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

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

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

But the concepts "matter", "spacetime", "atoms", etc are abstractions over particular instances. — Marchesk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do we describe all neutrinos using the same predicates? — Marchesk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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