RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[John Collier]

Jerry, List,

Thanks for your response, Jerry. We are in agreement on a number of points that 
I will mark below. Others, not so much. My PhD thesis was an argument for 
realism that was basically Peircean, starting out with separating Peirce’s 
criterion for cognitive significance from even weak verificationism. Together 
they imply relativism (and nominalism), which sets up my search later for an 
alternative to verificationism to get at truth. It wasn’t entirely successful, 
but I was able to argue that incommensurability about meaning (from Quine and 
Kuhn) was a pragmatic issue, and show how this could be used to tease out 
differing but hidden background assumptions ( Polanyi’s tacit knowledge) to 
establish commensurability in at least some cases, and allow for a realist view 
of scientific progress. My remarks about nominalism and realism were largely 
based in this analysis. I should have published it, but I got involved with an 
information theoretic approach to self-organization in biology that quickly 
took up all my available time. Apparently there is still some confusion about 
these issues, especially concerning sociological and logical issues. As you 
probably know, the relativists focussed on and largely tried to reduce the 
logical issues to sociological ones. Now that this project has largely failed, 
perhaps there is room for my thesis again.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2017 6:09 AM
To: John Collier ; Peirce List 
Cc: Eric Charles ; Helmut Raulien 

Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

John:

Thanks for your interesting and provocative insights.

By way of background, I have compared the various theories of nominalism and 
realism for more than 20 years.  I find your values deeply embedded in the 
assertion that one is a weaker hypothesis than the other.  Often, nominalists 
appeal to the role of authority, historical precedence.  (Think of the role of 
precedence in our legal and political systems.)


Some points of your post deserves to be highlighted.

Peirce thought we could get out of this by abduction, but empiricists don't 
allow this as part of logic. Nominalism says nothing else about the real 
essence of things. Realists have to add something in order to make their 
claims. Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything more to do 
science.

1.  Scientific empiricism, as I understand it, is virtually independent of 
any concern about abduction.  In physics, chemistry and politics, empiricism 
seeks ways to justify past, present or future events.  (Often, with the aid of 
statistics.)

Agreed.

2. “Names”, as I pointed out, are critical to the logic of chemistry.  Each 
chemical identity is an individual polynomial.  It is not historically or 
grammatically possible to completely separate the concept of  nominalism from 
the concept of names, is it?  The thread connecting the concept of nominalism 
to names may be weak, but it cannot be completely ignored.

Nominalism is grounded in a view of naming that it is arbitrary. Putnam and 
Kripke argue against this by arguing that the name should follow what Locke 
called the real essence. I don’t think that this was enough, since both retain 
some sort of verificationism and thus leave themselves open to my arguments 
from my thesis. Putnam explicitly calls his view internal realism, in contrast 
to metaphysical realism. Putnam’s view is a sort of nominalism. To reject it we 
need some sort of argument to the effect that naming is not arbitrary. Causal 
descriptivism is often invoked for this purpose (David Lewis, for example), but 
I don’t think this is enough; as Putnam argues, causation is “just more theory”.


2.  Now, for the most important comment.  It is almost certain that CSP’s 
notion of abduction as a method to generate a possibility space came directly 
from the concept of proof of structure.  It follows from his notions of medads 
and graphic relations and relatives and the concept of variable valences of 
elements.  The notion of abduction was a critical part of hybrid logic 
necessary to develop the simple algebra of labelled bipartite graph theory of 
the perplex number system.



I would have to put this terminology into terms of contemporary logic to see if 
I agree with this. I suspect I do, but right now I reserve judgement.


3.  Secondly, realists MUST add something to signs to make their claims. 
What must be added is the physical evidence that relates the parts (indices) to 
the whole (sinsigns) such that the abductive hypotheses can be distinguished 
from one another.



Agreed.

5. The assertion "Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything more 
to do science.” appears rather 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jerry LR Chandler]

John:

Thanks for your interesting and provocative insights. 

By way of background, I have compared the various theories of nominalism and 
realism for more than 20 years.  I find your values deeply embedded in the 
assertion that one is a weaker hypothesis than the other.  Often, nominalists 
appeal to the role of authority, historical precedence.  (Think of the role of 
precedence in our legal and political systems.)


Some points of your post deserves to be highlighted.  

> Peirce thought we could get out of this by abduction, but empiricists don't 
> allow this as part of logic. Nominalism says nothing else about the real 
> essence of things. Realists have to add something in order to make their 
> claims. Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything more to do 
> science.
> 
1. Scientific empiricism, as I understand it, is virtually independent of any 
concern about abduction.  In physics, chemistry and politics, empiricism seeks 
ways to justify past, present or future events.  (Often, with the aid of 
statistics.)

2. “Names”, as I pointed out, are critical to the logic of chemistry.  Each 
chemical identity is an individual polynomial.  It is not historically or 
grammatically possible to completely separate the concept of  nominalism from 
the concept of names, is it?  The thread connecting the concept of nominalism 
to names may be weak, but it cannot be completely ignored. 

3. Now, for the most important comment.  It is almost certain that CSP’s notion 
of abduction as a method to generate a possibility space came directly from the 
concept of proof of structure.  It follows from his notions of medads and 
graphic relations and relatives and the concept of variable valences of 
elements.  The notion of abduction was a critical part of hybrid logic 
necessary to develop the simple algebra of labelled bipartite graph theory of 
the perplex number system. 

4. Secondly, realists MUST add something to signs to make their claims. What 
must be added is the physical evidence that relates the parts (indices) to the 
whole (sinsigns) such that the abductive hypotheses can be distinguished from 
one another. 

5. The assertion "Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything more 
to do science.” appears rather problematic to me. 

Cheers

Jerry 

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 4:36 AM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> Jerry, List,
> 
> Nominalism is a weaker hypothesis than Realism, so if something is consistent 
> with realism, then it is consistent with nominalism. Locked, for example, 
> distinguished between the nominal essence and the real essence. The former 
> tells us what we think something is like, while the latter is what the thing 
> is really like. According to his semiotic theory we only have access to the 
> nominal essence, which is constructed from our experience. The real essence 
> we can never directly know. We can get at it only via other signs, which 
> makes them, by his account, nominal. He also thought that meaning usually 
> followed the nominal essence, which is historically questionable, but the 
> difference between what we take to be the real essence and the nominal 
> essence has to be a nominal distinction. There are no unmediated signs of 
> reality and, for Locke, there is no way to get out of this mediated 
> representation. Peirce thought we could get out of this by abduction, but 
> empiricists don't allow this as part of logic. Nominalism says nothing else 
> about the real essence of things. Realists have to add something in order to 
> make their claims. Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything 
> more to do science.
> 
> So, logically the consistency of realism entails the consistency of 
> nominalism.
> 
> 
> Get Outlook for Android 
> 
> From: Jerry LR Chandler 
> Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 9:51:30 PM
> To: Eric Charles
> Cc: Peirce List; Helmut Raulien
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism
>  
> Eric:
> 
>> On Jan 28, 2017, at 4:23 PM, Helmut Raulien > > wrote:
>> 
>> In my view of sytems theory, a system is more than it´s parts, of course, 
>> and what is more, is real and natural. But in my opinion "natural" does not 
>> mean "good for us". A sytem that contains other systems, 
> 
> 
> Beyond statistics, I am not aware of your scientific background.  Indeed, I 
> am interested in your views as a statistician with regard to part-whole 
> illations. For several years, in the 1990’s, I taught a course (at the NIH) 
> entitled “ Health Risk Analysis” that was an inquiry into the logic of 
> distributions and pragmatic public health assessment of the “realism” of 
> chemical and radiation exposures.
> 
> The questions raised in these lectures was a factor that contributed to my 
> study of logic and CSP’s writings. In my view, Peirce was first a chemist and 
> logician, and later added to these belief systems 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Clark Goble]

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 12:28 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt  
> wrote:
> 
> Regarding #2, once again you insist on assigning a pejorative label to my 
> view.  It is not Platonic, it is Aristotelian (and Peircean), since I clearly 
> and consistently affirm that 3ns does not exist apart from 2ns (and 1ns).  
> Reality, being whatever it is regardless of what anyone thinks about it, is 
> not limited to existence, reacting with the other like things in the 
> environment.

