Where do you stand on the problem of universals?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Me being who I am, I think this is something of a false dichotomy (and certainly overstated in terms of political importance...), although if I absolutely had to choose I incline specifically towards class nominalism or trope nominalism, modified by Russell's observation that if nothing else the concept of "similarity" appears to be a universal.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

[Torie]

Is the law real or nominal?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Is the law real or nominal?

Nominal, but you'll REALLY go to jail if you break it too egregiously.

[Torie]

Is the law real or nominal?

Nominal, but you'll REALLY go to jail if you break it too egregiously.

While that clarifies everything. You do know I viscerally loathe philosophy, right?  What a useless and potentially mischievous endeavor. It's like voodoo. God I hated my classes in it in college. I still have nightmares about it.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

I actually think a classically realist position is easier to support when you get down to the fundamental-physics level. It's pretty easy to say that something is a "cat" or a "dog" or a "chair" or a "religion" based more on the way it makes the most sense for humans to classify it than on what it actually, substantially is. It's a lot harder to say that about something being a "charm quark" or a "Higgs boson" or a "neutrino," or a "wave" for that matter. I suppose in a way the argument I'm making here is sort of like Russsell's argument that if nothing else is a universal then "similarity" has to be, only with types of more-or-less-physical entities rather than with an abstract concept.

Is the law real or nominal?

Nominal, but you'll REALLY go to jail if you break it too egregiously.

While that clarifies everything. You do know I viscerally loathe philosophy, right?  What a useless and potentially mischievous endeavor. It's like voodoo. God I hated my classes in it in college. I still have nightmares about it.

My initial response to you was tongue-in-cheek but it also is actually part of my response to the Richard Weaver book I made fun of with the poll title. Ideas do have consequences, but because those consequences are experienced very much as "real" you really can't say that some abstruse Scholastic debate has actually rewritten normal people's minds to make them less based and tradpilled or whatever. It doesn't matter if you see your society as composed of universals or particulars to the extent that you still have to live in it. The examples given in Ideas Have Consequences are if anything less structured, systematized, and based on rigid application of principles than are the socialist ideas Weaver is complaining about; his analysis of private property falls apart the instant you apply it to any historical case of land reform, to name the most glaring case of this.

[Torie]

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

I actually think a classically realist position is easier to support when you get down to the fundamental-physics level. It's pretty easy to say that something is a "cat" or a "dog" or a "chair" or a "religion" based more on the way it makes the most sense for humans to classify it than on what it actually, substantially is. It's a lot harder to say that about something being a "charm quark" or a "Higgs boson" or a "neutrino," or a "wave" for that matter. I suppose in a way the argument I'm making here is sort of like Russsell's argument that if nothing else is a universal then "similarity" has to be, only with types of more-or-less-physical entities rather than with an abstract concept.

Is the law real or nominal?

Nominal, but you'll REALLY go to jail if you break it too egregiously.

While that clarifies everything. You do know I viscerally loathe philosophy, right?  What a useless and potentially mischievous endeavor. It's like voodoo. God I hated my classes in it in college. I still have nightmares about it.

My initial response to you was tongue-in-cheek but it also is actually part of my response to the Richard Weaver book I made fun of with the poll title. Ideas do have consequences, but because those consequences are experienced very much as "real" you really can't say that some abstruse Scholastic debate has actually rewritten normal people's minds to make them less based and tradpilled or whatever. It doesn't matter if you see your society as composed of universals or particulars to the extent that you still have to live in it. The examples given in Ideas Have Consequences are if anything less structured, systematized, and based on rigid application of principles than are the socialist ideas Weaver is complaining about; his analysis of private property falls apart the instant you apply it to any historical case of land reform, to name the most glaring case of this.

Weaver does seem like an absolute mess. I just read in wiki he disliked empiricism, as opposed to a priori absolutism. The tragedy of the commons seems like an empirical concept to me. Idiot. The key thing to learn is the concept of economic externalities (play that card and the whole libertarian house of cards collapses before their very eyes in one fell swoop as if built be a Russian oligarch who who used rubber rather than steel), when it comes to the intersection of law and economics and public policy. The rest is noise, e.g. almost everything that comes out of the mouths of philosophers. They may be even worse than theologians, who are bad enough.

Anyway, beating up on this pathetic creature is a form of bullying. Pick on folks your own size.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

I actually think a classically realist position is easier to support when you get down to the fundamental-physics level. It's pretty easy to say that something is a "cat" or a "dog" or a "chair" or a "religion" based more on the way it makes the most sense for humans to classify it than on what it actually, substantially is. It's a lot harder to say that about something being a "charm quark" or a "Higgs boson" or a "neutrino," or a "wave" for that matter. I suppose in a way the argument I'm making here is sort of like Russsell's argument that if nothing else is a universal then "similarity" has to be, only with types of more-or-less-physical entities rather than with an abstract concept.

I think you're on to something here. With regards to quarks and neutrinos and other fundamental physical constructs though, I do think most physicists think of them in broadly "nominalistic" terms. The modern approach to science tends to emphasize that the purpose of scientific theories is to explain observations, and the concepts it brings up are generally understood to be abstractions that allow you to make testable predictions rather than literal depictions of how things "really are". Actually most physicists seem pretty convinced that the standard model of particle physics isn't even correct on that level - it's just the best guess we have for how matter and energy works, but basically every physicist is dreaming of coming up with something better. If string theorists are right, then our view of particles is completely upended, but of course we have no way of telling if they are right, and we might never be able to. So we're left with the hope that there is "something" deeper behind these abstractions, but no idea how to access it.

