Ben, List: I agree that Peirce's realism still recognized the indexical/reactive/resistant aspect of individual existence (2ns). My thought was to identify conceivable practical differences between extreme versions of the two views in an effort to clarify any such differences that may exist between intermediate versions.
Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 10:48 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > Eric, Jon S., list, > > I don't think that the nominalist and realist views are symmetrical as you > suggest with regard to generals and individuals. A Peircean realist will > say that individuals have some generality but still can only be in one > place at a time, unlike "more-general" generals, and would never say that > every term designating an individual is a mere _*flatus vocis*_ as many a > nominalist has called every general term. The individual in Peirce's view > is not a mere construct but instead is forced indexically on a mind by > reaction and resistance. Peirce somewhere also says that a universe of > discourse is likewise distinguished indexically. For Peirce, the individual > is the reactive/resistant, and reaction/resistance is Secondness, a basic > phaneroscopic category. > > Let's bring into your apple-picker scenario some non-extraneous generals > that would make a difference between the two apple pickers. For example, > they get into an argument about which apples each of them is allowed to > pick. Apple picker Alf says that he's allowed to pick any apples only in > the eastern area and that apple picker Beth is allowed to pick any apples > only in the western area, while Beth says that each of them should be able > to pick any apples anywhere in the area. Alf says that the rules prescribe > the east-west split, while Beth says that those rules are unfair and should > be ignored or evaded. Alf says not that the rules are fair but instead that > there is no such thing as "fair" apart from what the rules state in > individual documents or announcements. Beth doesn't expound a full-blown > doctrine of either natural law or revolutionary justice, but simply > insists, "fair is fair." I won't say that Alf is a strict nominalist and > Beth a strict scholastic realist, but just that they tend respectively > toward nominalism (Alf) and realism (Beth). At their respective worsts, Alf > promotes conformity with a cruel and unjust regime, while Beth promotes the > breakdown of the rule of law. Alf's attitude is more congenial to the idea > that there is no idea of fairness above that of the state. On the other > hand, some nominalists would argue that nominalism and the > more-nominalistic brands of positivism are at least a good holding action > against the militant ideas that contributed to the vast bloodshed in the > 20th Century. My picture doesn't quite converge with Edwina's picture but I > don't mean to deny her picture either. Nominalism and realism are pretty > general ideas that could get rooted in practice in disparate ways. > > I once read a web page where somebody argued that HTML markup that > complies with official, explicit HTML standards is right "by definition." > This was as if the standards themselves had not been devised according to > some more general and probably less definite idea of what standards should > be like and as if there could be no idea of HTML rightness that would > require the revision of the official, explicit standards promulgated on > individual dates in specific documents by the World Wide Web Consortium. > Now, for a while the Mozilla Firefox browser adhered to the standards in > certain cases where the standards were problematic. I don't think that the > Firefox designers denied the need for revised standards, based on a more > general idea of standards, but they didn't like the idea of rebellion by > browser designers (such rebellion does make it more difficult to design web > pages that work in all browsers). But they took this "letter of the law" > attitude to an extreme. (I'm thinking in particular of how Firefox treated > two or more directly successive hyphens in a hidden comment - IIRC, it > treated them as a hidden comment's closing tag (except the double hyphen in > the opening tag), whereas other browsers and most webpage designers treated > -->, a double hyphen followed directly by a greater-than sign, as the one > and only way to do a hidden comment's closing tag. For a while I found > myself deleting or replacing with equals-signs many strings of hyphens that > Joe Ransdell had placed between hidden-comment tags at Arisbe. Anyway, > Mozilla finally gave in and said something like "We don't have to change > our browser for this, but we will.") > > Best, Ben >
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