I think we’re at the stage where our categories break down somewhat and the 
semantics get convoluted. For instance what does “exist” mean in that sentence? 
The assumption that platonists think forms *exist* requires a lot of unpacking 
about how we use the term exist for instance. 


> On Jan 30, 2017, at 12:05 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> As for point #2, of course the reality of laws can't be reduced to their 
> existences; that would be akin to reducing Thirdness to Secondness - and I 
> certainly don't accept that. BUT, in contrast to your view, I don't agree 
> that Thirdness can exist 'per se'; they 'exist' only within an individual 
> articulation. Again, Peirce was an Aristotelian, not a Platonist - and your 
> view is Platonic.

I think many scholars dispute the claim that Peirce was more Aristotelian than 
Platonic. But again a lot needs to be unpacked since it’s not as if those terms 
are themselves clear. There were lots of different sorts of Platonists. 
Especially by the period of late antiquity the two figures were often read of 
in an unified way. Get into the medieval era, especially during the rediscovery 
of Aristotle and it gets even more complex due to corrupt or falsely attributed 
texts. Also incentives to not veer too far out of the mainstream and be labeled 
heretical meant Aristotle was often read Platonically (or vice versa).

Anyway I’m not sure the labels platonist or Aristotelian are helpful unless we 
unpack what we mean by those terms. Take something simple like the forms. You 
might say the forms are the perfect cause of the objects instantiating the 
forms or you might say the forms are bundles of possibilities with limits on 
what is possible. How one conceives of the forms radically changes the type of 
platonism one engaging with. 

To my eyes Peirce saw possibilities, especially limited possibilities, as the 
platonic forms and was a realist towards them. That, to my eyes, makes Peirce a 
platonist of a sort. Likewise the fact that an object of type T wasn’t 
perfectly like T was acknowledged by both Plato and Aristotle. I’m not sure it 
tells us much. So Peirce’s notion of ‘swerve’ for instance is compatible with 
both views. 

While labeling can help, especially if we can establish Peirce was reading 
certain texts to help arrive at his own thinking (Kant, Aristotle, Plato, 
Proclus, Mill, Descartes, etc.) one can push labels too far. They can also be 
distorting (especially when some figures like Plato or Descartes are often 
understood only in terms of a certain polemic strawman).





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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Clark Goble]

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 1:05 PM, Eric Charles  
> wrote:
> 
> 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? 


Even if this isn’t a deterministic world one can and should distinguish between 
Bayesian conceptions of probability which are largely epistemological and 
frequentist conceptions which are physical/ontological. So one could be an 
ontological realist towards randomness in quantum mechanics yet still think 
there is a fact about the cards such that one specific card is on top. The 
question is much more whether when we talk about probability we’re talking 
about human knowledge or ontology.

Peirce was primarily a frequentist and so even before he became a full blown 
modal realist he still thought one should talk about probabilities in terms of 
actual conceptions rather than merely human knowledge.

It’s worth distinguishing the two even though it’s pretty easy to get into a de 
facto unknowability in a deterministic universe simply due to chaotic effects. 
Small measurement errors propogate so that without perfect knowledge of 
conditions one can’t in principle know the state of the system fairly quickly. 
A double pendulum is a great example of a chaotic system where this happens. 

BTW - I do think though that Peirce’s frequentist tendencies even early on 
explain why his much later modal realism isn’t as big a step as some portray it.

> 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 question really is what causes the unknowability. Is it inherent to the 
system or a feature of human knowledge. That is, is there a truth about the 
matter independent of human knowing. Part of this gets tricky due to the debate 
about the reality of time though. I don’t mean to make an already confusing and 
complex topic more so, but it is important.

Many nominalists who don’t subscribe to the notion of a block universe would 
say that technically it is not true “the sun rises tomorrow” because nothing 
yet exists tomorrow. A sentence about the sun rising tomorrow is merely a claim 
about future experiences but can’t be true in a philosophical sense. Some 
nominalists take Einstein’s GR seriously and think all spatial-temporal points 
have truth values so there is a truth about whether the sun rises tomorrow. 

So in a certain way the realist/anti-realist distinction is really just a claim 
about truth values.

Let’s ignore people who are anti-realist about the future for the moment. Now 
return to our double pendulum. The system due to it’s complexity is unknowable 
in the future except is very limited ways. Yet there is a truth about its 
future state (it’s position and velocities).

Where nominalism comes into the topic is the broad question about sentence. To 
be able to have a truth value any sentence must be translatable into sentences 
not making any reference to human minds. So if I can translate my sentence 
about the future double pendulum into statements about material objects in time 
that have truth values then I’m a realist about the future double pendulum 
state. If I think I can’t (because the future doesn’t exist) then I’m 
anti-realist. The more interesting claim is that a sentence about future states 
is actually a statement about human claims about the future that then can’t be 
translated into sentences without reference to humans.

With regards to probability the claim is that any sentence S that refers to 
probability P actually should be reduced to a sentence S’ that refers to human 
understanding of how strong their knowledge is.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Clark Goble]

> On Jan 30, 2017, at 10:16 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt  
> wrote:
> 
> What you quoted from Clark was his description of "a very nominalist 
> conception of thermodynamics."  By contrast, I think that Peirce quite 
> clearly held (1) that the mental (psychical law) is primordial relative to 
> the material (physical laws), and (2) that the reality of laws (as well as 
> qualities) cannot be reduced to the existence of their actual occurrences; 
> they do have "some ontological mode of their own," which is 3ns (or 1ns) 
> rather than 2ns.  I know that you disagree on both counts, and no one 
> (including me) wants us to engage in yet another "exegetical battle," so I am 
> simply mentioning my alternative view in the context of this particular 
> discussion.


I think we have to break this out. That is I think what you say is right, but 
we have to be clear what we mean by it. 

I think in a certain sense Peirce is saying the mental and the physical are the 
same thing. This isn’t quite say Davidson’s anomalous monism (where the 
distinction arises because mental descriptions have a normative aspect). If I 
have Peirce right any physical laws ultimately are due to psychic laws of the 
underlying stuff. Put an other way it’s all mind and thus mind is, as you say, 
primordial. We distinguish the mental from the physical only because the latter 
is more fixed by habit and the former more ‘open.’ It’s all the same thing 
though so one isn’t necessarily primordial so much as it is less ingrained or 
habituated. But this isn’t really monism in a straightforwad way due to 
firstness and secondness. 

We’ve discussed this issue of monism before and my own position is we have to 
be careful with the sense in which we claim monism. The key passage is of 
course Peirce’s appropriation of Schelling’s “objective idealism.” My sense is 
that fundamentally all Peirce means by this is that ideas aren’t tied to 
particular minds. As he says

So those logicians imagine that an idea has to be connected with a brain, or 
has to inhere in a "soul." This is preposterous: the idea does not belong to 
the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea. The soul does for the idea 
just what the cellulose does for the Beauty of the rose; that is to say, it 
affords it opportunity.

  [..]

