Doesn't this requirement effectively beg the question, since realists affirm that our only "contact" with universals is via the mind? — aletheist
Peirce's "proof" of realism was holding a rock and asking his audience whether they knew that it would fall if he let go of it. In other words, our ability to make reliable predictions about the future behavior of individual objects requires the reality of the laws of nature as generals that govern particulars. — aletheist
But that is not falsification in the same decisive sense that "discovery" or "observation" of one real universal would falsify nominalism. — aletheist
As the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. — aletheist
Refuting realism seems to require proving a negative. — aletheist
No; you are ignoring the distinction between "real" and "actual," and instead treating them as synonyms. Realism regarding universals/generals is the view that the real is a broader category than the actual, such that possibilities and regularities (for example) are just as real as actualities. You are simply asserting nominalism - the opposing view that the real and the actual are one and the same. You cannot refute realism by simply insisting on a nominalist definition of "real." — aletheist
You're explaining what you take a universal to be here. You're not showing evidence that there are real (extramental) universals. — Terrapin Station
Our "contact" can be via the mind, but what you're claiming to "contact" isn't itself mind, right? (Otherwise, you're really a nominalist.) — Terrapin Station
No one is denying regularities of behavior. Nominalists simply believe that they're (particular) properties of particulars. — Terrapin Station
But the more you look for such a thing, the more you can rule it out. — Terrapin Station
I was just following the accepted definition of "real", which defines real as actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
I find there is a problem with your suggestion, that possibilities are real, because then all logical possibilities are equally realities. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we attempt to separate real possibilities from unreal possibilities, we do so by grounding them in what is actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
You might say religions make it too easy, that the kind of truth they offer are rather too settled - 'sign here'. That's where the Platonist tradition is so interesting and still so important. Plato was determined not to be taken in by 'mere belief' but to arrive at a greater truth through the exercise of reason, which is still what distinguishes philosophy from religion as such (although there are many overlaps). But your observation of 'knowing how we know' is crucial to that. What motivates that, is something like a religious type of instinct, but again it is more questioning and more critical than what we generally take religion to be. — Wayfarer
But that is certainly not the technical definition within philosophy, especially in the context of the debate over the reality of universals, which is the thread topic. — aletheist
The claim is not that all possibilities are real, it is that some possibilities are real. Likewise, the broader claim is not that all generals are real, it is that some generals are real. — aletheist
Unless you specify it, where is that technical definition supposed to be found? — Metaphysician Undercover
What then, distinguishes between a real possibility and an unreal one. — Metaphysician Undercover
It cannot be something real, nor can it be unreal, because it has to create a boundary between these two. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sorry, I just assumed that you were reading all of the posts in this thread. Briefly, reality means being whatever it is regardless of whether any person or finite group of people thinks it so, while existence means reacting with other like things in the environment. — aletheist
However, whether we can distinguish between real and unreal possibilities is not germane to whether there is such a distinction. In other words, it is a real distinction. — aletheist
Huh? This would entail that the distinction between the actual and the non-actual likewise cannot be something actual or non-actual. Is that your position? — aletheist
Where did I say or imply anything about "inductive principles" being "real and unreal"? — aletheist
What then, distinguishes between a real possibility and an unreal one. It cannot be something real, nor can it be unreal, because it has to create a boundary between these two. In your system of definitions, what creates that boundary between a real and an unreal possibility? — Metaphysician Undercover
Well, you might state it like that, what lies between the actual and non-actual is the possible. But that's simplistic, and incorrect, as the possible is the non-actual. — Metaphysician Undercover
So, if multiple unrelated organisms hold awareness of good, then it seems safe to presume it justified that awareness of good, or of the beneficial, is not a given culturally transmitted from one organism to another (unlike mores and morals). The disparity between ameba and humans may be too extreme, so one can merely think of the disparity between great apes and humans. Like our awareness of a physical rock as object, awareness of good is an awareness of a particular object that is independent of other minds and invariantly present in all minds: all minds are aware of good as a given object, though this awareness is not gained culturally; just as all minds concerned will be aware of the same physical rock perceived, though this awareness is not gained culturally. (Rather than the example of good, the same can be stated of awareness of circles—though awareness of circles is more restrained to our sapient minds.) Therefore, though the physical rock is a phenomenal object and goodness is non-phenomenal object, the same justification here applies to both these objects of awareness being extramental. — javra
So, doesn't it make sense to say that whatever is, regardless of whether any person says so, actually is, and therefore real is synonymous with actual? — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem may be resolved through dualism though. I'm dualist, so I allow two distinct forms of the actual, both are real. What separates them is the unreal, possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover
You said "not all generals are real". I assumed inductive principles are generals, so I asked how would you distinguish between real and unreal inductive principles. If they are all unreal, then what type of generals would be real? — Metaphysician Undercover
