Jon, many thanks! Adding to the discussion: Does that mean that if I told a nominalist that if I repeatedly shuffled a > deck of cards, and then looked at the top card, there was a 1/4 *chance* > of drawing a heart, they would say I was talking gibberish? > > JAS: Probably not; but once you have finished shuffling the cards, there is technically no *objective *chance involved at all; at that point, the top card is in one of the four suits, but you simply do not know which until you look at it. Arguably, there is no objective chance even *before *you shuffle the cards, because the act of shuffling does not make the arrangement of the cards *genuinely *random. It is an *epistemic *limitation that makes it uncertain, rather than an *ontological *limitation.
EC: Well... that seems like a different sort of issue. That is a straight forward issue of whether we exist in a deterministic world, and that can't be nominalist-realist distinction, can it? If we allow probability of any type, then before I begin shuffling there *is* a probability that I will turn over a heart at the end, but once I am done shuffling, any reference to probability is for some quite different purpose. That is, it would still make lots of sense to be talking about probability at the end, if I was teaching someone how to calculate pot-odds in poker, in which case "probability of flipping a heart" is caveated by "in future situations like the current ones in crucial ways." But it would not make sense for me to talk about the probability at the end in reference to the actual top-card at that moment. Or, to phrase it differently, if we believe that *anything* entails chance, we might as well believe that the future order of a deck of cards, which is about to be repeatedly shuffled with a reasonable amount of random-imperfection, is an example of a non-determined outcome. I can't see how being a nominalist or a realist would affect that judgment. The issue of how explain the probability is a different issue. You could phrase it as a frequentist talking about sufficiently similar situations (which I take to be a nominalist interpretation). You could phrase it in terms of possible worlds (ala Carnap). You could phrase it as a genuine probabilists who feels the future is not determined (as I think Peirce would). However, unless those phrasings can be distinguished in terms of potential-outcomes under certain arranged conditions... the metaphysics behind them is just window dressing; it is valuable, if at all, only in terms of the relative ability to transmit true information to the current audience, and not in terms of any inherent similarity to that-upon-which-we-will-ultimately-agree. ----- > I suspect that the nominalist would not be flustered by such claims, > though they might caveat them in minor ways. > > If I am correct about that, then it is unclear to me what *actual* > happening we could observe, under the circumstances of some to-be-arranged > experiment, to distinguish which approach is correct. > JAS: I agree that nominalists will not likely be troubled by these kinds of questions. However, they also will not be able to provide explanations for their common-sense answers, other than something like, "Because that is just the way that those individual objects (and ones sufficiently similar to them) happen to behave." Again, Peirce's primary objection to this aspect of nominalism is that it tends to block the way of inquiry; if one does not believe that there are *real *qualities and *real *habits/laws apart from their actualizations, then why go looking for them? The formulation of a "law of nature" as a conditional necessity that governs an inexhaustible continuum of potential cases--e.g., "if I *were *to scratch *any *diamond with a knife, then it *would *remain unmarked"--is unwarranted under nominalism, except as an inexplicable brute fact. EC: I'm still struggling to understand what that looks like in practice. If I ask a nominalist why all the fried, salted, pork belly I have had is (generally) delicious, you say that they couldn't answer "because bacon is delicious" or "because bacon has a salt-fat-protein ration that humans have evolved to find reinforcing" or "because the devil wants you to eat more unclean food", they could only answer "Because that is just the way that those individual objects happen to be" or "Because those objects which you happen to mistakenly lump under the term 'bacon', produce a variety of states which you mistakenly label 'delicious'." I can't imagine meeting a person who limited themselves in a such a manner outside painfully awkward academic conversations. I don't mean to seem obtuse or obstructionist, but this still seems like exactly the type of conflict that Pragmatism should be able to render moot, rather than have a side on. I note that while no one above has made quite so bold a statement, a few people seem to have chimed in to say that they think the distinction is of little importance. The best examples above evidencing a consequence of which side you fall on in the nominalist-realist debates are highly social examples, in which I suspect (as indicated in my reply to John) taking a side on the nominalist-realist debates