It seems palatable to me.

But there are many positions in regards to nominalism. It’s an ancient argument. Hobbes was a “bonafide nominalist”, or Hume, or Locke for example, so I just assumed we had an idea of what nominalism is.

No such evidence was put in front of me. I’m not surprised when people evade simple arguments, especially when they have none of their own.

Principles are indeed important. But are principles mental constructs of our mind or something else? That's the metaphysical question, yet it doesn't matter to the importance of principles themselves.

Think about that you love some person, be it your parent or child or a loved one. Surely there is that subjective part of you loving somebody. Is that then different if you believe in metaphysical question in nominalism or realism? In my opinion it doesn't matter.

It does matter, in my opinion, because I know I’m not loving the concept of someone, or my own feelings, but the person. So one intuitively has its own value.

And a concept is an abstract idea, so you are going in circles. Yet people do live in more or less organized communities that we call societies. And there's many words or names for this.

I don’t begrudge anyone using general terms. We all use them. It’s when you start sacrificing those individuals for the sake of those terms, breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, for example.

Something is a human being because it looks like what?

It looks like those other human beings we've come across our whole lives. Could I be wrong? Sure, it could be an android, but that can only be discovered with further examination and experience.

How does one collocation of sense data "look like a human being?" in any definitive sense? It seems we are just attaching names to regularities in sense data, right? By what criteria do we attach such names? Supposing I'm a racist and I do not find it "useful" to attach the name "human" to Asians, why am I wrong about what a human being is? It's just an ensemble of sense data after all.

And what about any particular ensemble of sense data makes it worthy of dignity?

I don't believe in sense data and am a direct realist, so I would be attaching names to things out there, not in my head. If I were beside you I'd point to myself, or you, or anyone else nearby and say "we are human beings". You would be wrong to not attach the name "human" to Asians because we can look at any particular asian person, notice the similar features, and see that they are indeed human beings. So advanced are we at doing this that we could examine their DNA if need be.

In my opinion, the fact that one exists makes him worthy of dignity. He's particular, unique, is in possession of his own position in time and space. However, he gains or loses dignity according to his acts and how he treats others. That's how I approach it at any rate.

I rephrased it as I did because what you're saying is straightforwardly question begging. The realist claims we see humanity every time we see a man. To expect to "see" (sense) a universal as one would a particular isn't a critique of realism, it's just failing to understand it.

Fair enough, then help me understand. You're looking at a particular man, correct? What else are you seeing?

I disagree.

Politics and ethics as other moral issues are very important irrelevant of them being either our mental constructs or them being something independent of us. What we do, the actions, are important. The reasons why we do something only explain our actions, but the actions themselves are the important issue here.

Actions are important. But do you not act according to any principle?

Now I don't follow your logic at all. Society is a word and we give words / names for complex things like society.

Society is not a thing, though, complex or otherwise. It's just a name for a concept.

Nominalism and individualism aren't synonyms. And here individualism or collectivism aren't metaphysical questions.

One informs the other. Again, if one doesn't believe in groups he's not going to advocate for this or that group's interests, or at least he ought not to.

If something "looks like a human being" we should treat it with dignity because...?

No, the fact that something looks like a human being makes something a "human being". It means that everything we know about human beings is derived from the senses and experience.

"Nominalism is true because realism is certainly false." Good one.

Good one. I never said that so the quotes are a little unnecessary.

It's more like "realism is false because no one can find universal or abstract object". One of the common objections from nominalism against realism is that forms and universals and abstract objects cannot be found.

Surely if that's the threat then people's treatment of each other must have improved markedly after 1500, when nominalism became ascendent. More nominalist Protestant nations like the US must have treated minorities better, and the Soviet Union and communist China must have been particular exemplars of upright behavior. In terms of the volanturism that tends to accompany nominalism, I am aware of a society called "the Third Reich" that vastly prioritized the will, which should have resolved the problems of intellectualism in ethics. Let me just flip to my history book to confirm this...

There has never been a nominalist, or rather, individualist country. America is close, I suppose, and has advanced beyond its collectivist ways in the treatments of groups and their memberships, but it still has a long way to go.

