On 1/24/2017 6:33 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Essentially, nominalism denies universals or common attributes have reality in themselves; it considers them to be mere terms created by man for these 'commonalities'.
Yes. And one of the worst examples is its treatment of the laws of science. Rudolf Carnap, for example, had studied physics, and he taught a course on the philosophy of science for many years. In it, he repeated Ernst Mach's claim that the "laws of physics" are merely "summaries of data". Martin Gardner, who took Carnap's course at the U. of Chicago, organized his notes in book form and got Carnap's permission, comments, revisions, and approval to publish it. It explicitly states that the laws of science are "summaries of data". Carnap, Rudolf (1966) An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, edited by Martin Gardner, New York: Dover. Einstein denounced the "Angst vor der Metaphysik" of Mach, Russell, and the logical positivists. He called Mach "a good experimental physicist, but a miserable philosopher". He admitted that Mach's emphasis on experiment and observation was important. But the idea of observation led Einstein to his Gedanken experiments, which were a brilliant *perversion* of Mach. Peirce would have been delighted with Einstein's Gedanken experiments because they are a further development of his ideas about diagrammatic reasoning. See the quotation below. In writing that, Peirce was thinking about David Hume and "advanced thinkers of the present day" (1894), such as Ernst Mach and Karl Pearson. In his _Grammar of Science_ (1892) Pearson said "science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind... In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." John _______________________________________________________________________ From CP 1.129 Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any metaphysics -- not by any means every man who holds the ordinary reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn -- and you have found one whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized metaphysics with which they are packed. We must philosophize, said the great naturalist Aristotle -- if only to avoid philosophizing. Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has to have one; and it will influence his life greatly. Far better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized and not be allowed to run loose.
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