I submit that we can make sense of many ontological questions, such that they can be meaningfully debated. — Marchesk
But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question — Snakes Alive
'how would our experience of a world in which only matter exists differ from one in which only minds exist?' or 'how would my experience of a world in which only I exist differ from one in which other minds also exist?' — andrewk
'I tend to agree with Carnap that questions of ontology have no rational meaning. — andrewk
But those questions, especially the second one, are very emotionally meaningful to many people. — andrewk
I don't see how this is possible since many people have made rational arguments for various metaphysical positions. — Marchesk
But this is begging the question. Carnap proposes that arguments for various metaphysical positions are irrational and you respond by saying that they are. What Carnap is really pointing to is how can you prove that they are? — Pseudonym
Can you explain how you can't make sense of it. — Marchesk
I simply don't understand the question. I know what it means for a dragon to exist (or not); I don't know what it means for a universal to exist (or not). — Snakes Alive
I don't know what that means, because I don't know what it means for two things to have something in common "in virtue of" some third thing (or not). — Snakes Alive
"There are tigers. A flyger is that which explains this fact. Are there flygers? — Snakes Alive
So what makes an individual tiger a member of the tiger group? — Marchesk
But flygers hasn't been defined. — Marchesk
If it's a tiger, it's a tiger. What's meant by "being a member of the tiger group" other than being a tiger? Are you asking me what makes it so that if something is a tiger, it's a tiger? — Snakes Alive
The parallel was intentional: you said a universal was that which explained some fact. But simply introducing something as that which explains something else makes no sense, because introduced ex nihilo in this way it does no actual explaining, and so I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be arguing about. — Snakes Alive
This is a psychological question, and meaningful. But I don't see what it has to do with the existence of universals. — Snakes Alive
the realist can just say that universals have to exist to explain that fact — Marchesk
Carnap would say that realists, conceptualists and nominalists are wasting their time trying to answer a question without meaning. But shouldn't Carnap have to account for similarity? — Marchesk
The form and validity of each step in an argument, I suppose? Don't we have a criteria for what structure a logical argument takes? — Marchesk
What makes Carnap's argument logical and not irrational? How can we prove that Carnap is right? — Marchesk
If you can't articulate the question meaningfully, then Carnap (and anyone else) is licensed to ignore it. It's your job to frame a question meaningfully: otherwise, the demand that others answer it doesn't make sense either. — Snakes Alive
Then I'll assume Carnap's argument is itself meaningless. — Marchesk
Again, if you're asking a psychological question, it's meaningful. What other question you might be asking, I can't understand. — Snakes Alive
But as to the existence of universals, I can't make any sense of the question. When I exercise my powers as an English speaker, I don't know what's being asked. And since I know of no other criterion by which to make a question framed in English sensible, I conclude that it's nonsense. — Snakes Alive
Consider such a proposition as 'Edinburgh is north of London'. Here we have a relation between two places, and it seems plain that the relation subsists independently of our knowledge of it. When we come to know that Edinburgh is north of London, we come to know something which has to do only with Edinburgh and London: we do not cause the truth of the proposition by coming to know it, on the contrary we merely apprehend a fact which was there before we knew it. The part of the earth's surface where Edinburgh stands would be north of the part where London stands, even if there were no human being to know about north and south, and even if there were no minds at all in the universe. This is, of course, denied by many philosophers, either for Berkeley's reasons or for Kant's. But we have already considered these reasons, and decided that they are inadequate. We may therefore now assume it to be true that nothing mental is presupposed in the fact that Edinburgh is north of London. But this fact involves the relation 'north of', which is a universal; and it would be impossible for the whole fact to involve nothing mental if the relation 'north of', which is a constituent part of the fact, did involve anything mental. Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
This conclusion, however, is met by the difficulty that the relation 'north of' does not seem to exist in the same sense in which Edinburgh and London exist. If we ask 'Where and when does this relation exist?' the answer must be 'Nowhere and nowhen'.
However, you've said nothing about them other than that they are an explanation; hence, I don't know what they are, and so don't know in what sense they're intended to be an explanation. Hence, the question of their existence is meaningless to me until this can be answered. — Snakes Alive
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