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. — Terrapin Station

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.

The denial has to do with (a) empirical evidence--everywhere we look, we can't find any (real) universals of the traditional sort ... — Terrapin Station

Again, I consider the undeniable fact of ubiquitous predictable regularities to be empirical evidence of real generals; namely, the laws of nature.

... and (b) the fact that the very idea of them is incoherent, as for one it requires real nonphysicals ... — Terrapin Station

This just privileges physicalism, which I reject.

... 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). — 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.

So one change to another is necessarily continguous temporally. — Terrapin Station

Okay, I am thinking of contiguous in the sense of melding into one another so as to be indistinct. In that sense, two discrete things cannot be contiguous.

If that's a judgment in aletheist-speak, I have no idea what "judgment" refers to in aletheist-speak. — Terrapin Station

I see no need for us to go down this road right now. Like I said, it probably would only lead to another impasse anyway.

The temporal "points" in question ARE contiguous. (And this is like the third or fourth time I've said this.) — Terrapin Station

No matter how many times you say it, it will always be incoherent to me. If time is defined strictly as the change from F to not-F or vice-versa, then the points that represent these changes cannot be contiguous, they must be discrete. Time (no pun intended) to call it an impasse, I suspect.

When I look at the rat on my computer, I'm acquiring knowledge--that it's there, for example; that it looks like it does; that it feels as it does, etc. — Terrapin Station

"That it's there" is a judgment; "that it looks like it does" is a judgment; "that it feels as it does" is a judgment. On my view, only the percept itself is brute; all subsequent steps, beginning with these kinds of judgments, involve representation. This will probably just result in another impasse, I suspect.

Hockey fans are weird.

The idea that something has a property that's (a) nonexistent is ridiculous. — Terrapin Station

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.

Well, ontologically, it's strictly another way of saying that something doesn't exist. — 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?

Re being question-begging, what is the argument and conclusion you have in mind? — Terrapin Station

The reductio that I have proposed is along these lines.

• Everything real possesses particularity.
• By definition, if everything real possesses x, then x is a real general.
• Therefore, particularity is a real general.
• But by definition, if everything possesses particularity, then nothing is a real general.
• Therefore, the first premiss is false; something real does not possess particularity - i.e., something is a real general.

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.

All I'm saying is that you could just as well represent time with a line, and different, adjacent times are thus two "points" on the line. That works just as well as saying that it's binary. — Terrapin Station

Only if you concede that there is some distance between the two "adjacent" points. They are not and cannot be contiguous, any more than the zeroes and ones in an alternating string of binary digits can be contiguous. There is a reason why analog and digital are not the same.

I just looked at this fake rat I have on top of my computer. — Terrapin Station

Looking at the fake rat is perception, not cognition. When you judge that you are seeing a fake rat, you are already representing it, and that judgment is the first premiss of any subsequent reasoning about it. You cannot think about the fake rat (or anything else) without representing it somehow.

(I have to ask - why on earth would a team called the Panthers give out fake rats?)

"Having no" isn't a property that things have, though. It has to be something that's present, not something that's absent. — Terrapin Station

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.

We could just as well say that it's like a line, say, with time 1 and time 2 as contiguous "points" on the line. — Terrapin Station

Let the record show that you introduced this diagram. Remember, on my view a truly continuous line has potential points exceeding all multitude between any two actual points. This is because two points can only be contiguous if they are (actually) indistinct but (potentially) distinguishable. Even if we marked points corresponding to all of the real numbers - rational and irrational - on a continuous number line, there would still be an inexhaustible supply of potential points in between each of them. Your definition of time as (actual) change thus entails that it cannot be continuous in this way; it must be discrete.

I don't at all agree that we can only know universals and saying that all of our cognition involves logical/mathematical language seems especially bonkers to me. — Terrapin Station

Can you give me an example of cognition that does not involve logical/mathematical language, or at least some kind of general representation?

Oaky, so a few examples: — Terrapin Station

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.

So, just what would you suggest that a "property of particularity" obtains via? — 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.

I'm not saying that properties have something to do with the grammatical analysis of sentences. — 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.

Yeah, in my view it's x and x' (x and x-prime). — Terrapin Station

If x is F and x' is not-F, is the next step that x is F again or that x'' is F (and so on)?

Where am I saying anything about "distinct" time? — Terrapin Station

When x changes from F to not-F and when x' changes from not-F to F are distinct times, not the same time, right?