...you must see that it is a perfectly intelligible opinion that ideas are not 
all mere creations of this or that mind, but on the contrary have a power of 
finding or creating their vehicles, and having found them, of conferring upon 
them the ability to transform the face of the earth. If you ask what mode of 
being is supposed to belong to an idea that is in no mind, the reply will come 
that undoubted' the idea must be embodied (or ensouled; it is all one) in order 
to attain complete being, and that if, at any moment, it should happen that 
idea,-say that of physical decency,-was quite unconceived by any living being, 
then its mode of being (supposing that it was not altogether dead) would 
consist precisely in this, namely, that it was about to receive embo iment (or 
ensoulment) and to work in the world. This would be a me potential being, a 
being inflituro; but it would not be the utter nothingness which would befall 
matter (or spirit) if it were to be deprived of the governance of ideas, and 
thus were to have no regularity in its action, so tha throughout no fraction of 
a second could it steadily act in any general way. For matter would thus not 
only not actually exist; but it would not have even a potential existence; 
since potentiality is an affair of ideas. It would be just downright Nothing.  
(“On Science and Natural Classes” EP 2:122-3)


Part of the issue then is just Peirce’s rejection of the type of nominalism 
where there are mind-objects and ideas are state of these mind-objects. Rather 
ideas are logically first and minds are understood in terms of the ideas. 
Effectively a strong type of content externalism. This also shows a certain 
platonic element to his thought which is the inverse of how materialist 
nominalism had developed in the post-Cartesian world. Ideas aren’t material or 
mental states. They are first. (In the same way that platonic emanations start 
with the One, go to the forms/ideas, and eventually reach to point of soul or 
matter in motion)

It’s also worth reading Peirce explicitly on this issue of monism. This is 
admittedly from the early Peirce though although I think it highlights how his 
thought developed.  (Emphasis mine)

 The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in Cartesianism, 
as two radically different kinds of substance, will hardly find defenders 
to-day. Rejecting this, we are driven to some form of hylopathy, otherwise 
called monism.  Then the question arises whether physical laws on the one hand, 
and the psychical laws on the other are to be taken —
 (A) as independent, a doctrine often called monism, but which I would name 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Eric, List:

With respect to probability, I am reminded (for obvious reasons) of this
passage.

CSP:  According to what has been said, the idea of probability essentially
belongs to a kind of inference which is repeated indefinitely. An
individual inference must be either true or false, and can show no effect
of probability; and, therefore, in reference to a single case considered in
itself, probability can have no meaning. Yet if a man had to choose between
drawing a card from a pack containing twenty-five red cards and a black
one, or from a pack containing twenty-five black cards and a red one, and
if the drawing of a red card were destined to transport him to eternal
felicity, and that of a black one to consign him to everlasting woe, it
would be folly to deny that he ought to prefer the pack containing the
larger proportion of red cards, although, from the nature of the risk, it
could not be repeated. It is not easy to reconcile this with our analysis
of the conception of chance. But suppose he should choose the red pack, and
should draw the wrong card, what consolation would he have? He might say
that he had acted in accordance with reason, but that would only show that
his reason was absolutely worthless. And if he should choose the right
card, how could he regard it as anything but a happy accident? He could not
say that if he had drawn from the other pack, he might have drawn the wrong
one, because an hypothetical proposition such as, "if A, then B," means
nothing with reference to a single case. Truth consists in the existence of
a real fact corresponding to the true proposition. Corresponding to the
proposition, "if A, then B," there may be the fact that whenever such an
event as A happens such an event as B happens. But in the case supposed,
which has no parallel as far as this man is concerned, there would be no
real fact whose existence could give any truth to the statement that, if he
had drawn from the other pack, he might have drawn a black card. Indeed,
since the validity of an inference consists in the truth of the
hypothetical proposition that if the premisses be true the conclusion will
also be true, and since the only real fact which can correspond to such a
proposition is that whenever the antecedent is true the consequent is so
also, it follows that there can be no sense in reasoning in an isolated
case, at all. (CP 2.652; 1878/1893)


It seems to me that the nominalist who insists that only that which is
actual is real effectively turns *all *of our experience into a series of
"isolated cases" in this sense.

As for your second set of remarks, Peirce was adamant that his version of
pragmatism, which he came to call pragmaticism in order to distinguish it
from that of others (especially William James), required "a logical realism
of the most pronounced type" (CP 6.163; 1892).

CSP:  Another doctrine which is involved in Pragmaticism as an essential
consequence of it ... is the scholastic doctrine of realism. This is
usually defined as the opinion that there are real objects that are
general, among the number being the modes of determination of existent
singulars, if, indeed, these be not the only such objects. But the belief
in this can hardly escape being accompanied by the acknowledgment that
there are, besides, real *vagues*, and especially real possibilities. For
possibility being the denial of a necessity, which is a kind of generality,
is vague like any other contradiction of a general. Indeed, it is the
reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist
upon. (CP 5.453; 1905)


However, this is not at all to say that *every *general is real.

CSP:  As to reality, one finds it defined in various ways; but if that
principle of terminological ethics that was proposed be accepted, the
equivocal language will soon disappear. For *realis *and *realitas *are not
ancient words. They were invented to be terms of philosophy in the
thirteenth century, and the meaning they were intended to express is
perfectly clear. That is *real *which has such and such characters, whether
anybody thinks it to have those characters or not. At any rate, that is the
sense in which the pragmaticist uses the word. Now, just as conduct
controlled by ethical reason tends toward fixing certain habits of conduct,
the nature of which (as to illustrate the meaning, peaceable habits and not
quarrelsome habits) does not depend upon any accidental circumstances, and *in
that sense* may be said to be *destined*; so, thought, controlled by a
rational experimental logic, tends to the fixation of certain opinions,
equally destined, the nature of which will be the same in the end, however
the perversity of thought of whole generations may cause the postponement
of the ultimate fixation. If this be so, as every man of us virtually
assumes that it is, in regard to each matter the truth of which he
seriously discusses, then, according to the adopted definition of "real,"
the state of things which 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Eric Charles]

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 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Edwina Taborsky]

JAS: Yes, I disagree, strongly, with point #1, which seems to me to be 
primordial determinism and I've no idea why you need to, again, point out our 
differences to me. 

As for point #2, of course the reality of laws can't be reduced to their 
existences; that would be akin to reducing Thirdness to Secondness - and I 
certainly don't accept that. BUT, in contrast to your view, I don't agree that 
Thirdness can exist 'per se'; they 'exist' only within an individual 
articulation. Again, Peirce was an Aristotelian, not a Platonist - and your 
view is Platonic.\
That's all I'll say on this; I won't get into a debate.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Jon Alan Schmidt 
  To: Edwina Taborsky 
  Cc: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 12:16 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism


  Edwina, List:


  What you quoted from Clark was his description of "a very nominalist 
conception of thermodynamics."  By contrast, I think that Peirce quite clearly 
held (1) that the mental (psychical law) is primordial relative to the material 
(physical laws), and (2) that the reality of laws (as well as qualities) cannot 
be reduced to the existence of their actual occurrences; they do have "some 
ontological mode of their own," which is 3ns (or 1ns) rather than 2ns.  I know 
that you disagree on both counts, and no one (including me) wants us to engage 
in yet another "exegetical battle," so I am simply mentioning my alternative 
view in the context of this particular discussion.


  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 10:57 AM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Clark, you wrote:

"So you don’t need the idea of laws logically prior to the objects to make 
sense of them. Just properties inherent to the objects. (There’d still be an 
ontological question about some of these properties like overlap and 
interactions of course — but in theory you could argue they inhere to the 
objects rather than are independent of them) 


Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real 
independent of the objects."

 I agree that the laws are not really 'logically prior' to the objects for 
that would suggest that these laws have some ontological mode of their own even 
if it is not material but mental. 

 But I don't think that Peirce argued that the laws/symmetries are real,  
'independent of the objects' for wouldn't that be similar to 'logically 
prior'??. My view is that the laws are real, as general operational forces but 
they have no power/reality except as 'articulated' within the objects. [This 
may be what you meant anyway].

