> On Mar 27, 2017, at 7:40 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > wrote: > > I apologize for repeating myself--or rather, for repeating John Sowa--but I > still find myself struggling to understand exactly what he meant by this. > > JFS: Every universal is a specification for some kind of diagram, and every > particular is something we classify by relating it to some diagram ... Then > the distinction between nominalism & realism depends on the way you interpret > the specification: Is it just a verbal agreement, or is it a law of nature > that is independent of anything we may say? > > What kind of diagram does the universal "red" specify, or the universal > "lion"? How do we relate a particular instance of redness, or a particular > lion, to such a diagram?
I can’t speak for John, but I’d assume a theoretical diagram would be a specification of the locations of all red things. This is an other reason why I think the appeal to diagrams isn’t quite what it’s portrayed to be since a diagram for any robust universal would seem to require an infinite space.
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