See the bolded passages in this post, which address this exact point. Bertrand Russell, in particular, points out the ambiguity of the word 'idea' in this context, which at once refers only to one's own mental content, but also to something which is the same for every observer, even though it is conceptual in nature.

There seems to be cognitive gap between ability to use/manufacture tools (engineers) and self-awareness (philosophers). — TheMadFool

People delight in using that example to say See! Animals can reason! What makes you think humans are special!?

Try explaining the concept of prime to a crow.

OK, I read it, but I couldn't find any explanation of how concepts or universals are thought to exist beyond the instances of their being thought, spoken or written, in anything but a merely formal or stipulational sense. The concept is only the same for each "observer", in my view, insofar as it can be specified in language.

Take the triangle; it is specified as a space enclosed by three conjoined lines; and anyone who is familiar with and understands that specification can visualize a triangle. But each person's visualization will be different, unless the triangle is an equilateral, and even then it seems plausible to think the visualization process would be different in each case.

People delight in using that example to say See! Animals can reason! What makes you think humans are special!?

Try explaining the concept of prime to a crow. — Wayfarer

To play the devil's advocate, my response would be that in corvids (crows) the basic cognitive component (logic) seems advanced enough to compare to our ancestors H. habilis (the first tools). Let a coupla million years go by and we could see corvids doing advanced math, philosophy, all the intellectual activities we engage in. Having said that, a coupla million years is a collossal, mind-boggling, amount of time - there's many a slip between the cup and the lip.

So, does the concept exist apart from the instances of it being thought? — Janus

If nobody on earth thinks of the alphabet for one full minute, did the alphabet disappear for one minute?

From a lecture Karl Popper gave on the subject: — Olivier5

Note that in this lecture Popper challenges both the monist and dualist views and proposes, instead, "a pluralist view ... a view of the universe that recognizes at least three different but interacting sub-universes": the physical world; the mental world; and the world of ideas and cultural artifacts.

The question is, why aren't blue whales with their humongous brains more intelligent than humans? — TheMadFool

Because it’s not about size - it’s about what you do with it...

Because it’s not about size - it’s about what you do with it... — Possibility

I was thinking if a bird (the New Caledonian Crow) can manage such feats of intelligence, why not a blue whale? The size difference between a crow brain and a whale brain is so great that size should matter. Remember humans fall between the two and there's a noticeable upward trend in intelligence. Are you saying the pattern breaks down abruptly?

Don't forget we're assuming blue whales aren't as if not more intelligent as/than humans. No evidence of that as far as I know. Who knows? Blue whales might've already found the solution to the hard problem of consciousness.

I would certainly say that scientific theories exist and that the author implies description of reality by them. Of course, the theories enter the discussion of science as they are made. Time, Hypothetico-Deductive Method (HDM) and credibility of the theories will determine which theories that best describe reality, whom of the authors are the "winners". One may say that scientific theories have efficacy in effectuating changes in the World toward a scientific ideal of perfection.

As such scientific realism is completely open in discussing all that's subject to proof. I can't imagine ways any dualism is supposed to limit scientific realism. To commit to science is to commit to scientific realism. Any limiting ideas of the scientist represents a barrier against conducting the best science, a scientist's handicap which is deeply negative, a kind of stupidity. The ideal scientist has no such barriers.

Good?

I’ve been watching a TV series on whales, and their level of intelligence seems pretty high to me. They appear to have quite complex language use and evidence of learned cultural norms. Not enough to compare with humans, but I think they’d hold their own against most other mammals.

I do think size is only part of the story. Computers started out with their complexity correlating with size, and then at some point this correlation seemed to reverse.

The ideal scientist has no such barriers. — DrOlsnesLea

So you are a pluralist like Popper?

If nobody on earth thinks of the alphabet for one full minute, did the alphabet disappear for one minute? — Olivier5

Disappear in what way and from where? In any case the alphabet is instantiated in countless texts, bur apart from that and from people thinking and speaking in alphabetically constituted words, what kind of existence do you think it has?

Note that in this lecture Popper challenges both the monist and dualist views and proposes, instead, "a pluralist view ... a view of the universe that recognizes at least three different but interacting sub-universes": the physical world; the mental world; and the world of ideas and cultural artifacts. — Olivier5

I don't deny there is a mental world, or more accurately there are mental worlds, nor that there is a world of ideas and cultural artifacts. But these worlds are not hermetically sealed from, or independent of, the physical world. Actually I agree with Markus Gabriel that worlds don't really exist, and I quite like his term for these "worlds": which is 'fields of sense'.

So, in this kind of sense there is the world of fashion, the world of football, the world of advertising, and so on; there are countless worlds in this sense, and they all have a different kind of existence. The important point though, relating back to the thread from which this thread was created, that these worlds do not have a substantive existence as the physical field of sense does. This point seems to create a lot of confusion, as shown in your question, conceptualized in physical ( visual) terms, about the alphabet disappearing, which to me seems like a kind of category mistake.

The 'substantive existence' of the sensable world is in constant flux, arising and perishing from moment to moment. In the vastness of cosmic time, it is a mere shadow, a lightning flash, a bubble on a stream. That is why philosophers have sought the reality of the imperishable.