Edwina 
  - Original Message - 
  From: Clark Goble 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 11:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism
On Jan 29, 2017, at 12:57 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
 wrote:


I would not call it a "force," but I agree that the traditional debate 
is about whether there is something real (hence "realism") that all rabbits 
have in common to make them rabbits vs. "rabbits" merely being a name (hence 
"nominalism") that we apply to many different individuals simply because we 
happen to perceive them as having certain similarities.  Even this way of 
putting it arguably concedes too much to nominalism, because it implies that 
the universal or general is a thing that is somehow identically instantiated in 
multiple other things.
  A good place where this debate appears is thermodynamics. It’s fairly 
well known that defining a system with spatially extended objects with various 
symmetries allows one to define the laws of thermodynamics. Now this is a very 
nominalist conception of thermodynamics yet importantly it is one where the 
laws arise out of the symmetries of matter. So you don’t need the idea of laws 
logically prior to the objects to make sense of them. Just properties inherent 
to the objects. (There’d still be an ontological question about some of these 
properties like overlap and interactions of course — but in theory you could 
argue they inhere to the objects rather than are independent of them)


  Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real 
independent of the objects.


  Now this won’t work for foundational physics due to the crazy nature of 
quantum mechanics. It’s much harder (IMO) to formulate a quantum mechanics in 
terms of nominalism. People still try to do it of course, but it’s usually via 
a ontological slight of hand where the foundational laws place isn’t dealt 
with. You can see that slight of hand in say New Atheist arguments about why 
there is something rather than nothing. The foundational laws of physics are 
always part of this ‘before’ yet not seen as 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

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  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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Fwd: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Eric Charles]

John,
That first bit - on *ontological misogyny*, etc. - is fascinating and
clever! As a skewering of Quine et al, it seems to work well.

However, for the purposes of this discussion, it might be a bit of a bait
and switch.

Let us assume our antagonist is a misogynist, and that he will set it upon
himself to try to write women into a second-class status, no matter his
starting point. Under such conditions, he may abuse the nominalist premises
in exactly the ways so indicated. However, presumably he could abuse
realist premises to serve the same argument, with similar effort. Women
are, after all, as a "general" rule smaller than men, have poorer spatial
orientation than men in landscape-sized tests, etc., etc.

In both cases - constrained by either nominalist or realist logic - one
could easily make similar arguments in service of misandry.

Even when it comes down to nuts and bolts, I'm still confused about the
critique of Quine & Co. Let it be that John has the idea that
'propositions" exist. Let it also be that Quine has the idea that
"propositions" don't exist, but "sentences" exist, and sentences work in -
exactly and completely, without remainder - all the ways that John thinks
propositions work. In that case, doesn't Peirce come along, smack you both
on the head, and point out that no matter how you want to phrase the
terminology, you both have the same idea?




---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 12:39 PM, John F Sowa  wrote:

> Eric and list,
>
> EC
>
>> My initial inclination is to say that everything you pointed to does
>> seem important, but doesn't seem obviously to hinge on anything I can
>> easily understand as a difference between nominalists and realists
>>
>
> The simplest explanation I have ever read was by Alonzo Church --
> in a lecture to Quine's logic group at Harvard:
>
>http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/church.htm
>The Ontological Status of Women and Abstract Entities
>
> This excerpt from Church’s 1958 lecture was preserved by Tyler Burge.
> Cathy Legg posted it to her web site, from which I downloaded it.
> (I really wish we had a YouTube of that lecture and the debates
> between Church and Quine.)
>
> In my web page, I added URLs for a 1947 paper by Goodman and Quine
> and a response by Church in 1951.
>
> For anyone who wants to see an important *practical* difference
> between nominalism and realism, see the following excerpt from
> Church's book, _The Calculi of Lambda Conversion_:
> http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/alonzo.htm
>
> Nominalists like Quine deny the distinction between essence and
> accident in philosophy.  In mathematics and computer science, they
> extend their ideology to deny the distinction between intensions
> and extensions.
>
> For a nominalist, a function or relation *is* a set of n-tuples.
> For a realist, the _intension_ of a function or relation is a rule,
> law, principle, or axiom.  The _extension_ is the set of tuples
> determined by that rule, law, principle, or axiom.
>
> Peirce would add *habit* to that list.  A habit is an informal law
> that could be made formal -- but only at the expense of losing its
> flexibility (AKA vagueness).  Peirce said that vagueness is essential
> for mathematical discovery.  George Polya did not cite Peirce in
> his books, but he made that point very clear.
>
> Carnap was a nominalist who denied the reality of all value
> judgments, including Truth.  After talking with Tarski, he accepted
> the notion of truth because it could be defined in terms of sets.
> That led Carnap (1947) to define modal logic in terms of a set of
> undefined things called possible worlds.
>
> Other nominalists, such as Kripke and Montague adopted Carnap's
> method, but I believe that Michael Dunn's definition in terms
> of laws (related to methods by Aristotle, Peirce, and Hintikka)
> is more fundamental:  http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/5qelogic.pdf
>
> Quine & Co. also deny the existence of propositions.  They insist
> on talking only about sentences.  For a definition of proposition
> that was inspired by Peirce, but stated in a way that a nominalist
> could accept, see http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/proposit.pdf
>
> This article is a 5-page excerpt from a longer article that discusses
> the philosophical issues:  http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/worlds.pdf
>
> John
>
>
> -
> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
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> BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>

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to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to 

Fwd: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Eric Charles]

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".

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?

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.




---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps


On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 3:44 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> Edwina, List:
>
> Right--like I said, a general is a continuum with multiple different
> instantiations, not a "thing" with multiple identical instantiations.  A
> general does not *exist *in space and time (2ns), but it is still *real *as
> a range of possibilities (1ns) or a conditional necessity (3ns).  In other
> words, the *reality *of a quality (1ns) or a habit/law (3ns) is not
> reducible to its *actual *occurrences (2ns); this is a key aspect of
> Peirce's realism that a nominalist would dispute.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Jon - no, a commonality, i.e., a general,  is not a 'thing' in itself
>> that is 'identically' instantiated. First, as I said about 'this force',
>> that it's real, even if 'it' doesn't exist all by itself in space and
>> time; even if this force-of-continuity only functions as instantiated in
>> each rabbit.
>>
>> So, it can't be a 'thing' since it doesn't exist as itself in space and
>> time. I myself have no problem with understanding it as a force or even
>> 'will', since it does focus on the future.
>>
>> Second, of course, the instantiations are not identical; that's the power
>> of semiosis, where Firstness functions to introduce novelty, and even,
>> where 'the real' is networked with other organisms/realities and thus, is
>> influenced by them.
>>
>> Jerry - my, I didn't know that you consider all biosemioticians to be
>> nominalists. What's your evidence? Do you consider Jesper Hoffmeyer to be
>> such? Kalevi Kull? My reading of their works denies this. They are strong
>> Peirceans and focus on that level of non-individual general continuity.
>> Your attempts to confine Peirce to your discipline of chemistry, I think,
>> narrow his work.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> Edwina.
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> *From:* Jon Alan Schmidt 
>> *To:* Edwina Taborsky 
>> *Cc:* Eric Charles  ; Peirce-L
>> 
>> *Sent:* Sunday, January 29, 2017 2:57 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism
>>
>> Edwina, Eric, List:
>>
>> I would not call it a "force," but I agree that the traditional debate is
>> about whether there is something *real *(hence "realism") that all
>> rabbits have in common to make them rabbits vs. "rabbits" merely being a 
>> *name
>> *(hence "nominalism") that we apply to many different individuals simply
>> because we happen to perceive them as having certain similarities.  Even
>> this way of putting it arguably concedes too much to nominalism, because it
>> implies that the universal or general is a *thing *that is somehow 
>> *identically
>> *instantiated in multiple *other *things.
>>
>> One of the aspects of Peirce's version of realism that I find especially
>> attractive is that he instead conceived of the general as a *continuum*,
>> such that its instantiations are not *identical*, even if they are only 
>> *infinitesimally
>> *different.  No matter how similar any two *actual *rabbits may seem to
>> be, there is an inexhaustible range of *potential *rabbits that would be
>> intermediate between them.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 29, 2017 at 9:28 AM, Edwina Taborsky 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Eric - I have a perhaps slightly different view of the topic than a
>>> philosophical approach.
>>>
>>> As an example - let's say 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

What you quoted from Clark was his description of "a very nominalist
conception of thermodynamics."  By contrast, I think that Peirce quite
clearly held (1) that the mental (psychical law) is primordial relative to
the material (physical laws), and (2) that the *reality *of laws (as well
as qualities) cannot be reduced to the *existence *of their actual
occurrences; they *do *have "some ontological mode of their own," which is
3ns (or 1ns) rather than 2ns.  I know that you disagree on both counts, and
no one (including me) wants us to engage in yet another "exegetical
battle," so I am simply mentioning my alternative view in the context of
this particular discussion.

