... there are a number of things I should clear up. — Terrapin Station

I appreciate it, along with your patience throughout the discussion.

The only real requirement for nominalism is that nominalists believe that only particulars exist. — Terrapin Station

I apologize for nitpicking, but moderate realists agree that only particulars exist - i.e., react with other like things in the environment. I assume you meant to say that nominalists believe that only particulars are real.

The only requirement for it to remain nominalistic is that the physical laws aren't identically instantiated in both a real abstract and a particular that's not the physical law. — Terrapin Station

Realism does not hold that a physical law is "instantiated" in (or even as) a real abstract. Instantiation properly applies only when and where the law governs actual particulars. The issue is whether the law is just as real at times and places when and where it is not, at that particular instant and location, being actually instantiated. This is what I have been trying to get at with subjunctive conditionals.

That forms the concept. This is a concrete particular ontologically, because it's a specific set of dynamic brain states in a specific individual. — Terrapin Station

Can the object of a conception - i.e., its content - be a concrete particular, and thus absolutely determinate in every conceivable respect? Or is some degree of generality unavoidable, as the scholastics on both sides seem to have agreed?

Abstractions/concepts are particular, concrete phenomena in brains. — Terrapin Station

Concepts are particular? My impression is that nominalists agree with realists that all of our knowledge is only of generals; the disagreement is over whether any of them are real vs. mere names. Again, am I mistaken?

Abstractions are concrete? Given the usual definitions of the two terms, that is a direct contradiction; and in any case, I would suggest instead that abstractions are mental representations of real relations.

Nominalists are not saying that regularlities of behavior are limited to one particular object. — Terrapin Station

I still do not understand how there can be any predictable regularities/consistencies among particulars that have nothing real in common. If everything is particular, then why should we expect one rock/chair/diamond to behave the same as any other under any circumstances, no matter how "similar"? If every rock/chair/diamond has its own unique collection of properties, then why would they not all behave differently?

By the way, it's become increasingly clear that in your view universalism is ONLY about laws of nature. That's not at all what the traditional issue is about. — Terrapin Station

I am playing around with the idea that all universals - including all properties - are, in fact, laws of nature. It is indeed an alternative to the more traditional view, or perhaps an attempt at reframing it.

I don't know why you keep stressing this, because no one is denying it. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, I was getting rather repetitive; sorry about that. However, my impression is that nominalists do deny the reality of anything that is not actual - such as the subjunctive conditionals that I have been posing. Am I mistaken?

Is the issue perhaps that the realist wants to say that there is something about rocks/chairs/diamonds that causes them to behave similarly, while the nominalist wants to say that we call things rocks/chairs/diamonds because they behave similarly?

the latter descriptions are compatible with nominalism: "if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow" is true of particular properties (which is what particulars are). — Terrapin Station

No, because the scope of the subjunctive conditional that represents a general property or law of nature is not limited to one particular object. Any rock - in fact, any object with mass - that is dropped will fall to the ground. Any chair - in fact, any object at all - that is green will primarily reflect light at a wavelength within a certain range. Any diamond - in fact, any object that is hard - will resist scratching.

On the other hand, if all properties and objects are particular, then there is nothing real that the different objects have in common. Hence there is no good reason to expect similar results to follow for different objects, even if those objects and the conditions are similar.

If a general property is something real that isn't identical to the particular properties of the particular objects in question, then how it is instantiated in particular objects remains unexplained ... — Terrapin Station

It is instantiated when particular objects behave in accordance with the law of nature that is the general property. Rather than being "in" those objects in any literal sense, it governs those objects, as well as their relations with other objects. The general property is still real apart from these instantiations, because it is always the case that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow - again, regardless of what anyone thinks about it, and regardless of whether those conditions ever actually obtain for any particular object.

Note that I'm not saying that it has to be a single-word synonym--it can be a paragraphs even. — Terrapin Station

We typically call the latter a definition, not a synonym. Besides, you only offered single-word synonyms, plus the multi-word (but not much more helpful) "what something is like."