Over breakfast I found a splendid book about this. (The Google edition was the best-priced.)

The Popper remark about being able to change things reminds me of Cratylus 387a

"Socrates
Then actions also are performed according to their own nature, not according to our opinion. For instance, if we undertake to cut anything, ought we to cut it as we wish, and with whatever instrument we wish, or shall we, if we are willing to cut each thing in accordance with the nature of cutting and being cut, and with the natural instrument, succeed in cutting it, and do it rightly, whereas if we try to do it contrary to nature we shall fail and accomplish nothing?"

Translated by Fowler

The 'substantive existence' of the sensable world is in constant flux, arising and perishing from moment to moment. In the vastness of cosmic time, it is a mere shadow, a lightning flash, a bubble on a stream. — Wayfarer

I don't see it that way at all. The substantive existence of things is obviously not changeless, but, taken as a whole, it is virtually, perhaps actually, everlasting. According to physical theory the atoms that constitute your body were formed billions of years ago in stars and are virtually indestructible.

When it comes to philosophy, the subject was always been seeking out the imperishable, changeless, the first principle. See for instance the thread about the Phaedo. Obviously the conception of philosophy changes over time, but science itself is, or was, principally concerned with discovering the underlying universal principles and laws. That is why Stephen Hawking wrote, with his typical hubris, that science sought to 'know the mind of God' (even though he didn't believe in God). In my view, where it has come unstuck is the exclusive emphasis on empiricism, meaning that only what can be seen and measured by sense and instruments, and mathematical conjecture bound to those perceptions, is accepted as real.

For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses*. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is sugar or what is intruder. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.

Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

* a fact which was abundantly illustrated in the thread which this discussion split from.

To decide on "pluralism", I say that science lights the way in such a fashion that an Atheist physicalist can become, by science, both religious and a believer in ghosts and spirits.
See phenomenology? In a sensitive and ethical/moral way, all comes under science insofar it can be studied systematically. If science says something exists, it exists! It's not more complicated than this.

, in this kind of sense there is the world of fashion, the world of football, the world of advertising, and so on; there are countless worlds in this sense, and they all have a different kind of existence. The important point though, relating back to the thread from which this thread was created, that these worlds do not have a substantive existence as the physical field of sense does — Janus

What do you mean by substantive existence?

Not sure I see the connection. Care to elaborate?

science lights the way — DrOlsnesLea

By definition.

The traditional distinction in philosophy is between reason and sensation - both central to knowledge, but separate faculties. Many animals have far superior sensory abilities to humans, but none of them can speak, or reason, as far as we can tell (leaving aside Caledonian crows and Paul the Octopus). — Wayfarer

I don't see how reasoning could be separate from sensation. Reasoning is a sensation, no? How do you know when you're reasoning and when you're not, if not by sensation?

Not only that, but what are you reasoning with, or about? What form does your reasoning take? And what is reasoning if not processing sensory information to achieve some goal?

Philosophy is ultimately a way of socializing and impressing others with the artful use of big words, hence most of the problems of philosophy are derived from the use of language in this way.

don't see how reasoning could be separate from sensation. — Harry Hindu

Very simple. Senses are for info gathering, reasoning is for info processing.

Yep. And with a healthy dollop of metaphysical reductionism applied to info processing, one decent enough answer to the thread title distills out quite nicely.

one decent enough answer to the thread title — Mww

IMNSHO the thread title is a bit lame and should be changed to: New York New York -- Misery of Nominalism

The reminds me of the story of Zhuangzi's butcher, cook Ting, whose knife never dulls because he cuts between the joints of the oxen, that is, according to the natural division of things.

When it comes to philosophy, the subject was always been seeking out the imperishable, changeless, the first principle. See for instance the thread about the Phaedo. — Wayfarer

My reading of the dialogue is that the Forms are hypothetical, the way Socrates arranges the world in order to make sense of it. That the world is and how it is in accord with his hypothesis is something he does not address.

Misery of Nominalism — Olivier5

......explains the dearth of commemorations of Roscellinus.

Glad you noticed!

I stole this from someone here, maybe you:


Ockham's razors

My reading of the dialogue is that the Forms are hypothetical, the way Socrates arranges the world in order to make sense of it. — Fooloso4

No, I don't think that is so. I think the forms are understood to be real, in the sense that principles are real. Where do you see principles? They can only be grasped by reason.

Reasoning is a sensation, no? — Harry Hindu

No. Burning your fingers is a sensation. Two plus two is not a sensation. The most elementary steps of linguistic reasoning are not sensations. This doesn't mean that reason and sensable impressions are entirely separate. But as said previously many animals have far greater sensory abilities than humans, but they don't reason. (I know this is not a fashionable opinion.)

Objects of the five senses. Ideas don't have substantive existence except in their physical instantiations. This is not to say they don't possess non-physical attributes. For me this is the point of aspect dualism; from a human perspective (at least some) things possess both mental and physical attributes or aspects, but it does not follow that anything is substantial in a mental sense. To be substantial is, to my way of thinking, to be an object of the five senses and their augmentations.