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 10:57 AM, Edwina Taborsky 
wrote:

> Clark, you wrote:
>
> "So you don’t need the idea of laws logically prior to the objects to make
> sense of them. Just properties inherent to the objects. (There’d still be
> an ontological question about some of these properties like overlap and
> interactions of course — but in theory you could argue they inhere to the
> objects rather than are independent of them)
>
> Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real
> independent of the objects."
>
>  I agree that the laws are not really 'logically prior' to the objects for
> that would suggest that these laws have some ontological mode of their own
> even if it is not material but mental.
>
>  But I don't think that Peirce argued that the laws/symmetries are real,
>  'independent of the objects' for wouldn't that be similar to 'logically
> prior'??. My view is that the laws are real, as general operational forces
> but they have no power/reality except as 'articulated' within the objects.
> [This may be what you meant anyway].
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Clark Goble 
> *To:* Peirce-L 
> *Sent:* Monday, January 30, 2017 11:23 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism
>
> On Jan 29, 2017, at 12:57 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
> wrote:
>
> I would not call it a "force," but I agree that the traditional debate is
> about whether there is something *real *(hence "realism") that all
> rabbits have in common to make them rabbits vs. "rabbits" merely being a
> *name *(hence "nominalism") that we apply to many different individuals
> simply because we happen to perceive them as having certain similarities.
> Even this way of putting it arguably concedes too much to nominalism,
> because it implies that the universal or general is a *thing *that is
> somehow *identically *instantiated in multiple *other *things.
>
> A good place where this debate appears is thermodynamics. It’s fairly well
> known that defining a system with spatially extended objects with various
> symmetries allows one to define the laws of thermodynamics. Now this is a
> very nominalist conception of thermodynamics yet importantly it is one
> where the laws arise out of the symmetries of matter. So you don’t need the
> idea of laws logically prior to the objects to make sense of them. Just
> properties inherent to the objects. (There’d still be an ontological
> question about some of these properties like overlap and interactions of
> course — but in theory you could argue they inhere to the objects rather
> than are independent of them)
>
> Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real
> independent of the objects.
>
> Now this won’t work for foundational physics due to the crazy nature of
> quantum mechanics. It’s much harder (IMO) to formulate a quantum mechanics
> in terms of nominalism. People still try to do it of course, but it’s
> usually via a ontological slight of hand where the foundational laws place
> isn’t dealt with. You can see that slight of hand in say New Atheist
> arguments about why there is something rather than nothing. The
> foundational laws of physics are always part of this ‘before’ yet not seen
> as ‘something.’ Effectively they need a real lawlike prescriptive feature
> of the universe prior to there being an universe. Really this has the role
> God does for deists and the distinction between a deist and an atheist
> blurs at best. Of course this was common even in early modernism where
> extreme nominalists still put God into the picture.
>
> Effectively a big reason why realism was a thing before was theology
> (whether pagan for the neoplatonists or in the medieval era and renaissance
> God for the Christians, Jews and Muslims and even for deists) So nominalism
> was a slow development partially done as science became independent from
> religion. After Newton it became possible to really conceive of all of
> reality in terms of deterministic atom and a few laws so nominalism took
> 

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and Charybdis that Pragmatism Must Navigate Its Middle Way Between

[Jon Awbrey]

Peircers,

Speaking of continua, I lost a week of continuity to travel and another
to some bug that I picked up in transit — Michigan is a harsh mistress,
especially in some of her seasonal affections, and she exacted full
retribution on me for my dalliance in southerly latitudes.

I started this post to answer one of John Sowa's recent remarks but
as I traced the train of thought backward I ran into a motley array
of side-tracks and questions left unanswered from my days away and
otherwise out of commission.  I assembled a few choice mementos in
this post by way way of keeping the more salient themes in mind.

Regards,

Jon

JAS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00013.html

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00055.html
JA: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Doctrine_Of_Individuals

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00058.html
>
> Generally speaking I haven't observed that much difficulty with the
> use of these words in logic, math, science, or even to a large extent
> in ordinary language, probably because practical use demands a modicum
> of flexibility and context-sensitivity from the relevant language users.
> It is only when people try to make metaphysical hay out of these simple
> signs that a certain rigidity sets in and disputes of a quasi-religious
> character begin to rule the day.

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00063.html
>
> We've been through the nominalism versus realism question so many times that
> I can't think of anything fresh to say about it. When the use of words like
> Universal, General, Continuous vs. Particular, Singular, Individual comes up
> I find it more useful to focus on the pragmatics of language use relative to
> the context of interpretation, frame of reference, sign relational space, or
> universe of discourse at hand than to go chasing after ontological absolutes.
>
> But I did find this previous comment on Houser on Forster on Peirce while
> I was looking for something else, and it reflects my sense that Peirceans
> have more trouble controlling that slippery slide toward what I've called
> “essentialism” or “ontologism” than they do checking nominalistic drift.
>
> 
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/09/21/nominalism-and-essentialism-are-the-scylla-and-charybdis-that-pragmatism-must-navigate-its-middle-way-between/


ET: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00064.html
JR: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00065.html
CG: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00066.html
JR: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00067.html
KM: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00068.html

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00070.html
>
> I'm still looking for better terms than “essentialism” or “ontologism”
> to explain the problem that I'm seeing here.  Essentialism is not the
> same thing as Platonism or any realism about supra-individual entities.
> I personally don't have any objection to realism about Platonic Forms
> or Ideas, maybe because I'm doing most of my thinking in mathematical
> forms, where Pythagoras rules.
>
> The problem I'm trying to point out has to do with the excessive or even
> exclusive reliance on monadic predicates applied to putative individuals
> to describe everything. In many ways, then, the kind of essentialism or
> ontologism I'm talking about has the same defects as nominalism, because
> it falls into the same lack of critical reflection about individuals and
> fails to take the reality of supra-individual entities or relations into
> account.

JAS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00072.html
>
> Would "individualism" perhaps be a more appropriate term for the tendency
> that you have in mind?  As I hinted earlier in the discussion, I see Peirce
> as having made an important distinction between "singular" as that which is
> absolutely determinate (including place and time) vs. "individual" as that
> which is determinate in some respects and indeterminate (i.e., general) in
> others (including place and time).  Peirce took the singular in this complete
> sense to be an ideal, rather than a reality.  By contrast, it seems to me that
> nominalism treats these two concepts as largely equivalent.
>
> What is the remedy for "excessive or even exclusive reliance on monadic
> predicates applied to putative individuals to describe everything"?
> Presumably it is necessary, but not sufficient, to recognize the reality
> of the corresponding medads — qualities that are what they are independent
> of anything else.  We also need to recognize the reality of dyads, triads,
> and other relations, including habits and laws that *govern* individuals.
> Is this your concern, or is there even more to it than that?