"How could this person not know what property and/or quality and/or characteristic refer to"? I can't understand how you'd not be able to understand that. — Terrapin Station

I understand the colloquial meaning of the concept, but I am trying to get at the technical meaning that you attribute to the concept from your philosophical standpoint.

But ( isn't the same as < obviously. — Terrapin Station

Yet ( is just as obviously the same as (. They are two different tokens of the same type, just like "the" and "the" are two different instantiations of the same word.

And how is that incompatible with nominalism? — Terrapin Station

As I understand it, nominalism denies the reality of habits/dispositions/capacities, since (in this context) they are general laws of nature distinct from their individual instantiations in particulars. If hardness is merely a particular property of particular objects, rather then a general property that is instantiated in particular objects (such as diamonds) that have something real in common, then I see no warrant for claiming that any particular object (including any particular diamond) would remain unscratched if we were to apply a knife-edge to it.

I'd agree that it's an interactive upshot of properties, but it's not what they are. — Terrapin Station

The idea is that the meaning of any concept is the aggregate of its conceivable practical effects - i.e., the pragmatic maxim. If three different words - in this case, property, quality, and characteristic - all pertain to the same set of conceivable practical effects, then they designate the same concept.

Properties/qualities/characteristics are definitions of each other, as they're synonyms. — Terrapin Station

Synonyms are not definitions. I am trying to understand what you mean by a property or a quality or a characteristic. "What something is like" is not really any more helpful.

Simply by them being similar, not literally identical. — Terrapin Station

If everything is particular - i.e., no individual has anything real in common with any other individual - then how can anything be similar to anything else? What exactly does "being similar" mean on your view?

I don't think it does because how the universal "gets into" the particular is left as a complete mystery. — Terrapin Station

The issue here is what it means to say that the universal "gets into" the particular. Again, I am suggesting that meaning has to do with conceivable practical effects, so a property/quality/characteristic is really "in" an individual only in the sense that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. Hardness is "in" a particular diamond only in the sense that if we were to apply a knife-edge to it, it would remain unscratched. It is a real habit/disposition/capacity of every individual diamond, regardless of whether anyone thinks so, and regardless of whether any particular diamond is ever actually tested.

I wouldn't say that that's what "property" means. That's an upshot of properties, but properties are simply qualities/characteristics. — Terrapin Station

In that case, how do you define qualities/characteristics? Again, to say that something has a quality/characteristic means that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. To say that a chair is green means (among other things) that if we were to measure the dominant wavelength of light reflected by it, then it would be within a certain range; and this is the way things really are, not only regardless of whether anyone thinks so, but also regardless of whether we ever actually shine light on the chair.

Anyway, it seems like you keep thinking that I don't believe that properties are real. That's not at all the case. I just don't think that they're something other than particulars. — Terrapin Station

No, I get that; I just continue to have trouble understanding how you make sense of common properties and predictable regularities on that view.

The problem is that it's no explanation, and it just adds other things to have to explain. — Terrapin Station

It explains the consistencies among individuals that we observe in the world, rather than settling for treating them as inexplicable.

Do you accept the real laws of nature as a brute fact? Or must they also be explained? — Michael

As I have acknowledged previously, they call for an explanation; and that would presumably come from cosmology.

In my mind, predictable regularities are what we experience and observe, while real laws of nature are what we hypothesize to explain them. In other words, there must be something about reality that results in things and events exhibiting those predictable regularities.

I think that the order we find in the universe calls for an explanation. Why should we just accept it as a brute fact? If we did, why would we engage in philosophical and scientific inquiry at all?

It apparently seems intuitively obvious to you that if there are universals, then that is a good reason for particulars to behave regularly, but that doesn't at all seem intuitively obvious to me. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and as is often the case in such circumstances, I have a hard time even imagining what it is like not to find it intuitively obvious. In my mind, a universal or general is a real type of relation (vs. token) that transcends the individuality of particulars as something that they can (and often do) have in common. To say that something has a property means that if certain conditions were to obtain, then certain results would follow. To say that a rock has weight means (among other things) that if we were to let go of it, then it would fall to the ground; and this is the way things really are, not only regardless of whether anyone thinks so, but also regardless of whether we ever actually let go of the rock.

