If you ask me why two things can be tigers, I could give you a causal, biological explanation; but this is apparently not what you want. — Snakes Alive
Tiger is an abstract concept for the individual members having similar characteristics. — Marchesk
I'm not sure Russell is talking about what you're talking about — Snakes Alive
It reads to me as very bad philosophy. I'm not sure I would quote that passage in support of anything. — Snakes Alive
Some have made arguments that they thought were rational. I don't agree with them on that. If they were rational they would be conclusively persuasive to anybody that understands logic, regardless of that person's prior opinion on the conclusion. Yet they are not.I don't see how this is possible since many people have made rational arguments for various metaphysical positions. — Marchesk
Some have made arguments that they thought were rational. I don't agree with them on that. If they were rational they would be conclusively persuasive to anybody that understands logic, regardless of that person's prior opinion on the conclusion. Yet they are not. — andrewk
But in what sense do such relationships exist? — Wayfarer
The difference between these two is that it is hard to imagine any experience that would answer the question about whether universals are real, but one can easily imagine one that would answer the question about physics inside a black hole. All one need do is sail one's spaceship inside the event horizon of a black hole and look around. Contrary to popular belief there's a long way between the event horizon and the point at which you get pulled apart by gravity ('spaghettified'). So there's plenty of time to observe.It doesn't really matter to my life whether universals are real, but it's interesting to think about sometimes, just like it's interesting to wonder whether the laws of physics really 'break down' inside a black hole, which is just as meaningful, except for the difficult math. — Marchesk
If you ask them whether the relation 'north of' exists, or where it is, the only appropriate answer, it seems to me, is to ask what they mean, or to comment that the question is deeply confused. — Snakes Alive
The difference between these two is that it is hard to imagine any experience that would answer the question about whether universals are real, but one can easily imagine one that would answer the question about physics inside a black hole. — andrewk
What do you mean by using it in a universal manner?
Are you asking how people tell when one thing is to the north of another? — Snakes Alive
I would say yes, or at least all of physics that can be considered as science. In my lexicon other universes or events outside the light cone are metaphysics.Does all of physics include only events or things which can in principle be experienced by us? What about outside or light cone or other universes? — Marchesk
This question, again, strikes me as confused, like asking 'what is the mortgage of jam?' How am I supposed to answer? — Snakes Alive
That chapter I referred to is not ‘bad philosophy’ - it’s philosophy. Betrand Russell’s exposition of such topics is as close as philosophy can come to being canonical. — Wayfarer
So by "do universals exist" do you mean "can more than one thing have the same property, or be in the same relation to something else?" Then the answer is yes. — Snakes Alive
We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not ‘whiteness’ that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality . One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Russell
No, because I still don't know what a universal is, and saying that it qualifies as a possible answer doesn't make it so, because I have no notion of what they are, and so no notion of what they are supposed to "answer," or how. — Snakes Alive
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.