is merely a smokescreen for forwarding pre-existing biases, with no logical connection to the intellectual distinction. Let us say, for example, that I believe "race" is a construct that is not "real" in any sense beyond a bunch of people happening to agree to treat people differently based on a hodge-podge of poorly correlated variables. I take it that makes me a "nominalist" with respect to race, and it is a good example, because I really do believe that. It does not follow from my thinking that racial labels are "just labels" that I think such labels have no affect, nor does it follow that I don't think other labels reflect real differences. It is primarily a statement that I am confident that the end-time-agreement will not include those particular labels, i.e., that when people come to think clearly about the issues and the dust settles from the investigations, the endeavor will be understood as vacuous. Meanwhile, I am a realist about all sorts of other things, including being an aggressive psychological realist (which I have tried not to bring out in response to some of the replies above, because I think it would be a distraction here). In that context, once you have Peirce's definition of "real", the only coherent thing the philosophical nominalist could be arguing is that there will be no end-time-agreement about what types of things are worth labeling or what any labels should be. Is that what is going on here? ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Supervisory Survey Statistician U.S. Marine Corps <echar...@american.edu> On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 1:40 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote: > Eric, List: > > Responses inserted below. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Mon, Jan 30, 2017 at 10:14 AM, Eric Charles < > eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Jon, >> As I understand you, a nominalist would say that "possibilities" are not >> part of "real" and that "habit/law" is not part of "real". >> > > JAS: My understanding is that a nominalist would say that "possibilities" > and "habits/laws" are real *only *to the extent that they are > instantiated in *actual *things and events. Peirce would acknowledge > that they *exist *only to that extent, but that they are *real* in > themselves such that we can meaningfully refer to them as "may-bes" and > "would-bes," respectively. Remember, "real" here means "being what it is > regardless of how any person or finite group of people thinks about it" and > "the object of the final opinion, the consensus of an infinite community > after indefinite inquiry." > > >> Does that mean that if I told a nominalist that if I repeatedly shuffled >> a deck of cards, and then looked at the top card, there was a 1/4 >> *chance* of drawing a heart, they would say I was talking gibberish? >> > > JAS: Probably not; but once you have finished shuffling the cards, there > is technically no *objective *chance involved at all; at that point, the > top card is in one of the four suits, but you simply do not know which > until you look at it. Arguably, there is no objective chance even *before > *you shuffle the cards, because the act of shuffling does not make the > arrangement of the cards *genuinely *random. It is an *epistemic *limitation > that makes it uncertain, rather than an *ontological *limitation. > > >> What if I told them it is likely organisms will exist in 2 million years >> with traits that do not exist today? >> >> What if I told them that, as a general rule, things that are heavier than >> the surrounding air sink towards the center of the earth when released? >> >> Or that, as a matter of habit, I put my right sock on before my left? >> >> I suspect that the nominalist would not be flustered by such claims, >> though they might caveat them in minor ways. >> >> If I am correct about that, then it is unclear to me what *actual* >> happening we could observe, under the circumstances of some to-be-arranged >> experiment, to distinguish which approach is correct. >> >> P.S. I anticipate you might accuse me of begging the question in that >> last part (by use of the italicized word), but I am inquiring nonetheless, >> as it seems a fair question for a pragmatist to ask. >> > > JAS: I agree that nominalists will not likely be troubled by these kinds > of questions. However, they also will not be able to provide explanations > for their common-sense answers, other than something like, "Because that is > just the way that those individual objects (and ones sufficiently similar > to them) happen to behave." Again, Peirce's primary objection to this > aspect of nominalism is that it tends to block the way of inquiry; if one > does not believe that there are *real *qualities and *real *habits/laws > apart from their actualizations, then why go looking for them? The > formulation of a "law of nature" as a conditional necessity that governs an > inexhaustible continuum of potential cases--e.g., "if I *were *to scratch *any > *diamond with a knife, then it *would *remain unmarked"--is unwarranted > under nominalism, except as an inexplicable brute fact. >
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