Where do you fall on the realism-nominalism spectrum?

[Beet]

Probably number 5 for me. Even existence itself is merely a concept, so all "things" that we can identify only "exist" in the mind.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

3 for me, maybe a 2.  I'd consider myself an idealist rather a realist or a nominalist.  However idealism probably is closer to realism than nominalism.

[anvi]

Maybe somewhere between 2 and 3 as well.  No one was ever burned by the word "fire."

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I voted 5 though in retrospect 4 would have a better idea (Rather I would argue that all ideas and concepts must be doubted and assumed as false unless you proven to be valid).

Maybe somewhere between 2 and 3 as well.  No one was ever burned by the word "fire."

Fire is a creation of the physical laws of the universe and of chemistry as we understand them, those might not hold to be true in all universes or even on other planets. Of course, this should not get in the way of what is practical (except to remember that this is pragmatic knowledge, as is all categorization).

[DemPGH]

I voted 1 yesterday, but I had to read about what Nominalism is. As a philosophy it almost sounds facetious. Like when kids ask "why?" to everything. Just a facetious, mentally exhausting for the sake of mentally exhausting kind of position to take. Maybe like trying to unscramble an egg.

I suppose that if I were to debate a Nominalist I would take the "it's real enough" line, but I'm certain there's some kind of answer to that.

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

Aren't Ayn Rand Objectivists on the 1 side? If so put me on the 5 side.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Back in the 19th century Italian priests used a gloriously cheap trick to defeat idealists in public debates: bang on the table in front of them both and declare that that man there, why, he believes that that table there does not actually exist!

[anvi]

Maybe somewhere between 2 and 3 as well.  No one was ever burned by the word "fire."

Fire is a creation of the physical laws of the universe and of chemistry as we understand them, those might not hold to be true in all universes or even on other planets. Of course, this should not get in the way of what is practical (except to remember that this is pragmatic knowledge, as is all categorization).

Yes, fire is physical thing created under certain causal conditions, and once it's there, it has certain capacities to effect other things in various ways.  As long as this is the case on our planet or our universe, fire will exist under the right causal circumstances.  And a pragmatic categorization of whatever name we chose to refer to it is not going to be very pragmatic in the first place if it's totally divorced from the actual causal capacities of fire.  That's the point; that's why I think it's reasonable to be a realist about fire.  

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Given the dependency of modern physics on mathematical models and various other abstract trickery, it could be argued that no would ought to be answering with a '1'.

[© tweed]

Back in the 19th century Italian priests used a gloriously cheap trick to defeat idealists in public debates: bang on the table in front of them both and declare that that man there, why, he believes that that table there does not actually exist!

you say the table is in my head, but clearly it is not in my head, it is right here on the floor.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Back in the 19th century Italian priests used a gloriously cheap trick to defeat idealists in public debates: bang on the table in front of them both and declare that that man there, why, he believes that that table there does not actually exist!

Isn't that basically the same cheap trick that has been used against Idealists since forever? I'm thinking popular reactions to postmodernism here.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Back in the 19th century Italian priests used a gloriously cheap trick to defeat idealists in public debates: bang on the table in front of them both and declare that that man there, why, he believes that that table there does not actually exist!

Those were either dumb idealists or a dumb audience then.  Idealism (at least in the sense I understand it) does not deny that physical objects exists but rather it denies that physical object are the only objects that exist. (There may be some extreme versions of idealism that do deny the existence of the physical.)  Also it seems to me that people whose profession requires them to believe in transubstantiation are poorly placed to argue that physical reality is all that exists or matters.

[DemPGH]

I'm reminded of something. "Cold is in the head." That is a saying attributed to the legendary Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins coach Vince Lombardi. Of course Vince was not making a detached, aloof, cold, non-humanist philosophical statement, he was trying to build toughness. But nonetheless the parallel is obvious.

The problem is that "cold" exists as a very tangible reality. Only 40+ years after playing in a football game endearingly referred to as the Ice Bowl, players still get numb fingers and ears on chilly days as a result of the frostbite they sustained.

I suppose the school of realism that comes closest to me sounds like this: "The doctrine that matter as the object of perception has real existence and is neither reducible to universal mind or spirit nor dependent on a perceiving agent." I think that says something with which I am in complete agreement, although there are many, many qualifiers and schools of thought in these things.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Trolling aside, I'm not entirely sure what reality actually is, even if I'm quite sure that it does exist.

[Insula Dei]

Back in the 19th century Italian priests used a gloriously cheap trick to defeat idealists in public debates: bang on the table in front of them both and declare that that man there, why, he believes that that table there does not actually exist!

Those were either dumb idealists or a dumb audience then.  Idealism (at least in the sense I understand it) does not deny that physical objects exists but rather it denies that physical object are the only objects that exist. (There may be some extreme versions of idealism that do deny the existence of the physical.)  Also it seems to me that people whose profession requires them to believe in transubstantiation are poorly placed to argue that physical reality is all that exists or matters.

'Idealism' is vague enough to be defined however you want it to, but in the above context generally can be taken to indicate granting a priority to the human faculties of knowledge over the ontological existence an sich of the objects of knowledge, whatever their nature. Esse est percipi.

[barfbag]

If things exist in the mind, then they do exist to a certain degree. We can only prove things exist in the mind so I'd have to say I'm a nominalist, but one can be a little of both.