JFS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00074.html
>
> The issues about universals and essences have been with us for 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Edwina Taborsky]

Clark, you wrote:

"So you don’t need the idea of laws logically prior to the objects to make 
sense of them. Just properties inherent to the objects. (There’d still be an 
ontological question about some of these properties like overlap and 
interactions of course — but in theory you could argue they inhere to the 
objects rather than are independent of them)


Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real 
independent of the objects."

 I agree that the laws are not really 'logically prior' to the objects for that 
would suggest that these laws have some ontological mode of their own even if 
it is not material but mental. 

 But I don't think that Peirce argued that the laws/symmetries are real,  
'independent of the objects' for wouldn't that be similar to 'logically 
prior'??. My view is that the laws are real, as general operational forces but 
they have no power/reality except as 'articulated' within the objects. [This 
may be what you meant anyway].

Edwina




  - Original Message - 
  From: Clark Goble 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 11:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism




On Jan 29, 2017, at 12:57 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt  
wrote:


I would not call it a "force," but I agree that the traditional debate is 
about whether there is something real (hence "realism") that all rabbits have 
in common to make them rabbits vs. "rabbits" merely being a name (hence 
"nominalism") that we apply to many different individuals simply because we 
happen to perceive them as having certain similarities.  Even this way of 
putting it arguably concedes too much to nominalism, because it implies that 
the universal or general is a thing that is somehow identically instantiated in 
multiple other things.




  A good place where this debate appears is thermodynamics. It’s fairly well 
known that defining a system with spatially extended objects with various 
symmetries allows one to define the laws of thermodynamics. Now this is a very 
nominalist conception of thermodynamics yet importantly it is one where the 
laws arise out of the symmetries of matter. So you don’t need the idea of laws 
logically prior to the objects to make sense of them. Just properties inherent 
to the objects. (There’d still be an ontological question about some of these 
properties like overlap and interactions of course — but in theory you could 
argue they inhere to the objects rather than are independent of them)


  Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real 
independent of the objects.


  Now this won’t work for foundational physics due to the crazy nature of 
quantum mechanics. It’s much harder (IMO) to formulate a quantum mechanics in 
terms of nominalism. People still try to do it of course, but it’s usually via 
a ontological slight of hand where the foundational laws place isn’t dealt 
with. You can see that slight of hand in say New Atheist arguments about why 
there is something rather than nothing. The foundational laws of physics are 
always part of this ‘before’ yet not seen as ‘something.’ Effectively they need 
a real lawlike prescriptive feature of the universe prior to there being an 
universe. Really this has the role God does for deists and the distinction 
between a deist and an atheist blurs at best. Of course this was common even in 
early modernism where extreme nominalists still put God into the picture.


  Effectively a big reason why realism was a thing before was theology (whether 
pagan for the neoplatonists or in the medieval era and renaissance God for the 
Christians, Jews and Muslims and even for deists) So nominalism was a slow 
development partially done as science became independent from religion. After 
Newton it became possible to really conceive of all of reality in terms of 
deterministic atom and a few laws so nominalism took off and became the 
mainstream intellectual view.


--



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and Charybdis that Pragmatism Must Navigate Its Middle Way Between

[Jerry LR Chandler]

List:

> On Jan 17, 2017, at 5:32 AM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote:
> 
> But extending the dualism, even dichotomy of "ontology" and "epistemology" to 
> Aristotle is not just a (big) bone, but a grave misrepresentation.
> 
> This distinction is a modern one. - Still going strong, in spite of all 
> criticism.
> 
> NOTHING LIKE that existed in ancient ways of thinking.
> 

Kirsti points to critical issue in attempting to decipher the self-designed 
code of language usage of CSP.

In particular, it is my experience that grasping the developments of Western 
Science during the period of 1775 - 1850 is essential to understanding the 
context in which CSP is expressing himself to his world.

Part of this history is addressed from a mathematical viewpoint by Salomon 
Bochner, in 
Eclosion and Synthesis: Perspectives on the History of Knowledge.

I highly recommend this text to any scholar seeking to understand “CSP-speak”.

Cheers

Jerry




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Clark Goble]

> On Jan 29, 2017, at 12:57 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt  
> wrote:
> 
> I would not call it a "force," but I agree that the traditional debate is 
> about whether there is something real (hence "realism") that all rabbits have 
> in common to make them rabbits vs. "rabbits" merely being a name (hence 
> "nominalism") that we apply to many different individuals simply because we 
> happen to perceive them as having certain similarities.  Even this way of 
> putting it arguably concedes too much to nominalism, because it implies that 
> the universal or general is a thing that is somehow identically instantiated 
> in multiple other things.
> 

A good place where this debate appears is thermodynamics. It’s fairly well 
known that defining a system with spatially extended objects with various 
symmetries allows one to define the laws of thermodynamics. Now this is a very 
nominalist conception of thermodynamics yet importantly it is one where the 
laws arise out of the symmetries of matter. So you don’t need the idea of laws 
logically prior to the objects to make sense of them. Just properties inherent 
to the objects. (There’d still be an ontological question about some of these 
properties like overlap and interactions of course — but in theory you could 
argue they inhere to the objects rather than are independent of them)

Peirce’s solution really is to argue that symmetries are themselves real 
independent of the objects.

Now this won’t work for foundational physics due to the crazy nature of quantum 
mechanics. It’s much harder (IMO) to formulate a quantum mechanics in terms of 
nominalism. People still try to do it of course, but it’s usually via a 
ontological slight of hand where the foundational laws place isn’t dealt with. 
You can see that slight of hand in say New Atheist arguments about why there is 
something rather than nothing. The foundational laws of physics are always part 
of this ‘before’ yet not seen as ‘something.’ Effectively they need a real 
lawlike prescriptive feature of the universe prior to there being an universe. 
Really this has the role God does for deists and the distinction between a 
deist and an atheist blurs at best. Of course this was common even in early 
modernism where extreme nominalists still put God into the picture.

Effectively a big reason why realism was a thing before was theology (whether 
pagan for the neoplatonists or in the medieval era and renaissance God for the 
Christians, Jews and Muslims and even for deists) So nominalism was a slow 
development partially done as science became independent from religion. After 
Newton it became possible to really conceive of all of reality in terms of 
deterministic atom and a few laws so nominalism took off and became the 
mainstream intellectual view.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Clark Goble]

> On Jan 27, 2017, at 4:19 PM, Eric Charles  
> wrote:
> 
> 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. 

Coming late to the discussion after being out of town for several days. As I 
said last week I’m not convinced for most questions the nominalist vs. realist 
distinction really matters that much. But then it’s debatable how much 
philosophy really matters in practical terms - that’s especially true of 
metaphysical questions.

That said, the realist vs. nominalist distinction ultimately is a distinction 
of whether a property or structure depends upon how humans think about it. 
There are practical implications of this since if it does depend upon humans 
one might argue the construction is open to modification. This doesn’t follow 
naturally of course - there may be innate structures of thought due to our 
biology but in practice many people think if it could be thought differently we 
can engineer how people think about it. Where you see this happening is in the 
nominalistic types of continental philosophy where construction entails 
reconstruction often along political grounds. Foucault (the 20th century one) 
is a great example of that. In American academics you see this with gender 
theory, feminist theory, and intersectionality which are often explicitly tied 
to many structures being constructed and thus open to political reconstruction.

One should note that the realist/anti-realist question when tied to particular 
entities is a bit different from the more broad debate. The former is arguments 
about things like whether mathematics is a human construct or whether gender 
is.  One might think one is constructed (say gender) but not others (say 
mathematics). The broader question is simply whether any generality can be real 
or if only particular (typically spatio-temporal) entities are real. While the 
broad question can and does have implications for more narrow questions, 
technically one can argue one without taking a position on the other.

