Sorry to have been away from the discussion for a while.
Jon is right that the Pragmatic Maxim is a version of the Razor.
But the ontological Razor was no invention of Ockham and so is not wed to
nominalism in particular.
Already Peirce's realist hero, Duns Scotus, used the Razor two generations
before Ockham: Numquam pluralitas est ponenda sine necessitate. - Never
postulate a plurality of entities without necessity. So the Razor is just as
compatible with Scotist realism. It all depends upon what is considered
necessary.
But the Razor seems to have been around in the 13C, it was probably not Scotus'
invention either.
F
Den 20/01/2015 kl. 02.34 skrev Jon Awbrey jawb...@att.net:
Peircers,
By theoretical entities I mean things like classes, properties, qualities,
sets, situations, or states of affairs, in general, the putative denotations
of theoretical concepts, formulas, sentences, in brief, the ostensible
objects of signs.
A conventional statement of Ockham's Razor is, “Entities shall not be
multiplied beyond necessity.”
That is still good advice, as practical maxims go, but a pragmatist will read
that as practical necessity or utility, qualifying the things that we need to
posit in order to think at all, without getting lost in endless
circumlocutions of perfectly good notions.
Nominalistic revolts are well-intentioned when they naturally arise, seeking
to clear away the clutter of ostentatious entities ostensibly denoted by
signs that do not denote.
But that is no different in its basic intention than what Peirce sought to
do, clarifying metaphysics though the application of the Pragmatic Maxim.
Taking the long view, then, pragmatism can be seen as a moderate continuation
of Ockham's revolt, substituting a principled revolution for what tends to
descend to a reign of terror.
Regards,
Jon
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com
-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on Reply List or Reply All to REPLY ON
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu
. To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu
with the line UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on Reply List or Reply All to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the
line UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