At any rate, I'm definitely saying that time is temporally contiguous, with no gap in between. — Terrapin Station

You lost me here. Time cannot be contiguous if it is defined simply as change, because it only "exists" in our scenario as the change from F to not-F or vice-versa, not anything in between. It is just like a series of alternating binary digits, where 0 corresponds to the change from F to not-F and 1 corresponds to the change from not-F to F. There is nothing at all between each pair (01 or 10).

As an actual thing, it's not the same as our logical/mathematical language. — Terrapin Station

As I have suggested elsewhere, it seems that we then have no knowledge of the actual thing, since all of our cognition involves our logical/mathematical language.

They form a time unit for x, for one. — Terrapin Station

How is that a real connection between the two changes? As you noted, we can only "count" those units from "outside" that hypothetical world. There is also the whole issue of whether x is really still x after each change from F to not-F or vice-versa; if so, then that would seem to entail multiple instantiations (x as F, x as not-F) of the identical thing (x), which is why I see the problem of universals as relevant.

Is discrete time temporally contiguous, with no "gap" in between? — Terrapin Station

No, because you are saying that each change corresponds to a distinct time, and there is no time in between those changes. Time as a whole is thus a discrete collection of actual changes.

Logic and mathematics are languages we've invented for thinking about relations with a high degree of abstraction (abstractions being something that's purely mental). — Terrapin Station

So as an actual thing, apart from our thoughts about it, x can be both F and not-F, and x can be neither F nor not-F?

Did you not see where I explained what properties were above? — Terrapin Station

Yes, and here is what you "explained."

Properties are characteristics or qualities of matter/structure/process relations, what matter/structures/processes are "like" in other words. — 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.

Another is that it's a fact that there are no objective aesthetic evaluations. — 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.

It would just suggest, especially in light of my explanation above, that you don't at all understand what properties are on my view. — Terrapin Station

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.

Facts are states of affairs. They include properties, but aren't limited to them. — Terrapin Station

Without begging the question with respect to particularity, can you provide any examples of states of affairs that do not involve properties?

I wouldn't say that it's unconnected though, and as I mentioned awhile ago re the issue of discreteness in general, I'm agnostic on it, and I don't think it matters for any of my views. — Terrapin Station

If no time passes while x is F or x is not-F, then how are the different changes between these two states of affairs connected? As I mentioned a while ago, I think that your views entail that time is discrete, and I have tried to illustrate that with this example.

Discreteness certainly wouldn't hinge on what we are counting or can count. That's about us, not what the world is like independent of us. — Terrapin Station

It is about whether reality constitutes a collection of (only) particulars, as you claim. Counting is one way that we represent particularity.

Again, time ONLY obtains when we have change or motion, since that's what time is. So you can ask yourself, "Is such and such changing?" If the answer is "No," then you can know that I'd say, "There is no time (in that scenario)." — Terrapin Station

Which basically defines time such that there is a "present," but still does not explain how something can be ongoing as the present tense of "is changing" would indicate.

So I'm only agreeing that we can talk that way via an abstraction we perform. — Terrapin Station

Are you saying that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle are only mental abstractions, such that they do not apply within reality itself?

If that's what you call "discrete," then sure, it's aletheist-discrete. — Terrapin Station

It is what any normal English-speaker calls "discrete." My dictionary defines it as "consisting of distinct or unconnected elements : noncontinuous," "taking on or having a finite or countably infinite number of values." If we can (in principle) count the individual changes that constitute time, then time is discrete.

The answer to that is: "F is changing to not-F, or not-F is changing to F, or F is changing to not-F and then back to F" or whatever the case may be for the time that we're focusing on. — Terrapin Station

In that case, there is no time when x is F, and there is no time when x is not-F; it is "always" changing from one to the other. But we agreed previously that it is "always" the case that x is either F or not-F. Which is it?

It would depend on how many changes you want to count as your time unit. — Terrapin Station

Right. Notice that your view thus requires time to be discrete, since every "lapse" of time requires an actual change. If nothing changes, then no time passes.

However, that was not the only question that I asked ...

There is only time whenever x changes from F to not-F or vice-versa. What can we say about x with respect to F "during" that time? — aletheist

Suppose a universe in which there is only one thing, x, and only one property, F. "Initially," x is F, but "later," x is not-F. According to your definition, the only "time" in this universe is "when" x changes from F to not-F. — aletheist

There is only time, including the present, when the change from F to not F happens. A past would only make sense in the context of further changes. — Terrapin Station

Okay, suppose now that x constantly changes back and forth between F and not-F. There is only time whenever x changes from F to not-F or vice-versa. What can we say about x with respect to F "during" that time? How much time has elapsed after, say, a million changes?