In the early 20th century, largely due to the influence of Hegel but also to a 
degree Frege there was a big debate between idealists and scientific realists 
over this topic. By the war this had largely died out although you can see 
questions about foundations of mathematics and even the demarcation problem of 
science as remnants of that debate. The pragmatists (primarily Dewey although 
also Peirce even though he wasn’t as well known) offered a third way between 
the poles of idealism and scientific realism (largely a convergence theory of 
realism). Sadly though this didn’t really catch on well. When there was a 
rebirth of pragmatism with Putnam and Rorty both tended to avoid the pragmatist 
solutions for various reasons.
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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Hello Mara, List,

I have a background in and regularly teach courses on Constitutional Law with a 
focus on the interpretation of the 14th in the context of American history. In 
class, I help the students trace the development of the conception of justice 
as it applies to the legal rights and obligations owed to black slaves and 
white indentured servants in the 19th century up through the civil war, and 
then the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities during the Jim Crow era, 
through Brown V Board of Education and then the later disputes over policies 
that come under the general heading of Affirmative Action. This legal and 
social history provides a nice public set of observations that one might draw 
on for thinking about the way different interpretations of the ideals of 
equality under law and the associated principles of justice come to be 
interpreted in dramatically different ways depending on one's background 
assumptions and commitments--many of which may be more nominalist or realist in 
character.

So, to focus on a particular set of cases, what do you think is reasonable as 
an interpretation of the requirements of justice under the 14th amendment when 
it comes to taking race and ethnicity and into account in decisions about 
admission to medical school, or law school, or undergraduate study at a public 
institution such as the University of Michigan? For a nice case study, compare 
the arguments made by the different justices in University of California v. 
Bakke, Hopwood v. Texas, Johnson v. University of Georgia, Gratz v. Bollinger 
and Grutter v. Bollinger.

The justices making the arguments draw on very different assumptions and 
commitments about the origins, nature and justification of the underlying 
principles of justice--both moral and legal--that they are drawing on in 
interpreting the 14th amendment and making their arguments. Part of the value 
of engaging in philosophical reflection and then going further to develop 
philosophical theories is to enable us to see these arguments from different 
points of view insofar as those perspectives are shaped by dramatically 
different assumptions and commitments.

--Jeff


Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354

From: Mara Woods [mara.wo...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 8:35 PM
To: Jeffrey Brian Downard
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

Jeffrey,

I found this particular message of yours to be quite inspiring in explaining 
the value of philosophical inquiry to non-philosophers. Would you have any good 
examples of how these two metaphysical lenses focus differently on the details 
of a particular case?

Thank you for your service to the list.

Sincerely,
Mara Woods
M.A., Semiotics -- University of Tartu


On Jan 29, 2017 5:49 PM, "Jeffrey Brian Downard" 
> wrote:

Hi Eric, List,


In my response to the last question you raised about "what practical 
difference" does it make whether one's deeper assumptions and commitments are 
nominalist or realist in character, I was thinking of several places where 
Peirce emphasizes the following sort of point:


According to the nominalistic view, the only value which an idea has is to 
represent the fact, and therefore the only respect in which a system of ideas 
has more value than the sum of the values of the ideas of which it is composed 
is that it is compendious; while, according to the realistic view, this is more 
or less incorrect depending upon how far the realism be pushed. (CP 4.1; my 
emphasis)


My aim was in making the response was twofold:


1. to stress the differences in the value or significance that that one 
ascribes to various things depending on one's assumptions and commitments;


2. to lay emphasis on the fact that the division between assumptions and 
commitments that are more realistic or more nominalistic in character has a 
dramatic effect on the (a) the phenomena that we take to be significant when we 
are making observations (b) the ideals one holds to be most attractive for 
their own sake (c) the interpretation of the standards of conduct that one 
takes to impose obligations on the conduct of life and (d) the manner in which 
we will adopt and apply various methods in order to answer the questions we 
face.


By emphasizing the differences in value and significance that one attributes to 
various ideas, conceptions, principles that form a part of our common sense 
understanding of oneself and one's world, I believe that we arrive at a better 
way to capturing much of the practical significance of affirming or denying 
different sets of assumptions and commitments that are more nominalist or 
realist in character.


There will also be differences in terms of the propositions that one affirms or 
denies when engaged in the practice of developing and testing competing 

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and Charybdis that Pragmatism Must Navigate Its Middle Way Between

[Jon Awbrey]

Sorry, ignore that last message,
I hit send by accident in the
middle of drafting a post.

Jon

--

academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs Realism

[Jerry LR Chandler]

Edwinia:

Your horrendous mis-representation of the meaning of my sentence kills all 
desire to explore this issue.  


Cheers

Jerry 


> On Jan 29, 2017, at 5:13 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> Jerry Chandler - calm down. You are evading the issue, which is, that you 
> claimed that 'many, if not most, biosemioticians are nominalists.' I question 
> this claim, since biosemiotics is based around the semiosis of Peirce - which 
> rejects nominalism.
>  
> So I ask yet again, what's your evidence for your claim?
>  
> Edwina
> 
> -
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>  .
> 
> 
> 
> 


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Nominalism and Essentialism are the Scylla and Charybdis that Pragmatism Must Navigate Its Middle Way Between

[Jon Awbrey]

Splicing 3 Threads:

JAS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00013.html

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00055.html
JA: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Doctrine_Of_Individuals

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00058.html


Generally speaking I haven't observed that much difficulty with the
use of these words in logic, math, science, or even to a large extent
in ordinary language, probably because practical use demands a modicum
of flexibility and context-sensitivity from the relevant language users.
It is only when people try to make metaphysical hay out of these simple
signs that a certain rigidity sets in and disputes of a quasi-religious
character begin to rule the day.


JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00063.html


We've been through the nominalism versus realism question so many times that
I can't think of anything fresh to say about it. When the use of words like
Universal, General, Continuous vs. Particular, Singular, Individual comes up
I find it more useful to focus on the pragmatics of language use relative to
the context of interpretation, frame of reference, sign relational space, or
universe of discourse at hand than to go chasing after ontological absolutes.

But I did find this previous comment on Houser on Forster on Peirce while
I was looking for something else, and it reflects my sense that Peirceans
have more trouble controlling that slippery slide toward what I've called
“essentialism” or “ontologism” than they do checking nominalistic drift.

https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/09/21/nominalism-and-essentialism-are-the-scylla-and-charybdis-that-pragmatism-must-navigate-its-middle-way-between/


ET: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00064.html
JR: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00065.html
CG: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00066.html
JR: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00067.html
KM: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00068.html

JA: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00070.html


I'm still looking for better terms than “essentialism” or “ontologism”
to explain the problem that I'm seeing here.  Essentialism is not the
same thing as Platonism or any realism about supra-individual entities.
I personally don't have any objection to realism about Platonic Forms
or Ideas, maybe because I'm doing most of my thinking in mathematical
forms, where Pythagoras rules.

The problem I'm trying to point out has to do with the excessive or even
exclusive reliance on monadic predicates applied to putative individuals
to describe everything. In many ways, then, the kind of essentialism or
ontologism I'm talking about has the same defects as nominalism, because
it falls into the same lack of critical reflection about individuals and
fails to take the reality of supra-individual entities or relations into
account.


JAS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00072.html


Would "individualism" perhaps be a more appropriate term for the tendency
that you have in mind?  As I hinted earlier in the discussion, I see Peirce
as having made an important distinction between "singular" as that which is
absolutely determinate (including place and time) vs. "individual" as that
which is determinate in some respects and indeterminate (i.e., general) in
others (including place and time).  Peirce took the singular in this complete
sense to be an ideal, rather than a reality.  By contrast, it seems to me that
nominalism treats these two concepts as largely equivalent.