And fundamentally, I guess this is where I land. I think Kant pretty much closed this debate when he pointed out that the "thing in itself" is fundamentally inaccessible to us - all we have is our perception of it, and the cognitive categories we use to interpret it. I think that allows us to conclude that those things are fundamentally real no matter what. And in a way, doesn't that make them universals? If we didn't share perceptions and cognitive categories, we would have no way of communicating. The fact that we can communicate must mean that, in some sense, these things have an existence outside of ourselves. Of course, the fact that our communication is always imperfect means that we only share maybe a tenuous connection to those universals, but that's a connection we can always work to strengthen.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

I actually think a classically realist position is easier to support when you get down to the fundamental-physics level. It's pretty easy to say that something is a "cat" or a "dog" or a "chair" or a "religion" based more on the way it makes the most sense for humans to classify it than on what it actually, substantially is. It's a lot harder to say that about something being a "charm quark" or a "Higgs boson" or a "neutrino," or a "wave" for that matter. I suppose in a way the argument I'm making here is sort of like Russsell's argument that if nothing else is a universal then "similarity" has to be, only with types of more-or-less-physical entities rather than with an abstract concept.

Is the law real or nominal?

Nominal, but you'll REALLY go to jail if you break it too egregiously.

While that clarifies everything. You do know I viscerally loathe philosophy, right?  What a useless and potentially mischievous endeavor. It's like voodoo. God I hated my classes in it in college. I still have nightmares about it.

My initial response to you was tongue-in-cheek but it also is actually part of my response to the Richard Weaver book I made fun of with the poll title. Ideas do have consequences, but because those consequences are experienced very much as "real" you really can't say that some abstruse Scholastic debate has actually rewritten normal people's minds to make them less based and tradpilled or whatever. It doesn't matter if you see your society as composed of universals or particulars to the extent that you still have to live in it. The examples given in Ideas Have Consequences are if anything less structured, systematized, and based on rigid application of principles than are the socialist ideas Weaver is complaining about; his analysis of private property falls apart the instant you apply it to any historical case of land reform, to name the most glaring case of this.

Weaver does seem like an absolute mess. I just read in wiki he disliked empiricism, as opposed to a prior absolutism. The tragedy of the commons seems like an empirical concept to me. Idiot. The key thing to learn is the concept of economic externalities (play that card and the whole libertarian house of cards collapses before their very eyes in one fell swoop as if built be a Russian oligarch who who used rubber rather than steel), when it comes to the intersection of law and economics and public policy. The rest is noise, e.g. almost everything that comes out of the mouths of philosophers. They may be even worse than theologians, who are bad enough.

Empiricism does kind of run a buzzsaw through a lot of these difficult-to-understand conceptual arguments, yes, although I'll note that empiricism is itself a philosophical position, just one that keeps philosophy at least a little bit closer to most people's normal experiences.

Anyway, beating up on this pathetic creature is a form of bullying. Pick on folks your own size.

With pleasure. As annoying as most find the problem of universals (both annoying to resolve and annoying that it's the sort of question philosophers and theologians think people ought to be interested in to begin with), it's even more annoying that it's most widely known for its abuse in American political "thought," a tradition characterized by parochialism and unearned self-regard at the best of times.

I think the properties of objects are conceptual abstractions we formulate to better account for our shared sensory experiences, but I think that's equally true of objects themselves and everything we call "material" (try to get a cursory view of fundamental physics and see if you can maintain a commonsense understanding of what "an object" or "matter" even is). I have no idea if that makes me a realist or a nominalist honestly.

I actually think a classically realist position is easier to support when you get down to the fundamental-physics level. It's pretty easy to say that something is a "cat" or a "dog" or a "chair" or a "religion" based more on the way it makes the most sense for humans to classify it than on what it actually, substantially is. It's a lot harder to say that about something being a "charm quark" or a "Higgs boson" or a "neutrino," or a "wave" for that matter. I suppose in a way the argument I'm making here is sort of like Russsell's argument that if nothing else is a universal then "similarity" has to be, only with types of more-or-less-physical entities rather than with an abstract concept.

I think you're on to something here. With regards to quarks and neutrinos and other fundamental physical constructs though, I do think most physicists think of them in broadly "nominalistic" terms. The modern approach to science tends to emphasize that the purpose of scientific theories is to explain observations, and the concepts it brings up are generally understood to be abstractions that allow you to make testable predictions rather than literal depictions of how things "really are". Actually most physicists seem pretty convinced that the standard model of particle physics isn't even correct on that level - it's just the best guess we have for how matter and energy works, but basically every physicist is dreaming of coming up with something better. If string theorists are right, then our view of particles is completely upended, but of course we have no way of telling if they are right, and we might never be able to. So we're left with the hope that there is "something" deeper behind these abstractions, but no idea how to access it.

And fundamentally, I guess this is where I land. I think Kant pretty much closed this debate when he pointed out that the "thing in itself" is fundamentally inaccessible to us - all we have is our perception of it, and the cognitive categories we use to interpret it. I think that allows us to conclude that those things are fundamentally real no matter what. And in a way, doesn't that make them universals? If we didn't share perceptions and cognitive categories, we would have no way of communicating. The fact that we can communicate must mean that, in some sense, these things have an existence outside of ourselves. Of course, the fact that our communication is always imperfect means that we only share maybe a tenuous connection to those universals, but that's a connection we can always work to strengthen.

Yes, you can't interact with the world or with other people at all if you don't act as if universals (and other unprovable realist constructs like qualia and, I'd tentatively argue, souls) exist, a point either misunderstood or deliberately ignored by all sorts of cranks from Weaver to "eliminative materialists" to Buddhist philosophers who are still fighting the long defeat against Yogacara after two thousand years.