Just for the record, here is Peirce's conclusion about the rock-dropping example (CP 5.100-101, EP 2:183; 1903, emphases in original):

"With overwhelming uniformity, in our past experience, direct and indirect, stones left free to fall have fallen. Thereupon two hypotheses only are open to us. Either: first, the uniformity with which those stones have fallen has been due to mere chance and affords no ground whatever, not the slightest, for any expectation that the next stone that shall be let go will fall; or, second, the uniformity with which stones have fallen has been due to some active general principle, in which case it would be a strange coincidence that it should cease to act at the moment my prediction was based upon it.

"That position, gentlemen, will sustain criticism. It is irrefragable.

"Of course, every sane man will adopt the latter hypothesis. If he could doubt it in the case of the stone, - which he can't, - and I may as well drop the stone once for all, - I told you so! - if anybody doubts this still, a thousand other such inductive predictions are getting verified every day, and he will have to suppose every one of them to be merely fortuitous in order reasonably to escape the conclusion that general principles are really operative in nature. That is the doctrine of scholastic realism."



Before you complain about the words "inductive" and "verified" in that passage - it is clear from Peirce's other writings, including the other lectures in the same series, that this was shorthand. What he meant was that deductively explicated predictions based on retroductively conjectured hypotheses are constantly being inductively corroborated through experimental testing (and everyday life). Again, there is no significant disagreement between Peirce and Popper about this overall process of scientific inquiry, even though they clearly had different views about some of the details.

Realism, on the other hand . . . — aletheist

. . . has inexplicable regularities as real abstract/non-particular laws of nature that govern individual things and events. — Terrapin Station

But at least we recognize that there is a real reason why there are regularities between individual things and events.

How can regularities across different particulars be explained in terms of other different particulars? — aletheist

?? Why other? They're regularities of those particulars. We're not positing something other. — Terrapin Station

If everything is particular, then there is no good reason for anything to be regular. Why should there be any consistency at all in the behavior of something over time - since every change to it, no matter how small, creates a new particular - let alone consistency between two things that have nothing real in common?

Scientific progress would cease altogether if we adopted this approach. — aletheist

But that's unavoidably the approach we have! The only way to not have that approach is to have an infinite amount of time to answer successive "whys/hows." — Terrapin Station

We keep seeking answers in the finite time that each of us has, and then we pass the torch on to the next generation. Just because we (individually) will not have enough time to explain everything does not entail that we (collectively) should stop seeking further explanations. We operate under the regulative hope that the final opinion - after indefinite inquiry by an infinite community - would reflect complete knowledge of reality.

Our knowledge permits us to make counterfactual claims. — tom

Right, but the question is how we can know that a counterfactual claim is true, if - as the nominalist asserts - there are no real laws of nature, just individual things and events.

Interestingly, we can even test counterfactuals these days. — tom

We have been testing counterfactuals for centuries - that is what experimentation is, and this is precisely what Peirce called "induction." It is not the same thing that Popper rejected, since both men affirmed that theories are never verified, only corroborated (or falsified).

If so, what's the explanation? — Terrapin Station

Nominalism treats predictable regularities as inexplicable brute facts, and thus does not seek an explanation for them. Realism, on the other hand, explains predictable regularities by positing real laws of nature that govern individual things and events. As I said before, this calls for its own explanation, which requires further inquiry - but even if we were to treat it as an inexplicable brute fact, I think that it still helps us make better sense of our experience.

We're simply saying that those are properties of particulars, not something other than particulars. — Terrapin Station

But you are saying that those are particular properties of particulars, right? How can regularities across different particulars be explained in terms of other different particulars?

At some point, you can't answer any longer, because you don't have an infinite amount of time. — Terrapin Station

Scientific progress would cease altogether if we adopted this approach. Why not just treat everything that happens as an inexplicable brute fact? What justifies stopping inquiry at this point, rather than taking another step farther?