What is the remedy for "excessive or even exclusive reliance on monadic 
predicates
applied to putative individuals to describe everything"?  Presumably it is 
necessary,
but not sufficient, to recognize the reality of the corresponding medads — 
qualities
that are what they are independent of anything else.  We also need to recognize 
the
reality of dyads, triads, and other relations, including habits and laws that 
*govern*
individuals.  Is this your concern, or is there even more to it than that?


JFS: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00074.html


The issues about universals and essences have been with us for a couple
of millennia, and nobody has a proposed useful definition that everyone
can accept. Peirce developed his semiotic as a foundation that *avoids*
those terms.


CG: https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-01/msg00100.html


As I think through the dispute I think really what we're getting at is Peirce's
notion of the Universe of Discourse.  The question then becomes what 
distinguishes
or differentiates one universe of discourse from an other?  We recognize that 
there
is not just one universe of discourse.  For Peirce to denote is to put the sign 
in
relation to the object of common communication.  That is, a universe of 
discourse.


JA: 

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

John C, John S, List,

Kant's lectures on logic and his remarks in the three Critiques make it clear 
that he recognizes and appreciates inference to hypothesis and inference by 
induction as forms of argument that are different in kind from deductive 
inferences such as demonstrative reasoning.

In the Lectures on Logic, such as the late collection called the Jäsche 
lectures, Kant seems to claim that the validity of both forms of synthetic 
inference is only "psychological" in character. Having said that, it is 
difficult to determine from the context of the Jäsche lectures whether that is 
Kant's own position, or whether it might be a position that he is simply 
describing as a view that is articulated in the textbook on logic (by another 
author) that he is discussing with his students.

What does seem clear is that Kant tried to justify the validity of synthetic 
forms of cognition by focusing on the justification of the judgments. Peirce, 
on the other hand, focuses on the patterns of inference, and claims that the 
logical justification of these inferences should be based on the formal 
relations between the propositions that make up the premisses and conclusions. 
It is a mistake, Peirce thinks, to confuse matters of judgement (which do 
involve psychological issues) with matters of assertion, the truth of 
propositions asserted and the formal relations between those propositions.

--Jeff

Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354

From: John Collier [colli...@ukzn.ac.za]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 8:01 AM
To: John F Sowa; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

Quite, John. I could have been more clear about that, but composing posts on my 
phone is tedious, and I kept it short.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

> -Original Message-
> From: John F Sowa [mailto:s...@bestweb.net]
> Sent: Monday, 30 January 2017 4:33 PM
> To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism
>
>
> Peirce's contribution was to recognize that Kant's synthetic a priori could be
> replaced by abduction.  Then he called it a method of reasoning at the same
> level as induction and deduction.  The problem of justifying a particular
> abduction is a matter for the philosophy of science.
>
> John F.S.

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[John F Sowa]

John C and Edwina,

JC

Nominalism is a weaker hypothesis than Realism, so if something is
consistent with realism, then it is consistent with nominalism. Locke,
for example, distinguished between the nominal essence and the real
essence. The former tells us what we think something is like, while the
latter is what the thing is really like.


ET

I see your point, but I consider the shift to nominalism far more
important than is suggested by its being a 'weaker hypothesis than
Realism'.


I agree with both of you.  JC's observation is a clear, succinct way
to distinguish nominalism and realism.  ET's observations are important
sociological issues about the implications of that distinction.

JC

There are no unmediated signs of reality and, for Locke, there is no
way to get out of this mediated representation. Peirce thought we could
get out of this by abduction, but empiricists don't allow this as part
of logic.


Actually, the question of how to use abduction is orthogonal to the
nominalist-realist debates.  Mathematicians and logicians have always
started their proofs with a hypothesis, but they ignored the question
of where that hypothesis came from.

Peirce's contribution was to recognize that Kant's synthetic a priori
could be replaced by abduction.  Then he called it a method of reasoning
at the same level as induction and deduction.  The problem of justifying
a particular abduction is a matter for the philosophy of science.

John F.S.

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

[Edwina Taborsky]

John, I see your point, but I consider the shift to nominalism far more 
important than is suggested by its being a 'weaker hypothesis than Realism'. 

My view is that the shift to nominalism was a huge 'tectonic' transformation in 
western society, actually admitting, allowing that the 'common man working in 
the fields' not only had the societal right but admitting that he had the 
capacity-to-see-the truth. All by himself. Without any dictates from a higher 
Intelligentsia. That was a monumental shift, rivalling the Magna Carta in its 
effects, freeing ALL individuals from subservience to a higher class and 
enabling an explosion of diverse perspectives - and - the development of new 
technology.

Of course, the downside is that, by denying that there was an 'essential 
Reality' beyond individual perception - you are left with postmodern relativism 
where Truth doesn't exist; all that 'exists' are subjective opinions. Realism 
as you point out, accepts that there is an 'essential Reality', a general 
essence common to all individual instantiations [type and token] - even though 
it also accepts that we cannot directly connect to it. Realism therefore sets 
up a framework that denies relativism and thus sets up the Peircean 'community 
of scholars' as vital in exploration, unlike the nominalist view where a 
community is almost irrelevant.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: John Collier 
  To: Jerry LR Chandler ; Eric Charles 
  Cc: Peirce List ; Helmut Raulien 
  Sent: Monday, January 30, 2017 5:36 AM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism


  Jerry, List, 

  Nominalism is a weaker hypothesis than Realism, so if something is consistent 
with realism, then it is consistent with nominalism. Locked, for example, 
distinguished between the nominal essence and the real essence. The former 
tells us what we think something is like, while the latter is what the thing is 
really like. According to his semiotic theory we only have access to the 
nominal essence, which is constructed from our experience. The real essence we 
can never directly know. We can get at it only via other signs, which makes 
them, by his account, nominal. He also thought that meaning usually followed 
the nominal essence, which is historically questionable, but the difference 
between what we take to be the real essence and the nominal essence has to be a 
nominal distinction. There are no unmediated signs of reality and, for Locke, 
there is no way to get out of this mediated representation. Peirce thought we 
could get out of this by abduction, but empiricists don't allow this as part of 
logic. Nominalism says nothing else about the real essence of things. Realists 
have to add something in order to make their claims. Empiricists typically 
claim that we don't need anything more to do science. 

  So, logically the consistency of realism entails the consistency of 
nominalism.


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--

  From: Jerry LR Chandler 
  Sent: Sunday, January 29, 2017 9:51:30 PM
  To: Eric Charles
  Cc: Peirce List; Helmut Raulien
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism 

  Eric: 


On Jan 28, 2017, at 4:23 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:


In my view of sytems theory, a system is more than it´s parts, of course, 
and what is more, is real and natural. But in my opinion "natural" does not 
mean "good for us". A sytem that contains other systems, 


  Beyond statistics, I am not aware of your scientific background.  Indeed, I 
am interested in your views as a statistician with regard to part-whole 
illations. For several years, in the 1990’s, I taught a course (at the NIH) 
entitled “ Health Risk Analysis” that was an inquiry into the logic of 
distributions and pragmatic public health assessment of the “realism” of 
chemical and radiation exposures.


  The questions raised in these lectures was a factor that contributed to my 
study of logic and CSP’s writings. In my view, Peirce was first a chemist and 
logician, and later added to these belief systems various conjectures about 
other philosophies.  Again, in my view, Peirce crafted his logical beliefs to 
be consistent with the chemical sciences as they stood in his era, an era when 
the chemical sciences were undergoing rapid development.  


  Now, some “leading principles” behind my questions to you. The meta-physical 
notion of “nominalism” is simply not consistent with the basic foundational 
structures of the chemical sciences as it stood in the late 19 th Century.  
Hence, CSP was faced with the logical tension between the empirical evidence 
and the structural logic of chemical graph theory with the meta-physical 
principle of nominalism.

  The consequences of this logical tension are far-reaching.  CSP introduces 
the ‘leading principles’ to ground the historical developments of CSP’s 
numerous attempts to update