In the conventional story, it is explained to Gilbert that the University is the way the buildings are organized.
— Andrew M

Except that a university is also a social organization, and organizations are more difficult to be relegate to a name for a group of individuals, land and buildings, since the social structure has an important effect on society. — Marchesk

That's right. Gilbert is not a Nominalist in that story.

Again, and can't stress this enough, so much in this argument hinges on the question of the nature of the existence of abstract reals. As soon as it is asserted that 'they exist', the response is always: 'where do they exist?' - to which the answer naturally seems to be 'in a ghostly Platonic realm'. And that can't be shown to exist.

What's the problem here? It's because we are naturally oriented in respect of what exists as objects in the domain of phenomena; we are, in fact, 'naturally naturalist'. So we instinctively feel that 'what exists' must exist in some location, that it must be 'out there somewhere'.

But ideas, numbers, forms, and so on, don't 'exist' in that sense at all. They're not anywhere. So, for us, if they're not anywhere, they don't exist.

But the Platonist would say that they 'exist', or rather, that they're real, in the sense of being like the ideal patterns and forms towards which phenomenal existents strive in a 'domain of pure possibility'. That is the sense in which this domain is 'transcendent'. But it is not only something in your mind, or my mind: it is something which will be real for any mind at all. They are on another level or domain of reality, that being the 'formal realm' or 'the domain of pure form'. But that also doesn't 'exist' in the sense that objects exist; I don't think current English has a term for the sense in which that domain is real.

Funny! But I don't think nominalists or realists seriously take their positions to be reflected by such stories.

So we instinctively feel that 'what exists' must exist in some location, that it must be 'out there somewhere'. — Wayfarer

I don't think this is right. For example, I think that marriages and universities and money and bits of data on hard drives exist, but they do not necessarily exist in any one 'location.' In fact I'm entirely permissive – whatever can be said to exist, can be said to do so on its own grounds, and in its own way, however you like. But there must be some such way that we can orient ourselves towards and get a grip on, or we do not understand what it would mean for such things to exist. With universals, I claim, we have nothing at all, not just 'nothing localized to a particular location.' And so you are attacking a straw man, based on your (false) pre-conceived notions of how 'scientific worldviews' work and how they are purportedly juxtaposed to 'metaphysical' ones.

They demonstrably do not possess language, the ability to abstract, the ability to create technology, and so on and so on. If that's 'magical thinking', then guilty as charged. — Wayfarer

Crows and chimps actually can demonstrably create crude technologies, and as you just saw in the video, crows demonstrably can engage in quite sophisticated if-then instrumental reasoning.

That is not to say that there is somehow no difference between humans and animals. But we need to be honest and accurate about what those differences are, instead of burying our heads in the sand and dismissing counter-evidence to uphold an apparently non-existent hard distinction because it services our preconceived notions of the essence of humanity.

In short, the middle layer is the layer at which the language takes action – and since at the first layer it has no coherent set of truth conditions, the middle layer acts as a proposal, conscious or not, to change the way one speaks, so that the same null truth conditions, involving the world as one always took it to be, are scrambled to be described in different vocabulary. Since we can create infinite vocabularies to describe the same state of affairs, this arena of changing the way people talk is endless. It's important to realize that this second stage can be more or less conscious, since we are typically not finely aware of how the claims we make do or don't have descriptive application, and we just stick to the words themselves, sort of like magic talismans, which we hold onto and say 'this is true!' Note that this also explains why metaphysicians have no subject matter, and do not investigate anything, but only converse – it is because the practice in principle only offers new ways of speaking, these proposals to speak in new ways are always available by talking. — Snakes Alive

This "middle layer" doesn't even resemble any metaphysics that I'm aware of. Are you sure that the author is not just trying to change the way that we use the word "metaphysics", and is not really talking about any real metaphysics?

I know this is getting a bit off track, but crows are capable of technological manipulation that resembles that of the earliest modern man, and may be able to transmit it intergenerationally.



So, does this creature have a 'soul?' Can it access the Platonic realm of 'abstractions?' These are stupid questions – instead, look at what it can, and can't, do!

we neglect the fact he hasn’t figured out that sometimes a curved stick would work a whole lot better. — Mww

Damn. Seems only some of us have neglected the fact. Color me.....educated.

Thanks.