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. — Terrapin Station

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?

That's not to say that particularity is real. — Terrapin Station

Did you mean to say "not real" here?

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. — 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?

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. — 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.

I wrote this (although I added it as an edit so maybe you didn't see it) in my second to last post above: — Terrapin Station

No, I did not see that edit.

In reality, the idea is incoherent, as what time is in the first place is change or motion. So if we don't have change or motion, we don't have time at all. — Terrapin Station

Suppose a universe in which there is only one thing, x, and only one property, F. "Initially," x is F, but "later," x is not-F. According to your definition, the only "time" in this universe is "when" x changes from F to not-F. Are you saying, then, that there is only the present in this hypothetical universe, no past (when x is F) or future (when x is not-F)?

What view, specifically, are you referring to? — Terrapin Station

everything is always - i.e., at all times - either P or not-P, where P is some particular property? — aletheist

I'm fine with that insofar as it goes. — Terrapin Station

What can we say about X and P while the change is occurring?

For your view to be consistent, changes never are occurring; they always either have occurred (X was P, but now not-X is not-P) or will occur (X is P, but soon not-X will be not-P).

If there are changes that are occuring, that IS the present. — Terrapin Station

I am paying attention, and I am trying to understand, but you are simply dismissing my objection rather than answering it. As I see it, on your view, there can be no changes that are occurring (present tense); they always either occurred in the past (X was P, but now X is not-P), or will occur in the future (X is now P, but will be not-P). In the present, as at all other times, X must be either P or not-P; it can never be changing from P to not-P (or vice-versa).

I don't see any difference between the supposedly two things you're proposing. You've got P, then a change or motion, and we've got not-P. — Terrapin Station

How is that not a difference? X is P before the change, and X is not-P after the change, but there is no time in between when X is changing from P to not-P. The occurrence of the change itself is how you define time, so there is no "present" during which the change "is occurring." Of course, technically X is no longer X after the change, since it is a different particular precisely because it is then not-P rather than P. So we really have X is P before the change, and not-X is not-P after the change, but there is still no time in between when X is changing into not-X by virtue of changing from P to not-P.

Again, particular is the opposite of there being something that's identically instantiated in numerically distinct entities. Are we clear on that? — Terrapin Station

Sure, but what does that have to do with my objection? Do you deny that everything is always - i.e., at all times - either P or not-P, where P is some particular property?

And another again, no one is talking about point-like "constants"--are we clear on that, too? — Terrapin Station

Did you mean point-like "instants"? Let me put it this way instead: If something changes from P to not-P, then there is a time T1 at which it is P and a time T2 at which it is not-P, with no time in between during which it "is changing" from P to not-P.

The present is the changes that are occurring. — Terrapin Station

If everything is particular, then there are no "changes that are occurring." If everything is always either P or not-P, then nothing is ever in some intermediate state of changing from P to not-P. The occurrence of the change is what distinguishes one discrete instant from the next, and there are no instants between them to label as "the present."

Again, the present is the changes that are occurring from a particular reference "point" or situatedness. — Terrapin Station

By the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle, X is never both Y and not-Y at the same time, and X is always either Y or not-Y at any assignable time. Suppose that X is Y at time T1 and not-Y at time T2; i.e., X changes from Y to not-Y sometime between T1 and T2. There can be no particular instant of time between T1 and T2 when X is changing from Y to not-Y; it is always either one or the other, and never both. Hence if everything is particular, including time, then there is no "present" at which changes "are occurring," just discrete instants before and after each change.

When I first started getting acquainted with Peirce's thought, several people warned me that it would take a while - and I have found that to be very much the case. If you would like to read his own words, I think that the best place to start is with the two volumes of The Essential Peirce. If you prefer a fairly comprehensive introduction written by someone else, I suggest The Continuity of Peirce's Thought by Kelly Parker and/or Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism by Paul Forster. If you are looking for something shorter that focuses primarily on metaphysics, I recommend Charles Peirce's Guess at the Riddle by John K. Sheriff.

Anyway, particularity isn't a property that things have, it's not something identical that's instantiated in multiple things. — Terrapin Station

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:

I wouldn't say that I see properties as being anything different than the colloquial senses of those terms. — 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.

