In a theistic universe or a Humean one, regularities are not guaranteed — Gregory

Regularities are a strange concept. A always follows B for no reason is very odd. It's strange because there are plenty of times where C does not follow A. And we can only observe that Bs follow As and not Cs. It's just a brute fact of existence that Bs happened to follow As and not Cs.

I don't get it. I leave this to somebody else. — Wheatley

Or I don't. But I believe I do. So therefore I think I can say something true about myself.

As G.E. Moore put it, “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?” — Wheatley

I don't believe there is life on Mars. But let's say there is. I can truthfully say that I don't believe there is life on the Red Planet. But I'm wrong in this scenario. If I knew I was wrong, I would not say I believed otherwise. But I don't actually know that.

So I can say something true about my belief when wrong, as long as I don't know better.

Are you sure McGillicuddy doesn't know it is raining? I don't think that is clear. — Wheatley

I thought McGiilicuddy does know it's raining. But McGilicuddy is referring to MacIntosh's not knowing and thus not believing. MacIntosh can't refer to themselves that way, because they're not in the know!

It's true that MacIntosh doesn't believe it's raining, but that's because they don't know it's raining. So there's no reason for MacIntosh to make such a silly statement.

This makes sense, given that relativity implies a subjectivism , the recognition that our accounts of nature are relative to the way we frame our theories. — Joshs

Relativity is just as objective as Newtonian physics, but because the speed of light is a constant (which is an objective measure), space, time and mass become relative measures between frames of reference, which are objectively determined. Relativity is also about gravity and spacetime, both objective measures, but spacetime is a field whose geometry is shaped by gravity.

The problem is that for so long people have mistaken objectivity as the primordial access to truth, and thus miss what is essential about understanding, truth, meaning, being., which is that objectivity is only a modified derivative of our relating to the world in terms of the way it always has significance for, matters to, is relevant for us, in actual contexts of interaction with it. — Joshs

This is "Man is the Measure" in modern garb. Problem is that all the findings of science over the past several centuries from astronomy, geology, paleontology to biology are Copernican revolutions away from humans being at the center of the cosmos, deciding what is and what isn't. Rather, humans are just another animal among a tree of life extending back several billion years on this one little planet in a vast cosmos of planets and stars and all sorts of wonderful things. We evolved, our planet and star formed from a dust cloud out of a previous supernova, and there was a Big Bang, or so science tells us.

On the contrary, it is the landless peasants that become the serfs who exchange their labour for the loan of a patch to grow their own food on. Great for the entitled, for the propertied. — unenlightened

Good thing feudalism got replaced by capitalism. But I supposed a society could be structured around there being no substantial property ownership. We'd all be vagrants migrating from one place to another and just plopping down for the night wherever there was room.

Not sure how that works on the scale of millions of people, and there is the tragedy of the commons to worry about. Personally, I'd rather people have their own property to live on, if they so desire.

The ownership of ideas is closely related to the ownership of labor and the means of production, because if one company owns the idea of doing some work a particular way, — Pfhorrest

Or writer, artist, entertainer. Plagiarism is a thing, and I don't want the hard work of some to be copied by others without compensation. That's why I've never been a fan of online free music distribution. Maybe it doesn't matter for the big stars, but what about everyone else?

It's testament to the very matter under discussion, It think, that what we've had instead is a half-dozen sentences of hand-waiving and then paragraphs of engagement in the exact practices the thread is supposed to be examining from the outside of. — Isaac

The hand waving is happening on the side claiming there is no meaning.

Yes, basically. — Isaac

I don't believe that.

Simply using terms cannot in of itself be held as demonstration that they are meaningful, otherwise the Jabberwocky is meaningful. — Isaac

So Wittgenstein was wrong?

The argument over universals is meaningless. — Isaac

But it's not.

You brought up the fact that what we might really be arguing about is... — Isaac

Which is something odd between the world and our conceptualizing.

This was actually known as Moore's Paradox in the earliest analytic philosophy (not the Moore's Paradox for which Moore eventually became famous) – why do philosophers say things they know to be false, or argue about things with which there is obviously no issue? — Snakes Alive

Who says they know things to be false or there obviously is no issue? Their opponents? Why trust someone's opponents to give an accurate psychological account? There's a strong incentive for bias.

The sword cuts both ways. I could just as easily claim that philosophers know these things to be true, and there are obviously issues, but they wish to argue otherwise.

But it's an uncharitable argument either way. Why not just assume people argue for what they think is the case? Anyway, it's a genetic fallacy to suppose the arguments are somehow invalid because of whatever motivation a philosopher might have. And it's a poisoning of the well.

Yes, we're all pretending, and we know if we think for even a moment – even our friend Wayfarer knows why he really does this, and he gives his reasons here: — Snakes Alive

I don't agree. I think metaphysical debates are generally meaningful, if often wrong. I think philosophers usually participate in such debates because they have reasons to believe there is a genuine issue. And I think those making the claim for meaningless have failed to make a strong case, and thus resort to various shenanigans like psychologizing their opponents and pretending not to understand metaphysical arguments explained a dozen different ways.