So, does this creature have a 'soul? — Snakes Alive

If you mean psyche, absolutely, just not like yours. If you mean a Christian soul, of course it is one of God's creatures. If you mean something else, then what do you mean?

Can it access the Platonic realm of 'abstractions? — Snakes Alive

If it's making tools, and adjusting and improving them, then it would seem to me they do, in some sense.

Crows and chimps actually can demonstrably create crude technologies, — Snakes Alive

I thought the discussion was about metaphysics.

With universals, I claim, we have nothing at all, not just 'nothing localized to a particular location.' — Snakes Alive

Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. ... We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of', which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.

This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'. There is no place or time where we can find the relation 'north of'. It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them. Nor can we say that it exists at any particular time. Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something. — Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

There might be an argument against this notion, but I haven't seen it here.

So, does this creature have a 'soul?' — Snakes Alive

All living things have a soul.

But there must be some such way that we can orient ourselves towards and get a grip on, or we do not understand what it would mean for such things to exist. — Snakes Alive

What if space and time are not fundamental, but emerge from something more fundamental which we can only allude to? I bring it up because the bedrock reality in this case would be something outside space and time as we understand them, so it wouldn't exist in any normal sense.

To exist is to have an effect/affect.

Now everything that can be apprehended by the senses or by introspection exists at some particular time. Hence the relation 'north of' is radically different from such things. It is neither in space nor in time, neither material nor mental; yet it is something. — Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

It's the name given to a spatial relation between a plurality of things. It is not so much neither...

Rather, it is both.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.

That's a universal claim and a metaphysical one as well, I guess. To be clear, I do not really place much value on the idea of qualifying as a metaphysical claim or not. That's just a name. What's important is that which is being referred to and/or picked out by the name.

So, there was some 'test' mentioned earlier...

Can I imagine a world in which it were the case that not all thought and belief consisted entirely of correlations, that some thought and belief did not consist entirely of correlations?

I cannot. I also cannot imagine a world in which it were the case that not all water consisted of Hydrogen and Oxygen.

The commonality between these two examples ought be obvious. It's a matter of elemental constituency, and not just any elemental constituency either. No, no, no... Both examples(human thought and belief and water) exist, in their entirety prior to our naming and descriptive practices. So too does whatever they consist of...

Now, unless I'm mistaken, the OP is a bit toothless in light of the above.

If it was self-evident, there wouldn't be long-standing philosophical debates over universals. — Marchesk

That simply presumes that arguments cannot be constructed around things which are self-evident. That's the question here so it's begging it do assume at the outset that the mere existence of debate automatically legitimises the terms of that debate.

Not if it's motivated by a philosophical puzzle. — Marchesk

But it's not a philosophical puzzle. That's what I'm saying, it's a sociological one. the question "are universals real?" is meaningless. The question "Why doe we use them?" is not, but it's sociological. It doesn't somehow get co opted into the realm of philosophy simply because there's a related question there. Philosophers also ask question about the fundamental constituents of the universe, does research into the Higgs Boson now become philosophy?

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things. — creativesoul

Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object.

Kant, 1801. The Jasche Logic, in Lectures on Logic.

All thought and belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.
— creativesoul

Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognising it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object. — Wayfarer

The nominal definition leads to what Kant claims it leads to. The problem, however, is not just where it leads, but also what else is needed in order for it to lead there. Not only is that definition of truth at work, but so too is an utterly inadequate notion of human thought and belief(cognition in Kantian jargon). Let me explain...

The above cannot take proper account of all the cases where we are thinking about our own thought and belief. We do that sort of thing all the time. I call it metacognition. Kant was doing it above.

There is no distinction drawn and maintained between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief. They are not the same thing. Jeep, you've heard me make this argument before. Kant was wrong here in the same way that every single philosophical traditional/conventional school of thought has been wrong throughout human history. None of them drew and maintained the actual distinction between thought and belief, and thinking about thought and belief. They've all gotten thought and belief wrong as a direct result, an inevitable consequence. None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression.


Kant talks of cognizing objects. What on earth is it even supposed to mean for me to cognize a tree? We do not think(cognize) trees. We do not believe trees. We think and believe stuff about trees.

We think about trees. Trees are taken to be outside, as Kant claims above. Our thought and belief(cognition) is inside, according to this framework. The inside/outside dichotomy is not a tool capable of taking account of all the times when we are thinking about our own thought and belief.