I think that induction is good enough, especially since in my view, certainty isn't something to be concerned with. — Terrapin Station

I agree with you about certainty, but my question boils down to why induction is so successful as a mode of inference. Is this just another brute fact? As I see it, realism does explain predictable regularities, and thus warrants inductive inferences, by acknowledging that such consistency is a real feature of the universe - i.e., it works that way regardless of what any person or group of people think about it. Why it works that way is another matter - one that calls for further inquiry, rather than giving up and treating it as inexplicable.

I think that plenty of counterfactual claims are justified--"If static electricity hadn't built up, the gasoline vapors wouldn't have ignited" for example. — Terrapin Station

That is a counterfactual regarding something that actually happened in the past. I have been asking about counterfactuals regarding something that may or may not actually happen in the future. "If I were to drop this rock, then it would fall to the ground."

I know that this is getting repetitive, but I still would like to know - on your view, what warrants our confident predictions that particulars will "behave" in the future as they have in the past? Are we ever justified in making law-like counterfactual claims about circumstances that may never actually occur?

In that case, are you saying that nothing warrants our confident assertions about the future, including law-like counterfactual claims? In other words, we have no good reason to believe that a rock would fall to the ground if we were to let go of it.

Are you saying that you do not see how real laws of nature would work to cause predictable regularities? It seems to me that they would be final causes, rather than efficient causes.

Again, on your view, what (if anything) warrants our confident assertions about the future, including law-like counterfactual claims?

I wouldn't say there's any warrant for making confident assertions about the future just because we're positing universals/generals. — Terrapin Station

Then what (if anything) does warrant our confident assertions about the future, which we make all the time? Specifically, are law-like counterfactual claims - e.g., if I were to let go of a rock, then it would fall to the ground - ever warranted? If so, why? If not, how do we explain their predictive success - not just for well-established scientific theories, but in how we routinely navigate the mundane features of everyday life?

... you shouldn't believe universalism, either, because no one has a "mechanical" or blueprint-like explanation of just how/why it works as it does. — Terrapin Station

Are you saying that you see no distinction between treating predictable regularities as a brute fact vs. explaining them as the logical consequence of there being real laws of nature that really govern actual (and counterfactual) events?

Once again, nothing you are saying is relevant to the point that I was making, let alone the thread topic; so I will stop wasting my time. Cheers.

As I said, if we look at the edge of a purple thing under a microscope, we will see that the boundary between purple and not-purple is vague. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have missed the whole point of the P/not-P discussion. We are no longer talking about a boundary between an area that is purple and an area that is not-purple; we are talking about one thing that is capable of being any single color. If the thing is actual, then it has to be either purple or not-purple; it cannot be both or neither. If the thing is possible, then both purple and not-purple are still possible. If the thing is general, then it is neither purple nor not-purple.

There is something real about particular properties that makes them 'behave' in certain ways, including when interacting with other particular properties, so that when particular conditions obtain, particular outcomes will obtain. — Terrapin Station

The problem that I am having is understanding how this statement is somehow denying the reality of a (general) law of nature. If everything is particular, then there is no warrant (as far as I can tell) for making confident assertions about the future - e.g., that if particular conditions were to obtain, then particular outcomes would happen.

I'm asking for something like an explanation of how/why it works the universalist-picture way ontologically. — Terrapin Station

I am still not sure exactly what you mean by this, and - to be honest - I am even less sure that I am capable of providing it right now. Remember, I am treating realism as a working hypothesis and seeing how far I can get with it. I appreciate the dialogue and will continue reading and thinking about these matters.

That possibilities are real is an illusion. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said before, this entails that what we call "free will" is an illusion. If there are no real possibilities, then whatever actually happens had to happen; there were no real alternatives.

I don't understand why you would equate "actual" with existence, instead of with "real", as per standard dictionary definitions. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a philosophy forum, so I am using very specific philosophical definitions that have been employed for centuries, rather than "standard dictionary definitions" that reflect current popular usage. If you are unwilling to use the same definitions, then there is probably no point in continuing the conversation.