There is only one universe. — Vladimir Krymchakov

Not if there's a multiverse with each universe being separate and having it's own laws.

If you commit a crime against a psychopath s/he will tell you in no uncertain terms what you did was wrong and why it was wrong and how you should be punished. But s/he forgets all this when it is the other way around. — EnPassant

Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this. There was a serial rapist who after being caught said he didn't understand what was so bad about rape, because he didn't imagine it to be a bad thing for himself. Maybe that changes if he actually got raped? I don't know. Plenty of hardened criminals in prison you could ask.

I've read that psychopaths don't tend to fear consequences. Thus they lack empathy for people who do, viewing them as weak.

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns? What? — Snakes Alive

Yes, I'm asking a question about the human ability to put individual things into categories and hierarchies. It's either an epistemological question or a metaphysical one about the world of individual things, events, relations.

Are you asking how it is possible that different things share properties? — Snakes Alive

That would be an important part of the debate. Do things share properties and if so, what does that entail?

It does not become a possibility to be debated until you can clarify in some sense what you are talking about. — Snakes Alive

That human language is full of categorization, yet the world of experience is full of individuals.

Indeed it does. It's what we call "north of", as compared/contrasted to being north of. — creativesoul

Being pole of? Problem is you can't reference which pole without it being an arbitrary linguistic decision. Pole of A makes it sound like A is first or top. Just like we naturally assume north is the top of the globe and most maps portray it that way. But there's no reason the south pole can't be portrayed as top. And maybe if a southern hemisphere empire had colonized much of the modern world, it would be portrayed in such a manner.

Is it, do electrons exist? — Snakes Alive

The idea that there are individual things classified as "electron" is the issue. How do we make this classification of individuals?

Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure. — Snakes Alive

Not just similar properties, but the same when it comes to mass and charge, and the same kind of properties overall. How is that there is such a thing as "kind"?

What else is there to say? — Snakes Alive

That there is a discussion to be had here as to how a world of individual things can be categorized. I'm not saying universals is the right answer to that. Only that it's a possibility to be debated.

Independent of those who use cardinal directions... there is no such thing as "north of". — creativesoul

True. The spatial relation of being closer to one pole versus the other exists, though. And that can matter for climate and other things. Russell should have clarified.

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

Are you making a case for nominalism ... :razz:

Plato's forms aren't the only kind. Aristotle's are more grounded. Let's just take one example from physics. All electrons have the same properties of mass and charge, along with others like spin which can vary. And they play a fundamental role in chemistry and electromagnetism. So we classify all such subatomic particles as a fundamental particle called an electron, which is universal across space and time.

The form of a subatomic particle is its essence that make it an electron and not something else like a proton, where the essence is the collection of properties and functions.

I really have no idea what your discussion of 'the relation of being north' adds to what I just said. It seems to me deeply confused. — Snakes Alive

That "north of" is a universal relation in that it doesn't matter what sort of locations there are on a spherical region of space like a planet, some locations will be north of other locations, and this fact exists independent of humans, although there's nobody around to call it "north of", or to name the particular locations. With the caveat that which pole is "north" is arbitrary. Some things will be closer to one pole than the other. In the case of Earth, "north of" meaning the Arctic Circle.

Bertrand Russell was using "north of" to illustrate how we utilize concepts which are universal across particulars, but these concepts are not simply made up. Locations have spatial relationships.

That simply presumes that arguments cannot be constructed around things which are self-evident. — Isaac

So you're saying it's self-evident that universals refer to nothing, and yet people have debated whether they refer to something.

That's the question here so it's begging it do assume at the outset that the mere existence of debate automatically legitimises the terms of that debate. — Isaac

If one can understand the terms of the debate and participate in the debate, then yes, it's meaningful.

But it's not a philosophical puzzle. That's what I'm saying, it's a sociological one. — Isaac

Is the argument over universals a topic in sociology?

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

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

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

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

Presumably yes, but even putting it that way is probably something I wouldn't do, since it just presupposes a bunch of useless baggage. — Snakes Alive

Do you deny the existence of universal concepts in our language?

That's a good summary of the arche-fossil argument. What I take from all this is correlation is limited by the fact that we're born and die into this world, as individuals and a species. Yet we know a lot about the world without us thanks to science, which means we're not entirely trapped within a correlationist circle, or we wouldn't have such knowledge. Unless we're willing to deny the world without us and relagate it to mere appearance.

Thus evolution happened [Not Really].

I believe the argument is that science references a time where we didn't exist which gave rise to our correlated existence in which the world appears a certain way to us. And a time after us. So science gives us a link to the absolute, which is the world without us. And that world is understood mathematically.