Senate passes one of a Trump’s promises, a No Tax On Tips bill!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/21/senate-passes-no-tax-on-tips-bill

The stance of there existing universals and abstract entities doesn't create anything more to the issue. Metaphysics doesn't answer moral or social questions.

Sure it does. One’s metaphysics ought to inform how he approaches the other branches of philosophy, including politics and ethics. If one believes the word “society” is just a general name he’s not going to spend a serious amount of time trying to change it.

Simply that he looks like other human beings. We’ve come across enough individual human beings, including ourselves, to develop a general idea of what one is and what one is not. One thing is for certain, we are not developing these general ideas by looking at forms and essences.

The notion that one attaches and removes dignity to terms and definitions in order to dignify a human being is precisely the threat that I’m talking about. When one dehumanizes, like calling people rats for example, nothing at all changes in any individual human being outside the realist skull, but his treatment of them certainly does.

Lovecraft’s mistake was to develop stereotypes from the cognitive process sociologists call “social categorization” and to apply them to flesh-and-blood individuals he has never yet met and could know nothing about.

Kills another what exactly?

Another human being.

Interesting OP, but I don't follow this sentence at all. Peirce is not saying that figment is all that can be loved...? (Edit: So is it the idea that realists are interested in abstractions apart from particulars? That seems a strange construal.)

I’m wondering if that is the case. Why else would a nominalist outlook lead him to view it as a “dreary outlook”? Or “the most blinding of all systems”? Further, he say it as fundamental to the modern mind.

This may tell you something about your argument, then. If all and sundry are rejecting it for being both impractical, and logically weird (not a knock-down, to be sure) you might want to rethink it. Either you think crimes constituted by speech are not crimes (fraud, perjury, incitement, contract evasion and several other kinds besides) should never been curtailed by law.....

.... or you think they should.

They dodged it. You’ve dodged it. But it’s simple. One cannot control another’s motor cortex with words. What’s impractical and logically weird about that?

Thank you, that’s a good analysis.

According to Pierce, Locke, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Mill, and Leibniz were all nominalist as well. Despite all these proponents I cannot see it being a dominant view, or having shaped any future, simply because regular folk or those in power appeal to more realist sentiment.

Thanks for all the writing, it was a good and interesting read.

So...you're saying fraud and defamation are perfectly fine, because the freedom of speech trumps them.

No, they’re completely immoral and unethical acts.

The “fire in a crowded theater” analogy was used by Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes to jail those who were protesting the draft of American soldiers into world war 1. The analogy was used to describe a scenario in which speech created “a clear and present danger”. He too believed speech could cause them losing the war, and any censor will use such claims as they always have (corrupting the youth, for example). At any rate, there was nothing legally binding in that analogy, never described any actual crime, and his “clear and present danger” principle was eventually overturned in the 1960’s. So if American first amendment jurisprudence is your governing principle, you’re a little out of date. Defamation is a civil wrong, or otherwise a state issue, not a federal crime. If there is a certain state standard which we ought to apply, it would be nice to hear which one.

That being said the American standard is the only standard that has any argument worth defending, and for that you hold a higher more enlightened ground than anyone else here. Thank you for that.

If the pen is mightier than the sword then let’s watch a duel, one man with a sword, one man with a pen. But as we know it’s all metaphorical. As philosophers I believe we ought to approach the actual. My only contention is that if speech is a fundamental rights, which I believe it is, it ought not be blamed for things it is incapable of doing.

Never?

You and your five sprinting friends are at the track at the starting line. Someone says, “On your marks…Get set….”

What act would follow someone yelling “Go!” at that moment? Nothing? Because acts are not the consequences of speech? Or would running and racing be the consequence of that little speech?

Have you never seen anyone “jump the gun”? If someone leaves before “go” is yelled, is that a consequence of that little speech? No. Running is the consequence of the runner, not the speech.

Oddly enough Berkeley is considered a nominalist.

For nominalism abstract terms and generalities are useful fictions, namely, “names” (hence the word nominalism). In that respect they serve a useful purpose.