To a nominalist, there are no entries in that inventory [of everything there is] that are not particulars. — Terrapin Station

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-)

My mind knows what I will type before it is typed ... — Metaphysician Undercover

Your mind only knows what you (presently) intend to type. Something can (and sometimes does) interrupt you before you actually type it. When we debated whether final causes can be in the future, you took the position that this intention is the final cause of the outcome, and on that basis insisted that it must always be temporally prior to the outcome. Have you changed your mind about that?

My mind has the capacity to actually produce what will be, in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your mind has the capacity to imagine what would be produced in the future, if certain conditions come about; and only some of these are within your control. Unless you are omniscient and/or omnipotent, you cannot guarantee in the present what will be in the future.

What principle do you use to deny that I can be aware of things in the future? What principle allows you to say that being in the past is actual, but being in the future is not actual? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because nothing is actual until it occurs. Modally speaking, the future is always possible, never actual. Claiming that the future is already actual amounts to determinism.

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.

Anyway, I wouldn't expect that any contemporary nominalist would accept the first premise. — 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.

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. — 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?

Why would they assert that there is something that they can't even know? — Terrapin Station

Isn't this precisely Kant's position regarding the noumenon or "thing-in-itself"?

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? — Terrapin Station

The point is that nothing is absolutely particular; everything is general to some degree, including individuals that persist over time.

My awareness of my sensations is an awareness of what has been, in the past, but my activities of moving my body are an awareness of what will be, in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

It seems more accurate to say that your activities of moving your body are responses to a prediction of what would be in the future, given your awareness of your sensations and some assumptions about what they entail. The future is not yet actual, so you cannot (strictly speaking) be aware of it yet.

,

Here is an oversimplified argument for realism that I was contemplating while writing my last few posts:

• All objects of cognition are generals.
• Some objects of cognition are real.
• Therefore, some generals are real.

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?

It is airy fairy meaningless talk until we can at least do something as primitively quantitative as point at a Picasso and exclaim that's what I'm talking about ... Thus conception is inherently empirical. Unless an idea can be cashed out in an act of measurement, we would have to ascribe to it the dismal status of being an idea that is "not even wrong". — apokrisis

I am not sure how pointing at something qualifies as "primitively quantitative" or "an act of measurement." It is certainly an index in Peirce's terminology, and it is the necessity of those that he upheld as the indispensable connection between cognition and existing objects. Even the pragmatic maxim does not require quantitative measurement as such, just experiential consequences so that we can ascertain whether our predictions are borne out.

And so empiricism - for some reason much derided - is basic to philosophical thought. You can't talk intelligibly about the general if you can't successfully point to its proper instances. — apokrisis

There is a new book out by Aaron Bruce Wilson, Peirce's Empiricism: Its Roots and Its Originality. I have only been able to read snippets via Google Books - it is too recent to borrow via interlibrary loan - but it looks pretty good.

Agreed, I just wanted to clarify that distinction.

What you can't be mistaken about is (1) your present phenomenal experience as your present phenomenal experience, and (2) your present evaluations/assessments as your present evaluations/assessments. — Terrapin Station

If what you mean is that we cannot help but perceive whatever we perceive, and then (initially) judge it to be whatever we judge it to be, then I am inclined to agree. In this sense, we cannot be mistaken about a percept itself (say, a green chair) or the corresponding perceptual judgment ("I am perceiving a green chair"). However, we can be mistaken in all of our subsequent reasonings about them (I am convinced that I really saw a green chair, but I was actually hallucinating).

Is explanation anything more than increased prediction, control, and the linking of the unfamiliar to the familiar? — R-13

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.

In short, I think analyzing the concept of explanation unveils the brute facticity of reality as a whole. — 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.

What difference in the world does a position on realism or nominalism make? — 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.

"Real" is mind-independent, extramental, or "outside of minds." — Terrapin Station

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.)

What would it be for a concept to "have every conceivable predicate"? — 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.

I agree that we look for reasons. But I think eventually crash into brute fact as we seek the most general explanation. — R-13

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?

As I see it, we link events or objects by postulating necessary relationships. — 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.

To a nominalist, there are no entries in that inventory that are not particulars. — Terrapin Station

Got it, thanks.

In other words, nominalists can believe that there are physical laws as real abstracts. — 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?

I don't recall how you're using "determinate." — 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.