It's worth pointing out that the point here is that both the claims that universals do and don't exist are equally confused – that is, 'nominalism' is as much a metaphysical thesis in this sense as 'realism.' — Snakes Alive

That would be dissolving the issue as meaningless to debate on any side of the issue as you set out in the OP. But what does it mean to say the universal debate is meaningless? Does it become a scientific question as to why we have universal concepts? The question of using universal concepts is not meaningless. Nor are particulars.

That it references nothing in the world is self-evident. You can't identify the thing it references. — Isaac

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

You can't identify the thing it references. — Isaac

Platonists think they can.

"We do it because..." sounds like a sociological issue — Isaac

Not if it's motivated by a philosophical puzzle.

"We do it this way..." sounds like a linguistic issue. — Isaac

Only if linquistics can show how universal concepts are constructed without appealing to other universals.

Reductionism in science is the idea of unity of science: that different special sciences present different aspects of the same fundamental order of nature. If you believe that such an order is at least plausible, then you should not find the idea of reductionism objectionable. — SophistiCat

Isn't it a bit more than this? That the special sciences are in principle replaceable by a single fundamental science, usually physics. That means causation is bottom up, and there's no strong emergence of any entirely novel properties.

@Snakes Alive

It should be noted this is similar to Hume's issue with causality. We talk as if all sorts of things cause or cause other things. That's the way the world works according to our language. However, the cause itself is never in experience.

So then the question arises whether causality actually exists, or it's just constant conjunction. Both causality and constant conjunction are meaningful concepts. If causality doesn't exist, then how did it end up in our language? One answer would be a habit of thought from witnessing constant conjunction. Another would be Kant's response.

Now what does it mean to say Hume's skepticism and the debates it sparked are meaningless? That our everyday notion of causality is all there is to the matter?

What does it mean to conceptualize the world 'as if' it had something, when we can't even tell what it would be for it to have that something? What are we 'conceptualizing?' Apparently nothing. — Snakes Alive

We're conceptualizing the particulars into abstract categories for some reason. And it ranges from laws of nature to chairs and dogs. Now, you can say this conceptualization references nothing in the world. That's nominalism. But it leaves open the questions around why and how we do it.

How can we even posit universals if we don't know what it would be like for there to be universals or not? — Snakes Alive

Because they exist in our language when we talk about the world. We conceptualize the world as if it had universal categories of some kind.

Is that a problem? Shouldn't the explanation be a linguistic and psychological one? — Snakes Alive

If it can be answered by linquistics and psychology. Note that it needs to avoid using universals to do so. Rather, it needs to show how universal concepts are constructed from particulars without positing any universals in the world. Properties become problematic here, because properties can easily be universal when it's the same property shared across particulars. Thus the introduction of tropes to get around that issue.

The point isn't whether universals are real, it's whether the discussion is meaningful. And to the extent science doesn't resolve the matter without appealing to some sort of universal, the issue remains.

What is there to argue about? — Snakes Alive

Has the question of why our language is full of universals when all we experience is particulars been satisfactorily answered? Even if you say that the debate is meaningless, you're still left with the question that started the debate.

People criticizing metaphysics tend to forget what motivates metaphysical questions in the first place.

Look above as well. I updated my post.

That sentence does remain and I stand by it. You were asking for a story depicting the existence of universals. Well, that's hard to do because universals aren't something in experience. We only have the abstract concept of universals. So I don't know how you would tell that story, other than with an allegory.

What should we say about these kids? What should we say about their disagreement? — Snakes Alive

Right, but that's not how metaphysical arguments go. There is a definition for universals that differs from particulars. It's just not something available in experience. However, like math and other abstract concepts, we can create visual depictions. So you can illustrate the taxonomy of cats. You can use classes in programming languages that support object orientation. We do have universal concepts. But unlike lions, tigers or stars, we can't say what a real universal would look or smell like, anymore than we could do that for numbers.

For that matter, we can't do the same for material objects either, since how they look and smell depend on the sort of creatures we are, and perception is correlational.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FSJAWK

I don't know how well received it was. But it's an interesting approach.

My cat is literally pushing books off my shelf at the moment. — path

Sounds like that could be turned into a metaphor.

Thanks. I'm fascinated by 'philosophy is metaphors' as a metaphor that uses 'metaphor' (itself a dead metaphor) metaphysically. Derrida's essay 'The White Mythology' obsesses over this. To me this is part of the theme of us not being able to get out of metaphysics, where 'metaphysics' is used metaphorically. — path

There was a philosophy book on embodied cognition that made the claim all of western metaphysics was based on taking metaphors literally. I guess that's sort of a companion to the late Wittgenstein's approach.

It's the language we inherit with its thousands of half-dead metaphors (rivers with mouths.) — path

Half-dead metaphor, kind of a metaphor in itself. Rivers with mouths is a good example.

Exactly! You're so close to getting it! — Snakes Alive

Are you saying you have to be able to imagine something for it to be meaningful?