But if someone kills another for some the sake of some name like “country” or “God”, then we have an instance of destroying what is boundlessly more valuable for the sake of an idea or figment. This, I fear, is the threat of realism.

I brought the issue of fraud and libel to NOS4A2 in another thread, and he never responded to those points. I'm curious in any free-speech absolutist will try and rebut anything you said.

Easily. Acts are not the consequences of speech. I’ve argued this point numerous times, to no avail.

Does it? They certainly exist as ideas.

Ideas are often considered abstract objects.

And this of course exactly not Ockham's idea (as I understand it).

Interesting topic, but could you clarify just what the - your - question is?

People sometimes lay the blame for the state of the world at the feet of some philosopher and his philosophy, as I tried to show. Though I think this is erroneous, metaphysics ought to inform one’s politics, ethics, and so on. If nominalism or realism informs the way one treats others and the world, which is the greater threat to others and the world?

I'm not sure if this makes much sense as a critique. A lot of realism is extremely person centered and sees a strong telos at work in history (the history of particulars). Valuing particulars is not really what is at stake.

Actually, I think some realists attack nominalists precisely for destroying particulars and turning them into a formless "will soup." Note that personalism and phenomenology seems to be biggest in traditional Christian philosophy, which tends to be unrelentingly realist.

Then why in your opinion would Pierce describe nominalism as “the dreary outlook upon a world in which all that can be loved, or admired, or understood is figment”, when the figments in question are universals and abstractions? What is it about the world that changes for the realist without universals and abstractions and forms?

Axios has leaked the Robert Hur audio, the interview tapes of Biden trying to explain away how he had stolen classified documents over the course of his political career. Hur went on to say that they wouldn't prosecute him because a jury would see him as "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory".

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/16/biden-hur-tape-special-counsel-audio

But the fact that one can steal classified documents and get away with it for being too stupid isn't the whole of the scandal. A battery of propagandists set out to deceive the public.

The former president’s halting responses to questions by a special counsel show him exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be — and as Democrats repeatedly insisted he was not.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/us/politics/biden-hur-audio-interview.html

A recent prostate cancer diagnosis raises further questions. Was his clean bill of health a coverup? Why did Garland refuse to release the tape even though Congress subpoenaed it? Perhaps the Big Lie was just a smoke screen for a bigger concern: who the hell was running the country? Congress should act before Biden passes. I wager the answers would lead to treason territory and one of the greatest scandals in American history.

There appears to be some headway. Who will pooh-pooh it first?

More business in the Middle East confirmed.

-An agreement for Qatar Airways’ purchase of Boeing aircraft. Trump said the agreement is for more than 160 jets worth over $200bn.

- A range of defence agreements, including a letter of intent on defence cooperation and a letter of offer and acceptance for MQ-9B unmanned aerial vehicles.

- A joint declaration of cooperation between the two states.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/liveblog/2025/5/14/donald-trump-live-president-to-lift-syria-sanctions-heads-to-qatar-next

And I can’t wait to see the flying palace gifted to the United States from Qatar. The meltdowns and peace in the Middle East is worth it.

Meanwhile, what are Euro leaders doing?

“Joe Biden's physical deterioration was so severe in 2023 and 2024 that advisers privately discussed the possibility he'd need to use a wheelchair if he won re-election, CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson write in their new book, "Original Sin," out May 20”.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/13/biden-book-wheelchair-2024-campaign-original-sin

It’s pretty wild how Biden supporters were routinely lied to, and his health deterioration was covered up by the captured press for half of Biden’s presidency. The lies only fell apart just last June. Why did everyone believe it for so long?

Big, consequential stories last week that the anti-Trump refuse to mention. Trump brokered cease-fire in India/Pakistan. Last known American hostage in Gaza released. Trump brokered peace’s talks between Ukraine and Russia. Executive order to slash prices of prescription drugs. China trade agreement. Big trip to Middle East, championing peace and prosperity. He’s done more in a week than most presidents and leaders do in 4 years.

Stagflation, eh? Inflation hit the lowest levels in 4 years last month. Is that a consequence of Whitehouse policies?