All correlation consists of a plurality of different things and a creature capable of drawing a correlation between them.

...does research into the Higgs Boson now become philosophy? — Isaac

As if it's not already?

All theoretical physics IS philosophy.

This seems to me so deeply confused that I'm scared to touch it. Being north of something is constituted by being in space relative to something else. That's what it is to be north of something – there isn't some other ethereal thing called 'being north of' apart from this, apparently outside of space and time, with ghostly properties that we then might wonder about.

They are on another level or domain of reality, that being the 'formal realm' or 'the domain of pure form'. But that also doesn't 'exist' in the sense that objects exist; I don't think current English has a term for the sense in which that domain is real.

Heaven? I prefer the word eternity, because it offers a direction in that there are things there which are without end, inviolable, transcendent, real (as in self existent). Also that there is the inconceivable and a portal to worlds beyond end.

I don’t find it confused but I do see the perplexity.

Russell goes on to say:

It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here.

In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental.

But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

I think that you think - and in this, you would certainly have the majority view - that the facts such as 'being north of' or 'being white' are just so, they are the case whether or not anyone thinks of them. But Russell does actually note that 'The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. ' But, he says, understanding the relation 'north of' is universal, because it doesn't simply apply to the relationship of Edinburgh and London. It is a universal, which whilst not being created by a mind, can only be grasped by a mind. ( I think that modern realism forgets the role that the mind plays in organising our understanding, such that we believe that the world exists completely independently of our experience of it.)

Besides, the point I'm labouring here is not to convince you that universals are real, but to point out that I think it's a real argument, not simply a matter of verbiage. My theory is that universals have to do with the way the mind structures cognition, which is why mathematics can be used to predict //and discover// things that we otherwise couldn't know. The whole modern world is a testimony to that. (So don't for a minute think I'm 'anti-science'.)

The other point I made about the nature of number is also a metaphysical issue, as I illustrated with reference to sources. (In fact, the current mathematical physics is deeply enmeshed in arguably metaphysical disputes - about the many worlds conjecture and the multiverse conjecture/string theory, and whether these are truly scientific theories or not.)

So, I'm basically saying that I don't accept the argument in the OP, that metaphysical questions are simply 'arranging words'. There are very deep and real issues, although I'm anticipating that I have completely failed in attempting to convey that.

Heaven? — Punshhh

No, the formal realm is not heaven. It's the domain of laws, numbers, and so on - only by way of analogy, because it's only 'a domain' in the sense that 'the set of all real numbers is a domain'. It's not a literal place or literal domain, and it's also not heaven. (I've been trying for years to remember where I read about the formal realm/causal realm but can't recall it.)

Eriugena's five modes. — Wayfarer

Historically interesting (thanks), metaphysically cumbersome (no thanks).

The thing which struck me as intrinsically important about it, was the notion of different levels and/or modes of being. (But it's certainly linguistically cumbersome,with all the Latin phrases. Actually Dermot Moran, who wrote that SEP piece, wrote a book on Eriugena, which traces his influence on European philosophy right up to the German idealists (after which philosophy proper ceased ;-)

Kant was wrong here in the same way that every single philosophical traditional/conventional school of thought has been wrong throughout human history. — creativesoul

When what you believe is inconsistent with every traditional or conventional school of thought, don't you think it's time to reconsider?

Oh, I’m a big fan of the notion of different modes of being, but I don’t see any reason to grant more than two of them, re: the a posteriori and the a priori.

And I agree with your iteration of the concept of universals, which I would call ideals, which leaves universal, hence universality, to be conjoined freely with necessity as pure categories.

up to the German idealists (after which philosophy proper ceased — Wayfarer

Perfectly obvious to me, but congrats on having the cajones to state it for the record. Not the modern’s fault, though; after the real philosophers got done, there was nothing left except to FUBAR what they said, or make waves out of stuff nobody has any real reason to care about, yet think to call it “progress”.

(sigh)

Yes, I always had the sense, back in the Sixties, that Planet of the Apes, corny though it was, had a real point, although it took until recently to grasp what it was. :wink:

None of them have a coherent meaningful notion of thought and belief that is amenable to evolutionary terms and/or progression. — creativesoul

There’s a blatantly obvious reason for that.

That humans attribute more to themselves than we deserve? If not that, what point did you get?

Sorry, I was being mischievous.