you could encounter. So baseballs exist, and icebergs, and forests. But there are many things that are real, but don't exist, including the Gross National Product, and the probability of the sun rising tomorrow. And those kinds of abstract realities are what is being considered here.

The point is, because you're a language-using being, your thought about reality contains many propositions and ideas, as to what is possible, what is real, what exists, and so on, which in themselves are not 'things that exist'. Consequently, your world is a 'meaning-world' which is composed of a combination of existing things - the objects of common experience - but to which your mind is constantly attributing meanings, making inferences, or saying 'well, this means X'. And were your mind not doing that, you would not be able to even engage in a discussion about it. So in that sense at least, the attributes of abstract thought are foundational to what you believe exists.

And where this really becomes something more than abstraction is in the realm of quantum physics - for it is here that the question of 'what exists' and whether the objects of analysis really exist, or whether they're really just mathematical abstractions, becomes an issue. In this article, which is a recent elaboration of the famous Delayed Choice experiment, the experimenter says that the outcome

...proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.

Quantum physics often provokes such statements, of course others will claim to have rebutted such a notion, but is at least a matter of controversy.

It seems to me that a lot of discussion about abstraction gets caught up in semantic irrelevancies, where we draw weird distinctions between "real" and "being" and "existing" and "happening" and whatnot.

If you look at the history of philosophy, attempts at nominalism or anti-realism or whatever form a sea of shipwrecked theses that never went anywhere. But realism about abstracta has the same problem. See, realism's problem is epistemic, inasmuch as realists have never been able to provide a convincing story about how our particular, concrete minds manage to get ahold of abstracta.

All of the pseudo-scientific arguments to this point fail. Replacing "mind" with "brain" does fuck-all for this debate. Just replace the mentalistic terms with brain-y terms and you end up with the same arguments. Unless you're one of those jackasses who has to engage in "more-rational-than-thou because I know sciencey words" posturing, this will do nothing.

I don't see much in the third man argument, mostly because there's no reason to accept self-predication. Why would "redness" itself be red? Why the fuck would you even assume that an abstraction can have a color, or a size, or whatever? Self-predication is just such a weird premise that I don't see any sense in it.

If you look at the history of philosophy, attempts at nominalism or anti-realism or whatever form a sea of shipwrecked theses that never went anywhere.

I don't agree at all. I think there have been schools of philosophy in which these questions were much better understood than they are now, but that they've been forgotten. And I also would have thought that being able to make distinctions about the meaning of existence and being, whether they're the same or different, and so on, would be fundamental to philosophy, which is after all primarily concerned with the meaning of existence.

what do you mean when you say an "abstract entities"?

this is where I make an ironic point about the number of posts before a Quine reference

Without abstract entitities modelling the World is very crude, imperfect and lacking.

Abstract entities are extremely useful.

So useful, that their existence or unexistence is a meaningless question. If you assume they don't exist, well, then "existinting" has a quite shallow definition. Perhaps more closer to when we say something "physically exists".

But realism about abstracta has the same problem. See, realism's problem is epistemic, inasmuch as realists have never been able to provide a convincing story about how our particular, concrete minds manage to get ahold of abstracta. — Pneumenon

The Critical Rationalists are, I believe, realists, and they have the epistemic story.

Abstractions don't exist, but Universals are abstractions only on the Nominalist hypothesis. On the Realist hypothesis they are a type of existent.

I try to avoid the word "exist", because it isn't metaphysically defined.

But of course abstract facts and objects "are there" in the sense that we can state, name and discuss them.

Sometimes, in that sense, they're said to "exist".

If that's what "exist" means, then yes abstract things exist.

To say that something "is there", or "exists", because it can be stated, named and discussed is a weak meaning for "exist", but it's enough to be a basis for a metaphysics. That abstract facts "are there" in that sense is the basis of my metaphysics, and one of the premises of my argument for it.

Michael Ossipoff

Yes, abstract entities exist, just not concretely, obviously. They're concepts, general ideas. It'd be odd to deny the existence of concepts or general ideas. They're an unavoidable part of our reality, and they play an essential role in our understanding of things from a very early age.

Damn, this thread got resurrected. I'll get around to responding.

The Platonistic idea is that universals, or eidos (ideas) are the "most real" things that are. All material, concrete phenomena are but mere shadows, caricatures of the ideal Forms. This is a thoroughly idealistic metaphysical theory.

A more pragmatic and realist theory comes from Aristotle, and later Aquinas, with the theory of concrete universals and the doctrine of substantial being. Substances now belong to natural kinds. Universals exist, but only insofar as they are instantiated.

I now cannot fathom how something like nominalism makes sense, or why we might be motivated to adopt such a stringent denial of abstracta. I also suspect nominalism played a hand in the development of the mind-body dualism, and later (eliminative) materialism. Under nominalism, abstract entities are but "thoughts" that have no correlate to anything. They exist in the mind, and only in the mind.

Yet patterns, regularity, multiple realizability, repetition ... these are the basis of reality, I think. But difference, change, randomness, these are also the basis of reality, I think. Similarity cannot exist without difference, since similarity still implies a mis-match, or lack of identity. But difference cannot exist without similarity, either: the fact that we can compare two+ things means there is something about the two+ things that make them capable of being analyzed in this way.

So as it stands, I think universals absolutely must exist (although I have not committed to either Platonism or Aristotelianism, or something else). With respect to things like "facts", "states of affairs", "propositions", the nominalist may have something to offer. But in general, it does seem as though abstract entities are the "ideal", while concrete entities are the "real". Form-matter...Aristotle?

Universals are indispensable. So are propositions. We could just make a special ontological category: indispensable. Maybe we're flatlanders and when we evolve further it will be obvious to us why.

I also suspect nominalism played a hand in the development of the mind-body dualism, and later (eliminative) materialism. Under nominalism, abstract entities are but "thoughts" that have no correlate to anything. They exist in the mind, and only in the mind. — darthbarracuda

Some readings:

Meaning and the problem of Universals, Kelly Ross

What's Wrong with Ockham

Some reviews of The Theological Origins of Modernity