It seems you have never looked through a microscope before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover

It seems you have never discussed a thought experiment before. If you had, you would know that this statement is totally irrelevant.

So I ask you how is it possible for a real thing to interact with an actual thing, without that real thing itself being actual? — Metaphysician Undercover

I have never said that it was possible for a real thing to "interact with" an actual thing. I have said that every actual thing is grounded in a continuum of real possibilities, and that actual things are governed by real laws.

But your P and not-P are totally fictional, so there is no boundary between them because each of them refer to absolutely nothing. — Metaphysician Undercover

This suggests unfamiliarity on your part with how logic works. P is a variable here; we can substitute anything real for P, and the logic is the same. If it helps, we can talk about purple and not-purple instead.

So now the "boundary" is between purple and not-purple with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both purple and not-purple, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither purple nor not-purple. We seem to agree that possibility is associated with vagueness, which means is that the law of non-contradiction does not apply; both purple and not-purple are real possibilities until one or the other is actualized. On the other hand, generality means that the law of excluded middle does not apply; neither purple nor not-purple can be attributed to a real general, even though each actual instance of it must be either purple or not-purple.

To reiterate: this is another important distinction between reality and actuality/existence - only the latter is determinate enough that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle both apply.

No, that's not what I said, the so-called real possibility is based in an actuality, it is not one that's been actualized. — Metaphysician Undercover

On the view that I am exploring, it is the other way around - the actuality is based in a continuum of real possibilities, like a single point that is marked on a line. On your view, how can a possibility that has not been actualized be real at all?

Take your black ink spot on the white paper, and look at it under a microscope, the boundary looks completely different from how it looks to the naked eye. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is my thought experiment, not yours; and as I said before, there is no grey, or any other color besides the black of the ink spot and the white of the paper. No matter how powerful a microscope you use, you will always see black on one side of the boundary and white on the other. More below.

I'm still waiting to see that technical definition which demonstrates the difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to be ignoring the definition that I gave of existence. Something that is real, but not actual, does not react with other like things in the environment.

How can a non-actual thing govern an actual thing? — Metaphysician Undercover

By being real per the definition that I gave, despite not being actual per the definition (of existence) that I gave. This is why the terminological distinction is so important - it obviously makes no sense if you insist on treating reality and actuality/existence as synonyms.

This is where you are wrong, unless you propose a third thing, which separates the two things, the boundary is always an area, it is an area where the two things on the opposing sides of the boundary are intermixing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Only in your diagram. In mine (ink blot), a boundary is not a third thing at all - it is the demarcation between two things that do not intermix. It is a real boundary in the sense of being a real distinction. Your later examples of water and air, or (especially) water and the glass, are closer to the mark. A more pertinent case is the "boundary" between P and not-P with respect to anything that is actual, and therefore determinate; the law of non-contradiction prevents anything from being both P and not-P, while the law of excluded middle prevents anything from being neither P nor not-P.

It is this vagueness which gives rise to possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

Despite our clear differences, we seem to agree that possibility is associated with vagueness. What this means from a logical standpoint is that the law of non-contradiction does not apply; both P and not-P are real possibilities, until one or the other is actualized. On the other hand, generality means that the law of excluded middle does not apply; neither P nor not-P can be attributed to a real general, even though each actual instance of it must be either P or not-P. This is another important distinction between reality and actuality/existence - only the latter is determinate enough that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle both apply.

The actuality is the substance of the possibility which makes it real, and therefore the essence of why we can call the possibility real. — Metaphysician Undercover

This implies that the only real possibilities are those that are actualized - i.e., determinism; there are no genuine alternatives when we make choices. Since I did not actually ignore your message, it was not really possible for me to do so. Is that your position?

Well I'm asking you to give me the technical distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Did you somehow miss this post from yesterday?

Briefly, reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so, while existence means reacting with other like things in the environment. — aletheist

Everything that exists is real, but not everything that is real exists.

If you accept this, that some realities are not actual, I want to see your principles, your reasons, what gives substance to this idea? — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you monitoring my ongoing conversation with @Terrapin Station? A real law of nature governs actual things and events, but the law itself is not actual - it has to do with what would be under certain conditions, not what was or is; not even what (determinately) will be.

