Yes, nominalism gets it backwards. Things are not similar because of our language, they are similar because of their ontological makeup. The names we place on qualities are names of universals.

I believe nominalism claims that those things which particulars have in common are not independent of those particulars. There is no such thing as roundness in the absence of a round object.

Another a way of resolving matters is to see both the general and the particular as equally "unreal".

So where all the issues stem from is our need to identify the causes of states of affairs. And following Aristotle, we can make a broad division into the essential abstract causes - form and purpose - and then the accidental or particular causes - the material and efficient.

So particular things are not really individuals but the individuated. They arise because of a hylomorphic interaction between top-down constraints (universal forms) and bottom-up constructions (material contingencies).

Thus talk about "reality" gets confused as instead everything is part of an irreducibly triadic emergent process. An individuated object is really a process, an act of individuation in which the universal stands for the shaping causes and the particularity is about the material contingencies. The object in question is made of this lump of stuff, in this place, at this moment.

So from a systems perspective, universals are real as a critical part of the causes of reality - reality being what we usually mean as the persisting result of causal actions, the individuation that results in concrete appearing states of affairs.

I think the trouble (the conflict between nominalism and realism) stems not from the roundness (which is instantiated in the objects) but in the commonality. The question that exercises the debate is; where is the commonality instantiated? The commonality consists in the roundness but it is not identical to the roundness.

There's different kinds of nominalism, which can make it confusing. One kind of nominalism rejects abstract objects. The one you were referring to is actually a form of immanent universalism (re: Aristotle, contra Plato). Another form of nominalism rejects any universals entirely, whether they be transcendental or immanent, something that Ockham and Quine thought. There is no such thing as "red-ness" or "round-ness" or "mass" or anything like that - all that exists are particular individuals. The problem with this form is that it inevitably fails to explain why things are similar in the first place. Even trope theory fails because it doesn't explain why tropes are similar.

Whereas univeralism doesn't have to explain this, because all instantiations are of the same entity, either as an immanent universal (in which the universal is "stretched" across its various instantiations) or a transcendental universal in which the universal is abstract but instantiated in the real world as well.

I have pointed to this article before, and it's a lengthy read, but I recommend it: WHAT’S WRONG WITH OCKHAM? Reassessing the Role of Nominalism in the Dissolution of the West

Note the reference in this article to a 1948 book by Richard Weaver, from a book called Ideas have Consequences:

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence.*

The article is related to an historical argument that the rise of nominalism, and the corresponding decline of scholastic realism and Platonist thought, was the precursor to today's scientific materialism. As I say, a long article, but I think certainly worth the effort of reading as it presents a very careful analysis of Aquinas' understanding of universals, and what lead William of Ockham to reject them.

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* Note however that the essay concludes that Weaver's argument was either wrong, or 'right for the wrong reasons'.

particular things are not really individuals but the individuated. They arise because of a hylomorphic interaction between top-down constraints (universal forms) and bottom-up constructions (material contingencies). — Apokrisis

Compare to excerpt from my initial Forum post in 2009:

particular things are simply ephemeral instances of the eternal forms, but in themselves, they have no actual being. Their actual being is conferred by the fact that they conform to laws (logos). So 'existence' in this sense, and I think this is the sense it was intended by the Platonic and neo-Platonic schools, is illusory. Earthly objects of perception exist, but only in a transitory and imperfect way. They are 'mortal' - perishable, never perfect, and always transient. Whereas the archetypal forms exist in the One Mind and are apprehended by Nous: while they do not exist they provide the basis for all existing things by creating the pattern, the ratio, whereby things are formed. They are real, above and beyond the existence of wordly things; but they don't actually exist. They don't need to exist; things do the hard work of existence.

That's fine. Except my point is that it is the very thing of trying to make one "the real", the other "mere appearance", that is the wrong move that engenders this eternal debate.

So we have the traditional problem of universals because of a dualistic thinking - the usual divine vs material dichotomy - which then wants to make one side of the argument the ultimate winner.

My view is the systems' one where the ontology is irreducibly triadic. So when we are talking about the formal vs the material causes, those are both real - as causes. And so too is the world of formed matter that is the result of that causal action. So the effect is also real.

At which stage talking about what is real or unreal doesn't really make much sense as what we have is talk about a system for holistic emergence. We wind up with the three aspects of coming into existence which are the two types of causality - formal and material - plus the third thing which is where causes ceases to make a difference and instead we have what we call a stable effect, an individuated state of being.

