“One important key to Dr. Carus’s opinions is the recognition of the fact that, like many other philosophers, he is a nominalist tinctured with realistic opinions.” ~Peirce
“I look upon Mr. Peirce as an extreme nominalist, or, if he prefers it, as a nominal realist soaked with nominalistic opinions. He professes to be a realist, but he rescinds the foundation of realism.” ~Carus "The famous dispute between Nominalists and Realists would never have been heard of, if, instead of transferring the Platonic Ideas into a crude Latin phraseology, the spirit of Plato had been truly understood and appreciated." ~Jowett, c.f., Lady Welby, *Meaning and Metaphor* "Rhetoric’s chief rival would now be sophistry. Socrates says as much in his account of rhetoric; but when Socrates says it again to Callicles, Callicles expresses nothing but loathing for sophistry. Callicles believes the chief rival to rhetoric is philosophy." ~Seth Benardete, *The Rhetoric of Morality and Philosophy: Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus * Best, Jerry Rhee On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 9:29 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon- I fully agree. I think the search for 'this' and 'only this' meaning > of a term slips into that essentialism of 'ontological absolutes'. > > Edwina > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Awbrey" <[email protected]> > To: "Arisbe List" <[email protected]>; "Inquiry List" <[email protected]>; > "Peirce List" <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2017 10:15 AM > Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and > Charybdis that Pragmatism Must Navigate Its Middle Way Between > > > > Peircers, >> >> We've been through the nominalism versus realism question so many times >> that >> I can't think of anything fresh to say about it. When the use of words >> like >> Universal, General, Continuous vs. Particular, Singular, Individual comes >> up >> I find it more useful to focus on the pragmatics of language use relative >> to >> the context of interpretation, frame of reference, sign relational space, >> or >> universe of discourse at hand than to go chasing after ontological >> absolutes. >> >> But I did find this previous comment on Houser on Forster on Peirce while >> I was looking for something else, and it reflects my sense that Peirceans >> have more trouble controlling that slippery slide toward what I've called >> “essentialism” or “ontologism” than they do checking nominalistic drift. >> >> Regards, >> >> Jon >> >> https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/09/21/nominalism-and-ess >> entialism-are-the-scylla-and-charybdis-that-pragmatism-must >> -navigate-its-middle-way-between/ >> >> On 9/20/2012 6:10 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: >> >>> Peirce Listers, >>> >>> Earlier this summer, Ayşe Mermutlu posted a notice of Nathan Houser's >>> review >>> of Paul Forster's "Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism" on the Facebook >>> page >>> of the Charles S. Peirce Society and a brief discussion ensued. >>> >>> 1. http://www.facebook.com/groups/peircesociety/ >>> 2. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29410-peirce-and-the-threat-of-nominalism/ >>> 3. http://www.facebook.com/groups/peircesociety/permalink/ >>> 147723215363679/ >>> >>> My initial comment was this -- >>> >>> JA: Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and Charybdis >>> that Pragmatism must navigate its middle way between. >>> >>> On being asked what I meant by "essentialism", >>> I glossed it as follows -- >>> >>> JA: This is idea that all phenomena are explained by absolute >>> (monadic, non-relative, or ontological) essences inhering >>> in objects, as opposed to any notion that some phenomena >>> can be explained only in terms of relations among objects. >>> For instance, in semiotics, essentialism leads to the idea >>> that signhood is a permanent essence inhering in something, >>> as a matter of its ontology, as opposed to a role that >>> something performs within the setting of a sign relation. >>> >>> On further interrogation, I added this -- >>> >>> JA: If nominalism is the doctrine that generals are only names and >>> only individuals have objective existence, then essentialism is >>> the doctrine that all names (logical terms) refer to properties >>> of individuals. So a term like “father” is only a relative term >>> relative to the perspective of a non-omniscient being who cannot >>> see what individuals are destined to be fathers and what not. >>> >>> I think it's fair to say that most of the Peirce crew is handy enough >>> when it comes to steering clear of nominalism's rock-monster, but not >>> so well-drilled in navigating safely by essentialism's whirly places. >>> At any rate, I keep seeing a drift in that direction pulling the good >>> ship Pragmatism into the eddy of a most likely futile sea battle, and >>> I thought it incumbent on the duty of my watch to report what I see. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Jon >>> >>> >> -- >> >> academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey >> my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ >> isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA >> facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > -------------------- > > > >> ----------------------------- >> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON >> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to >> [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L >> but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the >> BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce >> -l/peirce-l.htm . >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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