Or an objective idealist, such that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws." Peirce sometimes defined reality as that which is independent of the thoughts of any individual person or finite collection of people, but not necessarily independent of thought in general. He also once said that thought "appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world." That is a different debate, though. — aletheist
Could you elaborate on this? How can particular properties of particular objects exhibit the same regularity, such that my choice of which particular rock to drop does not affect the universality of the outcome? — aletheist
And it would simply be a (brute) fact of how particular matter in particular dynamic relations behaves. — Terrapin Station
Wait--but you're just noting that goodness is an idea that multiple people have. What would be the evidence that it's not simply a mental phenomenon--that it's simply a way that brains function? — Terrapin Station
If concept reveals reality, then a final Truth seems to require that the truly real be in some way fixed or complete. If concept creates reality to an important degree, though, we may never catch our own tail. In this case, the final truth might be a realization that all is process and fire and novelty. — R-13
I have been talking about real possibilities as an inexhaustible continuum of potential individuals - general, not particular. Do you disagree? — aletheist
The reason it's not a universal is because it's not a matter of something separate from the particulars in question, where the particulars are instantiating that different thing.But that sounds just like a universal, except for the "brute" part. — aletheist
Why would particular matter in particular dynamic relations predictably behave in the same way, or even in a very similar way? — aletheist
Calling it "brute" implies that there is no explanation. Why should we accept that? — aletheist
The reason it's not a universal is because it's not a matter of something separate from the particulars in question, where the particulars are instantiating that different thing. — Terrapin Station
There error there is in assuming that sans universals, there shouldn't be similarities. — Terrapin Station
At some point you're going to posit things for which there is no further-down-the-turtle-pile explanation. — Terrapin Station
You still seem to be treating a universal as another kind of individual - "something separate" - that is somehow "in" particulars. — aletheist
In this case, it is rather a real habit - a law of nature - that governs particulars. — aletheist
But why there should there be predictable similarities; — aletheist
But why does the nominalist stop here? How do we determine that there are no further explanations to be found? — aletheist
Because that's the concept of universals. — Terrapin Station
Let's try it this way: what is your answer to why there should be predictable similiarities when we posit universals? — Terrapin Station
There's no evidence that there's anything other than particulars. — Terrapin Station
With his "The Rational is the Real", though, I think he objectifies spirit and intuition. I don't personally believe there is an evolution of spirit in a dialectical sense, although there may certainly be a logical evolution of ideas in that kind of sense. — John
So, the Philosopher "dying into the Sage" has been going on from the beginning of self-consciousness, in various spiritual forms in various cultures, I would say. I don't believe there will be a general culminating vision of Absolute Knowing. — John
In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself, — that is, he has given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation of the Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product of active Reason, which the History of the World offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in Universal History? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. But Divine Wisdom, i.e. Reason., is one and the same in the great as in the little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims at realising the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which Leibnitz attempted metaphysically in his method, i.e. in indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonising view more pressingly demanded than in Universal History; and it can be attained only by recognising the positive existence, in which that negative element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. On the one hand. the ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design has been actually, realised in it, and that evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position. — Hegel
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men. — Milton
I suppose I understand this objectification in terms of concepts. The "objective" self swims in language, is "made" of language. So, yeah, a "logical evolution of ideas," but driven on by something that is not well represented in language: emotion. Music and visual art seem like "objectifications" of the desire that drives the evolution of ideas. — R-13
No realists (except maybe some Platonists) believe that universals are determinate individuals. — aletheist
Because the particulars are being governed by a real universal - the same general law. — aletheist
Again, this way of thinking is only true if you are locked into standard issue reductionism. In a holist, four cause, view of causality, existence becomes self organising development. — apokrisis
Thus given an initial condition where everything is possible, that most general possible state is already going to suppress the actualisation of most of that possibility. — apokrisis
No, not given the technical distinction between real/reality and actual/existence. — aletheist
but the realist holds that there are some realities that are not actual. — aletheist
No, that does not solve the problem. What separates the unreal (possibility) from each form of the actual? Merely making a distinction does not "draw a boundary," and even if it did, the boundary would (by definition) be on neither side of itself. What color is the perimeter of a black ink spot on a white piece of paper? In what state is the border between Colorado and Wyoming? — aletheist
I am still not following you at all here. What do you mean by "inductive principles"? What do they have to do with the realism/nominalism debate? — aletheist
I'm not saying anything pro or con about "determinate" ... I'm just saying something about universals not being identical to particulars but having a relationship with them. — Terrapin Station
No that doesn't answer the question I'm asking. — Terrapin Station
Why should there be predictable similarities with the same universal? In other words, events at time T2 compared to T1. Why should there be predictable similarities--why shouldn't it change instead? — Terrapin Station
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