The anti-Trump brigade says Trump "blinked" on China (the use of the same word among a sect indicates a social contagion), and siding with The Party, cheering for their win, and reiterating their propaganda has become the norm. Except the stakes seem much higher for China.

China's vast factory sector was already bearing the brunt of the tariffs. "The International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs and UBS all recently revised down their economic growth forecasts for China over 2025 and into 2026, citing the impact of U.S. tariffs - none of them expect the economy to hit Beijing's official growth target."

Discerning the state of China's economy is increasingly difficult because of the disappearance of Chinese economic data over the last couple of years. The last of that data indicates that China was already dealing with some difficulties.







Given that this data is still missing, and the Politburo has little to brag about, one can assume that it hasn't gotten much better over there. Recent strikes and protests and factory closures further indicate that it hasn't. The pivot to selling goods on social media further indicates it hasn't. And a recent liquidity injection indicates an opponent on the ropes.

So Trump "blinked"?

While much is made about America’s eventual descent into authoritarianism, fascism, or whatever, the UK is already there saving a seat. I’m curious why the anti-Trump crowd doesn’t seem to care, but if Trump makes a post on truth social it’s world news.

Retired police officer arrested over ‘thought crime’ tweet

Pensioner held after Palestinian march post on social media, with ‘Brexity’ books in his home scrutinised

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-officer-arrested-over-thought-crime-tweet/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first

It looks like the Trump team has facilitated ceasefire negotiations between Pakistan and India. The comments of all involved are available on X, but we’re not allowed to post those kinds of facts here.

The leads me to wonder: “what the hell is every other leader in the world doing?” No one else stepped in? Where’s the Davos crowd?

That’s hilarious, especially since Congress has been late with their budget resolution for 30 of the past 49 fiscal years. So it looks like we have another instance of you making mountains out of democrat mole hills, using Congress as your bell-weather. That’s understandable, as any small instance that might cast shade on Kash’s work needs to be magnified in order to support your theory that Patel is incompetent and the FBI will collapse. So here is your first piece of evidence, magnified as it is by congressional play-acting: a late budget request.

(It was a senate hearing, but same shit)

I already know that one of the biggest fears of Trump’s opponents is that a reality TV host and his rag-tag band of Fox News employees, children’s book authors, and private business men will do a better job than their over-educated bureaucrats and life-long politicians. The more their past is mocked the better because it makes their victories all the more sweet.

Meanwhile, me waiting for a ssu prediction to come true:

The brain states of listeners. You could read up on speech perception for more technical information on the physics of neural activity responding to auditory stimulation.

Unless you believe that the mind is some non-physical substance that can somehow gain information from sound without being causally affected by it?

I do believe in biology. Brain states and mind? Not so much, though I do not begrudge their application in common use.

I’m fully aware that humans recognize and understand speech and language. My only contention is that the listener is the cause of his listening, his understanding, and his reaction to language. The speaker is unable to cause those acts because each act has its genesis in the listener, not in the speaker.

As an example, the hairs in the ear tranduce the mechanical stimulus of a sound wave of speech into a nerve impulse, as it does all sounds. The words do not transduce themselves. But there, in the ear, is essentially where the effects of the mechanical soundwave ends, and a new sequences of acts begin.

The human body is not a Rube Goldberg machine and listening and understanding and reacting to speech is not a passive act. So though I would concede that someone can affect another’s eardrums with speech, like any other wave of sound, the cause of all later acts is the listener.

It’s an adjective.

My sense of self is generated by my neural activities. This sense of self vanishes when I am in a dreamless sleep or in a coma or under general anaesthesia or dead.

My genes reside in my cells. They are not "me" or my sense of self.

My experiences are subjective, and only I have first-person access to them. Just as your experiences are subjective, and only you have first-person access to them.

Are none of these of your own unique biology, as it exists through space and time?

I should think that even a free speech absolutist would understand that your speech can cause things to happen.

