But they can't deny the 'law of identity'. — Wayfarer
Nominalists are not denying the reality of similarities or resemblances. They're denying the reality of multiple things having an identical (in the A=A sense) property. — Terrapin Station
I still hesitate at this description, because I am contemplating the alternative that a universal (or a general) is not one single "item" exhibited by multiple particular things, but rather a continuum. In Peirce's words, "Thus, the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real?" — aletheist
I still hesitate at this description, because I am contemplating the alternative that a universal (or a general) is not one single "item" exhibited by multiple particular things, but rather a continuum — aletheist
Not at all. It rather shows why (a) physics shouldn't be taken as doing philosophy, — Terrapin Station
Yes, that is the (singular) actuality. But then that still leaves the question of how best to deal with the two aspects that are required to produce such a history. And you did seem to be collapsing them in talking about this confusing thing of a "singular generality". Your choice of jargon seems unhelpful here. — apokrisis
On a short or hot enough scale of "discovery" — apokrisis
That is to say, while induction proceeds from the particular to the universal and deduction from the universal to the particular, the paradigm is defined by a third and paradoxical type of movement, which goes from the particular to the particular. — StreetlightX
A paradigm entails a movement that goes from singularity to singularity and, without ever leaving singularity, transforms every singular case into an exemplar of a general rule that can never be stated a priori. — StreetlightX
You have to read the whole sentence. "They're denying the reality of multiple things having an identical (in the A=A sense) property." — Terrapin Station
The singular exemplifies a universality: the particular stands for nothing but itself. — StreetlightX
The para-digmatic, is what 'stands beside itself' (qua the Greek prefix, para), unable to be subsumed under general rule and thus not a particular. — StreetlightX
You only have 'that instance of A over there', and 'another instance of A here' - but they're not identical. So how can you even retain 'the law of identity' at all? — Wayfarer
... I don't know what the heck Peirce is on about really ... — Terrapin Station
That's why universals are best understood as constraints. — apokrisis
But it is not a problem if we roll the history of the Cosmos back to when the particle was in such a hot and dense world that it simply existed as a fleeting fluctuation in a generic vanilla field - where effectively no identity was yet locked in. — apokrisis
Peirce would say that there are two tokens of one type. One type is the same as one universal per my earlier comments. — Terrapin Station
And the issue is whether that type is something real, something that's identically instantiated in the two "tokens." — Terrapin Station
The quantum quandry is that you can neither ultimately tell if one thing is the same with itself, or if two things are indeed different. Both identity and separability go by the by as you wind existence back to its Planck scale origins. — apokrisis
Yes, this brings to mind Peirce's use of "determination" in the sense of constraint — aletheist
Each instance is an instantiation of a type that: "itself has no existence although it has a real being, consisting in the fact that existents will conform to it." (1961, 2:292)
And this is reminiscent of his cosmogony, which begins with a continuum of vague potentiality that eventually actualizes our existing universe. — aletheist
C.S. Peirce...developed his own views on the problem of universals in the course of a review of an edition of the writings of George Berkeley. Peirce begins with the observation that "Berkeley's metaphysical theories have at first sight an air of paradox and levity very unbecoming to a bishop". He includes among these paradoxical doctrines Berkeley's denial of "the possibility of forming the simplest general conception". He wrote that if there is some mental fact that works in practice the way that a universal would, that fact is a universal.
Something like 'the form something must take in order to exist', right? — Wayfarer
Why are we able to be confident that you will not turn into a pineapple in 3.5 minutes? Because that is not a real possibility, any more than a triangle turning into a rectangle while remaining within the infinite continuum of real triangles. — aletheist
All universal theorists are arguing for is the existence of an entity that somehow exists in multiple places at the same time. The red of that firetruck is similar to the red of that fire hydrant in virtue of the fact that both objects instantiate the universal "red-ness".
It can be helpful to think of properties as ways objects are. Universal theorists think that these "ways" are repeatable entities. Those with the same property are literally instantiating the same universal. — darthbarracuda
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