It makes sense in the context of philosophy. Besdies, I don't know if it's a false dichotomy. What I'm arguing here is that the very ground of the distinction between the transcendent and the sensory or empirical domain has been forgotten. The article I quoted above on Ockham makes this observation:

A genuine realist should see “forms” not merely as a solution to a distinctly modern problem of knowledge, but as part of an alternative conception of knowledge, a conception that is not so much desired and awaiting defense, as forgotten and so no longer desired. Characterized by forms, reality had an intrinsic intelligibility, not just in each of its parts but as a whole. With forms as causes, there are interconnections between different parts of an intelligible world, indeed there are overlapping matrices of intelligibility in the world, making possible an ascent from the more particular, posterior, and mundane to the more universal, primary, and noble.

(Emphasis added.)

See, I think there's a lineage from that, to the idea of semiosis:

The soul's deepest parts can only be reached through its surface. In this way the eternal forms, that mathematics and philosophy and the other sciences make us acquainted with will be slow percolation graduatlly reach the very core of one's being, and will come to influence our lives; and this they will do, not because they involve truths of merely vital importance, but because they [are] ideal and eternal verities.

C S Pierce, Reasoning and the Logic of Things, ed Ketner, p 121-2 (quoted in Nagel, The Last Word.)

So the 'formal realm' is in some sense prior to its manifestation in material form; 'matter is effete mind'.

Yet still you have two ontic choices here - either you are going to go for an immanent or a transcendent metaphysics. I choose immanent.

Where I would agree with you about your usual target here - Scientism or Materialism - is that these too are transcendent in effect. They want to put formal and final cause in the realm of ideas. The only difference is that they add the word "merely" ideas. Scientism pretends that questions about observers and minds and purposes are not real (causal) questions.

But if you are an adherent of immanence, then the job is to account for everything - causes and effects - from within.

And that was what the irreducible triadism of Peircean metaphysics was aimed at.

[materialism wants] to put formal and final cause in the realm of ideas. The only difference is that they add the word "merely" ideas. Scientism pretends that questions about observers and minds and purposes are not real (causal) questions. — Apokrisis

It's because, in the materialist view mind and/or ideas are a consequence or result of material causes - that is all they can be! - whereas in the traditionalist view (and I think also in Peirce's view) mind and/or ideas are real causes (Peirce was after all an objective idealist). Recall Peirce was writing well before the WWI in the heyday of American idealism, and was still part of the broader idealist tradition (like Josiah Royce and Borden Parker Bowne).

Peirce said reality was organised by sign relations. That is a little different. Or even completely different.

Just to chime in here, I think one can maintain realism with respect to universals without speaking of them as causes and, in fact, that it is logically preferable to do so. This is because a cause and a reason (or ground) are not the same thing. If, say, a Platonic universal is posited as the cause of some material particular, then one runs into the insoluble incoherence of Cartesian dualism. If, on the other hand, a Platonic universal is taken to be the reason for some material particular, then one has posited not an ontological but merely a logical explanation for said particular. Not only that, but the notion of a cause implies change, which the Ideas do not do.

That is the usual commonsense position but it runs into the problem that causation is what in the end folk want to get at. Cartesian dualism seems a fact because we are minds that seem to be able to make things happen. That may also be causally insoluble under dualism, but it would be incoherent to deny that it is the very thing that most needs explaining.

So I would say - like Peirce - you are arguing the wrong way round in saying universals are just a logical way of talking. The Peircean position is that causation is a logic-like process - a universal growth in reasonableness or intelligibility.

Logic works for us not by accident but because the Universe itself operates "logically".

As to ideas and change, it is Platonism that treats forms as eternal abstract objects. A systems view treats them as informational constraints. So forms capture limits on free material variety. They are thus the directors and channellers or actual change. Also forms can develop or evolve in time. Or more accurately, as limits, they only get fully expressed at "the end of time" - that is, whenever things come to an equilbrated state of rest.

Logic works for us not by accident but because the Universe itself operates "logically". — apokrisis

Does Peirce think propositions are a real aspect of objective reality? Kind of like causal dispositions?

This isn't about predicate logic as that is itself a highly reductive version of what I would mean by logic.

So it is about sign relations as a whole - propositions merely being the signs themselves, the targets of some habit of interpretance.

Where in the universe does anything occurs that can be understood in terms of signs or signalling, apart from in relation to living systems and minds?

I believe Peirce actually thought that matter was just condensed mind.

I mentioned that above. I think an idealist understanding of mind is basic to Peirce's general philosophy, but it's not necessary for bio-semiotics, so it is left out in that context.