What substances or objects can you move with your speech? What phases of matter can you affect with your voice, your words, or any other symbolic communication? Personally I can’t think of any, save for the measurable, like the expelling of breath, the movement of sound waves, or the scratching of ink into paper. If you can mention any I’m willing to test it out and I’ll report back with my findings. Cheers.

We are not our genes. We are not our experiences. Our genes precede us. They contain the blueprint for our construction. Our environments allow us to live. If I were abducted by aliens and left stranded in the vacuum of space, I would die. My homeostasis depends on the environment I am in. Our nutrients are the building blocks e.g. protein that make us. Our experiences shape our neural pathways.

Try to point to your genes and experiences. What else in the universe besides yourself are you pointing at?

Genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences don't merely influence our choices. They determine our choices, and they constrain our choices.

We are our genes. We are our experiences. So if genes and experiences determine our choices, then we determine our choices.

Nutrients and environments may have certain effects on our biology, but they cannot determine our choices because at no point do they control the sensory-motor architecture of our bodies.

I do not think there is any good censorship just as I do not think there is any good prohibition on drinking water or falling in love. Speaking or otherwise communicating is a basic, non-violent act that humans require to live and enjoy living.

The fact is that Popper and other philosophers of his time recognized through what happened in 1930s Germany, freedom of speech absolutism can be used to radicalize an entire population who weren't extremists before hand. It was part of a powerful toolset of reprogramming a population's core beliefs and it's still a powerful tool today when the way its used isn't recognized.

So when we speak about freedom of speech absolutism, its history and the philosophy around that subject, that's not an attack on your personal beliefs, it's a deconstruction of the subject. When you lash out in the way you do, that just perfectly shows us the cognitive dissonance at play. The inability to form a proper argument, the constant emotional, arrogant and childish bully-speak... how can anyone take you seriously when that's the level you operate on? If you're unable to form an actual argument and just attack, you're shown you are unable to discuss this topic further and only operate on the low-quality level that this forum have rules against

Weimar Germany had very advanced speech laws and the Nazis were censored on many occasions. Numerous Nazi and other publications were shut down. Hitler himself was banned from speaking publicly for several years in many parts of Germany.

“He alone of two billion people on Earth may not speak in Germany”, said Goebbels of Hitler in his propaganda posters. He used the censorship of the Nazis as propaganda to great effect. Hitler used his persecution as justification to persecute others, to abuse the very same laws used against him in order to suppress his political opponents. Goebbels was sued for libel by Jewish organizations and the chief of police. Julius Streicher was imprisoned and his anti-Jewish publication Der Sturmer was routinely shut down. So it just isn’t the case that “freedom of speech absolutism can be used to radicalize an entire population who weren't extremists before hand”. It was censorship all the way down.

How have I abused my position? You obeyed, so I didn't punish you, and I might not have even threatened to punish you for disobeying. The only thing I've done is uttered the phrase "throw Trump in prison". You may (correctly or incorrectly) believe that you would be punished for disobeying, but I haven't done or said anything to that effect.

I don’t believe that, nor do I know why anyone would. There is a chain of command, and an expectation that subordinates follow their superior’s orders. All involved are aware of the chain of command, and all involved are aware of the repercussions should the subordinate violate it.

Let’s not equivocate between acts of speech and speech acts. Uttering the phrase isn’t the only thing you’ve done.

So this doesn't work unless you want to say that, by virtue of my position, the very utterance "throw Trump in prison" is the abuse of power and ought be punished, in which case you accept the principle that some speech acts ought be restricted, even if the restriction depends both on content and the relative "positions" of the speaker and the audience (whereas others might think that content alone is sufficient).

I don’t think the utterance is the abuse of power and ought to be punished. If you uttered the same phrase, but were joking or being sarcastic, then that expectation to follow orders might be absent, and in that case the command need not be followed; therefore no one is harmed. If the illocutionary act was a “directive”, under the assumption that one ought not violate his chain of command, then everyone ought to be aware of that before they begin to even think of punishment.

Admittedly “abuse of power” doesn’t outline any real crime. I guess it's just a political term of art. That’s why I believe the only “punishment” for that specific act ought to be decided at the ballot box.