I assign "possibility" to the boundary, because if the boundary is vague, there is the possibility of assigning the area within the boundary, to either one of the two actualities. — Metaphysician Undercover

But a boundary between two areas cannot itself be an area, it has to be a line. If it is an area, then there are two additional boundaries - in your diagram, the boundaries between the area that represents possibility and the areas on either side of it that represent the two kinds of actuality.

Consider that there is a grey area, between the black spot, and the white of the paper, or a grey area in the Colorado/Wyoming border terrain, such that in this area, it is not definitively one or the other, we are open to possibilities. — Metaphysician Undercover

Who said anything about a grey area? In my first example, there is a black spot on a white piece of paper - no grey, nor any other color. Nevertheless, you are on the right idea here - the color of the boundary is indeterminate between the colors of the two areas; but that does not make the boundary itself any less real. The actual is determinate, but the real need not be.

Likewise, there is certainly no "area" between Colorado and Wyoming; again, the border is a line of infinitesimal width. However, to be fair, state borders are arbitrary creations of particular human minds, and thus do not qualify as real in the sense that we are discussing.

I didn't know we were involved in a realism/nominalism debate. — Metaphysician Undercover

The title of the thread is "Why are universals regarded as real things?" This is the fundamental question in the realism/nominalism debate, asked from the nominalist perspective.

Inductive principles are any conclusions derived from inductive reasoning. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then why didn't you just call them "inductive conclusions"? To me, "inductive principles" have to do with how and why one goes about the process of induction.

How would you differentiate between real and unreal inductive principles? — Metaphysician Undercover

I assume that what you meant by "real and unreal" in this context is "true and false." The only way to differentiate between true and false inductive conclusions is to keep experimenting and see which ones are corroborated vs. falsified. I have no problem granting that we can only evaluate our hypotheses about real universals, such as the laws of nature, by observing their instantiations in what is actual.

I'm not saying anything pro or con about "determinate" ... I'm just saying something about universals not being identical to particulars but having a relationship with them. — Terrapin Station

A key difference between universals and particulars is that no universal is determinate, while all particulars are determinate. A lion in general is not any particular age, size, color, etc. within the ranges of properties that encompass all possible lions; but a particular lion is always a particular age, size, color, etc. This is what it means for a universal to be a continuum, and a particular to be an individual that is actualized from that continuum.

No that doesn't answer the question I'm asking. — Terrapin Station

Well, you still have not answered the questions that I asked first. Why should there be predictable regularities in the world if everything is particular? What is the nominalist's alternative explanation to real universals? How else can observations of particular events in the past be reliable indicators of particular events in the future? What good reason do we have for claiming to know that the rock will drop now - and tomorrow, and next week, etc. - just because we have seen rocks drop in similar situations previously?

Why should there be predictable similarities with the same universal? In other words, events at time T2 compared to T1. Why should there be predictable similarities--why shouldn't it change instead? — Terrapin Station

Because that is what we mean when we talk about universals - when we talk about laws of nature, in this case. There is something real that governs events in such a way that whenever certain conditions obtain, certain outcomes happen. Without it, no mere aggregate of particular events that occurred in the past can warrant the confident expectation that similar events will occur in the future.

Because that's the concept of universals. — Terrapin Station

No realists (except maybe some Platonists) believe that universals are determinate individuals.

Let's try it this way: what is your answer to why there should be predictable similiarities when we posit universals? — Terrapin Station

Because the particulars are being governed by a real universal - the same general law. Now, what is the nominalist's explanation? Why should observations of particular events in the past be reliable indicators of particular events in the future? What good reason do we have for being confident that the rock will drop now - and tomorrow, and next week, etc. - just because we have seen rocks drop in similar situations in the past?

There's no evidence that there's anything other than particulars. — Terrapin Station

Predictable regularities are evidence that there is something other than particulars.