I mentioned that above. I think an idealist understanding of mind is basic to Peirce's general philosophy, but it's not necessary for bio-semiotics, so it is left out in that context. — Wayfarer

That sounds a bit like Whiteheadian process philosophy. The only way we "know" objects interact is through subjectivity. Objectively interacting doesn't even make sense outside the context of a knowing subject. Whitehead thus makes the speculative move to posit that everything that interacts is through subjectivity- it is subjective all the way down. To interact, is to have occasions of experience for objects.

Not only do we "know" objects though subjectivity, but objects only have significance in subjectivity. Any object is in relation with all others, no matter how distance, and is but one finite state with meaning in subjectivity. It's not only subjective all the way down, but every subjectivity is objective-- states of the world which are unaffected by going unnoticed or disagreed with.

To interact is to be something related to occasions of the experience of objects. Subjectivity is objectivity. It is to exist, whether known by someone or not.

I was just googling entries on 'universals' and I found one at the Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy. It begins with this statement:

Universals are a class of mind-independent entities, usually contrasted with individuals (or so-called "particulars"), postulated to ground and explain relations of qualitative identity and resemblance among individuals.

Now, straight away I think this is incorrect. How could 'a universal' be 'an entity'? All throughout this essay, universals are posited as 'entities' - as if Plato's 'ideal form' is 'an entity'. So, no wonder we're sceptical about them, because I'm entirely certain that whatever else a universal might be, it's not any kind of entity, or thing, or object. It is much nearer to a pure potentiality, the way things are likely to form:

Universals represent all real possibilities. Thus, what Plato would have called the Form of the Bed, really just means that 'beds are possible'.

Meaning and the Problem of Universals, Kelly Ross.

Universals are more lke 'the sinews of reality'. They are not entities or things, but the underlying attributes of the cosmos, the lines along which things must form if they are to exist at all.

Not only do we "know" objects though subjectivity, but objects only have significance in subjectivity. Any object is in relation with all others, no matter how distance, and is but one finite state with meaning in subjectivity. It's not only subjective all the way down, but every subjectivity is objective-- states of the world which are unaffected by going unnoticed or disagreed with.

To interact is to be something related to occasions of the experience of objects. Subjectivity is objectivity. It is to exist, whether known by someone or not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm trying to understand the gist of what you are saying. So you think that some things interact and others do not? Those things that do not interact are still in some relation to each other, and this is objectivity?

In the sense you would most probably use interact, probably sort of yes and no. You would probably use interact to mean something along the lines of “experienced by someone or be involved in a causal reaction,” which doesn’t really capture what I’m talking about.

What does it mean to interact? Does it mean to experience or cause something? Does it mean to merely think about form (we, for example, have never causal or phenomenologically interacted with the living dinosaur whose bones we’ve dug up) Does it merely mean to express a form? People never seem to be quite sure. Sometimes the idealist seems to be saying we need to be there cause the existence of objects. Other times they merely seem to be saying things must have a form (be meaningful in experience). Still other times they seem to put our experience as causal, but leave open the possibility there is something without experiential form (e.g. Kant).

The subjective/objective split involves the last approach. Supposedly, there are the things we interact with, the subjective, and then there is this other realm (usually consider “unspoiled” by the scourge of human experience) which is outside interaction and relationship to us— all those perfect, definite things which are beyond our knowledge and lives, which have no relation to us… yet we are meant to respect as providing the most profound insights into our being. “Objective knowledge,” to the exclusion of the subjective, is considered the highest and only proper from when dealing with enquiry into the world.

Even Kant, whose turn to the subjective is motivated by this very nonsense (how could such an “objective” ever be knowledge of our lives? It can’t have anything to do with them), still treats the “objective” with a certain reverence. The noumenon is still sitting out there, a most profound instance of knowledge, just always beyond our reach— a knowledge which is unknowable, yet someone manages to still count as knowledge.

This “mystery” has attracted every party interested in obfuscating subjectivity since. In discussing knowledge of the world, Kant is cited for showing how we can’t know anything significant because we only have access to our puny experiences. As if knowing about our world and the things that interact with it was somehow a problem with respect to knowing about our life. Kant’s turn against “objectivity” in human knowledge has ended up supporting because it talks as though human experience is deficient for knowledge.

Where Kant went wrong was failing to reform our understanding of the objective. In falling to eliminate it as a realm distinct from the subjective, he left the beacon of “objectivity” burning brightly. Instead of calling out the noumenon as nonsensical full stop (i.e. not just that it cannot be known by us, but that it cannot be anything to know), he left sitting above us, a thing we could supposedly aim, wishing we could get beyond out inherently untrustworthy experiences.

