Dear Eric,
Here is one practical implication. Is a human really by nature, as
Aristotle said, a zoon politikon, a political (polis or community) animal,
determined to live well, whose end is to be found in the good life of the
community?
Or is a human by nature simply an animal, determined, as Hobbes
nominalistically put it, to live in an individualistic "state of nature" as
"...a condition of Warre of every one against every one," which required a
social contract for there to be society.
This nominalistic view of the social as conventional and as divorced
from nature entails a view that society is a non-natural construction.
Peirce's realism allows the social as constituent of nature and reality
itself.
Gene Halton
On Jan 27, 2017 6:19 PM, "Eric Charles" <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Oh hey, my first post to the list....
>
> I must admit that I find much of the recent discussion baffling. In part,
> this is because I have never had anyone explain the Nominalism-Realism
> distinction in a way that made sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I think I
> understand the argument in the ancient context. However, one of the biggest
> appeals of American Philosophy, for me, is its ability to eliminate (or
> disarm) longstanding philosophical problems.
>
> With that in mind, I have never been able to make sense of the
> nominalist-realist debate in the context of Peirce (or James, etc.). The
> best I can do is to wonder: If I am, in a general sense, a realist, in that
> I think people respond to things (without any *a priori* dualistic
> privileging of mental things vs. physical things), what difference does it
> make if I think collections-of-responded-to-things are "real" as a
> collection, or just a collection of "reals"?
>
> I know it might be a big ask, but could someone give an attempt at
> explaining it to me? Either the old fashioned way, by explaining what issue
> is at argument here.... or, if someone is feeling *even more*
> adventurous, by explaining what practical difference it makes in my action
> which side of this debate I am on (i.e., what habit will I have formed if I
> firmly believe one way or the other?).
>
> Best,
> Eric
>
> -----------
> Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> Supervisory Survey Statistician
> U.S. Marine Corps
>
>
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