The reason it's not a universal is because it's not a matter of something separate from the particulars in question, where the particulars are instantiating that different thing. — Terrapin Station

You still seem to be treating a universal as another kind of individual - "something separate" - that is somehow "in" particulars. In this case, it is rather a real habit - a law of nature - that governs particulars.

There error there is in assuming that sans universals, there shouldn't be similarities. — Terrapin Station

But why there should there be predictable similarities; i.e., regularities? What is the alternative explanation to real universals?

At some point you're going to posit things for which there is no further-down-the-turtle-pile explanation. — Terrapin Station

But why does the nominalist stop here? How do we determine that there are no further explanations to be found?

And it would simply be a (brute) fact of how particular matter in particular dynamic relations behaves. — Terrapin Station

But that sounds just like a universal, except for the "brute" part. Why would particular matter in particular dynamic relations predictably behave in the same way, or even in a very similar way? Calling it "brute" implies that there is no explanation. Why should we accept that?

A real possibility is an intelligible, or non contradictory, particular. — apokrisis

I have been talking about real possibilities as an inexhaustible continuum of potential individuals - general, not particular. Do you disagree?

Pretty much. I am a Lutheran now, but I was baptized Methodist.

So, doesn't it make sense to say that whatever is, regardless of whether any person says so, actually is, and therefore real is synonymous with actual? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, not given the technical distinction between real/reality and actual/existence. The whole point of making the distinction is to clarify that the two concepts are not equivalent. The nominalist holds that, indeed, only the actual is real; but the realist holds that there are some realities that are not actual. Philosophers have been arguing about this for centuries, so it seems like there must be something to it.

The problem may be resolved through dualism though. I'm dualist, so I allow two distinct forms of the actual, both are real. What separates them is the unreal, possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, that does not solve the problem. What separates the unreal (possibility) from each form of the actual? Merely making a distinction does not "draw a boundary," and even if it did, the boundary would (by definition) be on neither side of itself. What color is the perimeter of a black ink spot on a white piece of paper? In what state is the border between Colorado and Wyoming?

You said "not all generals are real". I assumed inductive principles are generals, so I asked how would you distinguish between real and unreal inductive principles. If they are all unreal, then what type of generals would be real? — Metaphysician Undercover

I am still not following you at all here. What do you mean by "inductive principles"? What do they have to do with the realism/nominalism debate?

Lutherans, however, limit the transformation to the celebration of the Eucharistic meal. left over bread and wine revert to their original nature. — Bitter Crank

Not all Lutherans believe this; in fact, some Lutheran pastors consume all of the remaining elements at the end of the distribution, so that the question simply does not arise. In any case, the more fundamental difference is that Roman Catholics believe that the bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation), while Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are sacramentally present "in, with, and under" the bread and wine.

Unless you specify it, where is that technical definition supposed to be found? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, I just assumed that you were reading all of the posts in this thread. Briefly, reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so, while existence means reacting with other like things in the environment.

What then, distinguishes between a real possibility and an unreal one. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good question, I will have to think about it. However, whether we can distinguish between real and unreal possibilities is not germane to whether there is such a distinction. In other words, it would be a real distinction.

It cannot be something real, nor can it be unreal, because it has to create a boundary between these two. — Metaphysician Undercover

Huh? This would entail that the distinction between the actual and the non-actual likewise cannot be something actual or non-actual. Is that your position?

I did not follow your last paragraph at all. Where did I say or imply anything about "inductive principles" being "real and unreal"?

I was just following the accepted definition of "real", which defines real as actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

But that is certainly not the technical definition within philosophy, especially in the context of the debate over the reality of universals, which is the thread topic.

I find there is a problem with your suggestion, that possibilities are real, because then all logical possibilities are equally realities. — Metaphysician Undercover

The claim is not that all possibilities are real, it is that some possibilities are real. Likewise, the broader claim is not that all generals are real, it is that some generals are real.

If we attempt to separate real possibilities from unreal possibilities, we do so by grounding them in what is actual. — Metaphysician Undercover

On the contrary, the actual is grounded in the really possible. A continuum is more fundamental than any individuals that happen to be actualized on it. As I went on to say in my post that you quoted, no multitude of actual points comprises a line; instead, a line contains potential points exceeding all multitude.