When I say the subjective is objective, I’m collapsing the subjective/objective split which drives the starry-eyed staring at the mysterious noumenon. Not only cannot we not know noumenon, but there is nothing to know in the noumenon. All knowledge of the world is of our experiences. The only objective knowledge is of the subjective. When we have experiences, we don’t just “only know our experiences,” we know the world (subjectivities) as they are. Our experiences are the means of knowledge rather than always being an inadequate attempt to grasp what is forever beyond us.

Now, straight away I think this is incorrect. How could 'a universal' be 'an entity'? All throughout this essay, universals are posited as 'entities' - as if Plato's 'ideal form' is 'an entity' — Wayfarer

Many people do interpret Plato's forms, as explained by Plato, as entities. But I agree that the encyclopaedia entry is surprisingly wrong: modern philosophers however neo-Platonic wouldn't regard universals as entities.

I am a simple nominalist about universals. We are universalising creatures, and such universalising is indeed the only way we could make sense of events and objects. To differentiate is to deny identity; and then to quantify over properties is to universalise, from redness to sparrows.

How for instance do words change their meaning over time, and how do our names for the 'same' sort of thing change over time? They change as our understanding shifts, as the worlds we move in shift.

Cartesian dualism seems a fact because we are minds that seem to be able to make things happen. — apokrisis

I know not "seems," but only what "is." Or would prefer to. I've not read Peirce, so I don't know how he argues for what you're trying to say. I think Cartesianism is best solved by Kant. Causality is just an a priori concept of the intellect that structures and indeed constructs the world of appearance. The Ideas are not in space and time, and so are not causally efficacious.

Instead of calling out the noumenon as nonsensical full stop (i.e. not just that it cannot be known by us, but that it cannot be anything to know) — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think he admits this, though.

When I say the subjective is objective, I’m collapsing the subjective/objective split which drives the starry-eyed staring at the mysterious noumenon. Not only cannot we not know noumenon, but there is nothing to know in the noumenon. All knowledge of the world is of our experiences. The only objective knowledge is of the subjective. When we have experiences, we don’t just “only know our experiences,” we know the world (subjectivities) as they are. Our experiences are the means of knowledge rather than always being an inadequate attempt to grasp what is forever beyond us. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I get this idea. Do you agree then with Whitehead's speculative theory of actual occasions? All matter/energy is actually the cumulative process of actual occaisions whereby what "seems" to be a non-subjective object (electron, let's say), is actually an actual occasion subjectively interacting with other actual occasions? Objectivity then is simply an (society of) actual occasions interacting with other actual occasions of experience. These actual occasions could be split into two categories:
1.) aggregate occasions- organisms which have a centrally coordinated series of occasions (and may contribute to having what we call "consciousness")
2.) corpuscular occasions which are non-organisms and have no centralized coordination of occasions (and hence do not seem to possess what we call "consciousness").

I'm not much of a fan of Whitehead. His process philosophy is too vague and consciousness centric. It dismisses the presence of many concrete states under the guise of accounting for the endless becoming of the world.

For me, he does not give enough respect to subjectivity. He makes individual's into sums relations when they ought to be understood on their own terms. Matter/energy is not cumulative as much as it is cumulative. Any state is as much distinct as it the result of sum of it's past, present or future relations.

I might say the election is an instance of subjectivity interacting, but I would mean in the sense of a state of the world, with a meaning in experience, interacting with other states of the world. The presence of consciousness or otherwise is not important. Objectivity, for me, is any actual occasion, any state of the world (and so of subjectivity too), whether it "interacts" (appears in? causes?) experiences or not.

I'm at least half the materialist Whitehead opposed. More or less, I stick becoming of the world and the reality of consciousness with discrete material states. Becoming is not opposed to the discrete, but rather extends it into, more or less, infinity-- the range of possible discrete states is basically endless. Rather than being a measure of what is actual, becoming is a a measure of what might be at any given moment.

The presence of consciousness or otherwise is not important. Objectivity, for me, is any actual occasion, any state of the world (and so of subjectivity too), whether it "interacts" (appears in? causes?) experiences or not — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well I think Whitehead would say, any material is a process (actual experience) that aggregates with other occasions (either democratically in non-organism structures) or monarchically (in organism-like structures). Thus, the point you seem to make about objects not being in causal/experiential interaction with a particular subject is moot, as everything is deemed to be experiential, and thus interacting with something at all instances.