Dear list:
As much as I agree with Stephen and pingpong balls, I think this nominalism/realism divide is an essential aspect for learning about philosophy. To know the earnestness of interlocutor arguments, to see how unreliable narratives can be; these are all issues with which Peirce was immersed (cf., opening of The Fixation of Belief). Moreover, I would think the problem with philosophical arguments begin with statements like “Peirce is at the end of life a modal realist”, for first, the interpreter must now deal with a new word and determine if that meaning fits with his own experience. Sometimes, coining of a new word just adds to the noise but the compulsion to do so is, nonetheless, unforgiving (cf., Ideoscopy and phenomenology). “*Now ‘prior’ and ‘better known’ are ambiguous terms, for there is a difference between what is prior and better known in the order of being and what is prior and better known to man. I mean that objects nearer to sense are prior and better known to man; objects without qualification prior and better known are those further from sense.*” ~Prior Analytics I would recommend considering which of Peirce's tools is best for promoting movement and not simply the absurdity. Best, Jerry R On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 2:14 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > On Jan 25, 2017, at 8:28 PM, Stephen C. Rose <stever...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Peirce was more than a pingpong ball in a long and repetitive exegetical > battle involving I suppose the core group of this forum. But I have had > enough. I simply will not open mail from the correspondents until > something that is not a bnary ether-or argument that dwells on "what Peirce > thinks" as though he has not changed himself in a century. Sorry for the > rant and if I am alone in my reaction then I will willingly confess to > having lost patience and being somewhat saddened by it all. > > > It would be nice to push on to some other topics. Sorry for my part I may > have played in all this. My own interests are philosophical. So while > getting what Peirce said is important it’s more the philosophical arguments > that matter to my eyes. > > To that line since I think we all agree that Peirce is at the end of life > a modal realist, it’d be interesting trying to think through how one might > respond to criticisms of modal realism. I’m here thinking less of what > Peirce did say but how one might apply a Peircean inspired response to > critics. > > The usual reason people don’t like modal realism is just that it seems > inherently unintuitive. My sense is that usually that’s because they want > to think in nominalistic terms of real material objects rather than > recognizing possibilities aren’t mind-dependent. Often there’s also a kind > of latent remnant of 19th century determinism at play. That is there’s an > assumption that to be real is to be actual. > > A stronger reason to be skeptical of modal realism is ontological > simplicity. Ockham’s Razor is often brought up which is funny given > Ockham’s nominalism. Lewis’ approach here is to say he’s not asking you to > believe in more things of a different kind merely more things of the same > kind. I’ll confess that seems a bit of a dodge. Here again I think the > issue is in assuming realism of possibilities is creating a new ontological > entity. I’m not sure it is if we already have the notion of possibilities. > That is there seems to be some sneaky shifting of possibility to possible > world as if the two were ontologically different. That is again I think > nominalism is sneaking in. To say something is real but not actual avoids > the problem. That’s because all you are really saying is whether its being > depends upon a finite number of minds, not what its being is. > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to l...@list.iupui.edu 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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