Our "contact" can be via the mind, but what you're claiming to "contact" isn't itself mind, right? (Otherwise, you're really a nominalist.) — Terrapin Station

Or an objective idealist, such that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws." Peirce sometimes defined reality as that which is independent of the thoughts of any individual person or finite collection of people, but not necessarily independent of thought in general. He also once said that thought "appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world." That is a different debate, though.

No one is denying regularities of behavior. Nominalists simply believe that they're (particular) properties of particulars. — Terrapin Station

Could you elaborate on this? How can particular properties of particular objects exhibit the same regularity, such that my choice of which particular rock to drop does not affect the universality of the outcome?

But the more you look for such a thing, the more you can rule it out. — Terrapin Station

This is what Peirce called "crude induction" Interestingly, he considered it to be the only legitimate way to infer a universal proposition, because a single counterexample would suffice to refute it - i.e., it is instantly self-correcting.

But you can't give a single example of either. — tom

I mentioned the Higgs boson, since it was one of your own examples. Scientists posited its existence as a plausible explanation of certain surprising observations (retroduction). They predicted certain results if certain tests were undertaken (deduction). They subsequently carried out those tests and compared the actual results with the predictions (induction).

Just to point out, you previously claimed testing of a theory was a deductive process. — tom

I claimed no such thing. Explicating a theory - identifying its experiential consequences - is a deductive process. Evaluating a theory - carrying out experiments in order to ascertain whether those predictions are borne out - is an inductive process.

But you are claiming that they happen, they are useful, and that you can appeal to them for justification. — tom

Retroduction justifies nothing - it merely formulates a plausible hypothesis. Deduction only justifies a hypothesis to the extent of showing that it can produce testable predictions. Induction further justifies a hypothesis to the extent of showing that those predictions are experimentally corroborated. This is the maximum extent to which any scientific theory can be justified - we are always fallible, and thus can never achieve certainty. As Popper maintained, theories can be falsified, but never confirmed.

We'd need to be able to somehow "point" ... at a property that particulars can instantiate, where it's clear that what we're pointing at isn't simply us thinking about the property/formulating a mental concept of the property. — Terrapin Station

Doesn't this requirement effectively beg the question, since realists affirm that our only "contact" with universals is via the mind? In fact, realists usually assert that all of our knowledge is of generals.

Peirce's "proof" of realism was holding a rock and asking his audience whether they knew that it would fall if he let go of it. In other words, our ability to make reliable predictions about the future behavior of individual objects requires the reality of the laws of nature as generals that govern particulars.

The more we look for the above and don't find it, the stronger the falsification is. — Terrapin Station

But that is not falsification in the same decisive sense that "discovery" or "observation" of one real universal would falsify nominalism. As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Refuting realism seems to require proving a negative.

Sure, and no matter how many times I ask for an example of abduction or induction, I never get one. — tom

What would you count as an example of each? Abduction happens every time someone devises a new theory. Induction happens every time someone experimentally tests a proposed theory.

So, here are a few surprising facts (C) that have been encountered. — tom

To take one of your examples: No one "observed" the Higgs boson until they went looking for it (induction) because it was a necessary consequence (deduction) of an explanatory hypothesis (retroduction).

There is no "logical form of induction" it is a fallacy. — tom

Your view of logic seems too narrow. Again, no one is claiming that retroduction or induction is deductively valid.

... Frege's creation of Classical Logic is hard to top, and it was Frege's development of First-Order Predicate Logic that really got mathematical logic going (correct me if I'm wrong). — MindForged

Peirce independently and contemporaneously achieved the same thing - the introduction of quantifiers and bound variables. He wrote voluminously about the logic of inquiry, including abduction/retroduction and induction as well as deduction. He also was a pioneer in three-valued logic and greatly advanced diagrammatic systems of logic, although these contributions are not as well-recognized.

Peirce would turn over in his grave at being called a metaphysician. :D