Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Nominalism and Realism

  • The Hatfields and the McCoys: A Challenge to Reists and Extreme Nominalists

    Top of the Substack pile.

  • One-Category Trope Bundle Theory and Brentano’s Reism

    This morning's mail brought a longish letter from philosophy student Ryan Peterson.  He would like some comments and I will try to oblige him as time permits, but time is short. So for now I will confine my comments to the postscript of his letter: P.S. Just as crazy as one category trope bundle theory…

  • Referring to Two Things

    Ed writes, Does ‘these two things’ refer to two things, or not? (Suppose the things are shoes.) Perhaps not. For there are the two things, but also the plurality of them. The plurality is one thing, identical with neither the first thing, nor the second. So the phrase ‘these two things’ actually refers to three…

  • Pluralities

    To what does the plural referring expression, 'the cats in my house,' refer? Not to plurality, but to a plurality. A plurality is one item, not many items. It is one item with many members. 'The guitars in my house' refers to a numerically different plurality. It too refers to one item with many members. …

  • Occam’s Razor: Its Use and Abuse

    I am not historian enough to pronounce upon the relation of what is standardly called Occam's Razor to the writings of the 14th century William of Ockham. The different spellings of his name will serve as a reminder to be careful about reading contemporary concerns into the works of philosophers long dead. Setting aside historical concerns, Occam's…

  • Nominalism Presupposes What it Denies

    What makes a pair of shoes a pair and not just two physical artifacts? Nominalist answer: nothing in reality. Our resident nominalist tells us that it is our use of 'a pair' that imports a unity, conventional and linguistic in nature, a unity that does not exist in reality apart from our conventional importation. We…

  • A Nominalist Walks into a Bar . . .

    . . . looking sad. Bartender: "What's the matter, pal?" "My girlfriend says we have nothing in common!" Bartender: "But you are a nominalist! Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?" This short video is sloppy, but will give you some idea of what nominalism is if you don't have a clue.

  • Why Not be a Nominalist about Sets?

    The resident nominalist comments: Nominalists say that the conception of an actual infinity of natural numbers depends on there being a set of all such numbers. But Ockhamists do not believe in sets. They say that the term ‘a pair of shoes’ is a collective noun which deceives by the singular expression ‘a pair’. Deceives, because it…

  • The Hatfields and the McCoys

    Whether or not it is true, the following  has a clear sense: 1. The Hatfields outnumber the McCoys. (1) says that the number of Hatfields is strictly greater than the number of McCoys.  It obviously does not say, of each Hatfield, that he outnumbers some McCoy.  If Gomer is a Hatfield and Goober a McCoy, it…

  • Nominalism and Being

    Ed Buckner is threatening to write a book on the history of philosophy from the perspective of nominalism. I encourage him to do so for his sake and ours. One of the things he will have to do early on is to define 'nominalism' as he will use the term given its varied use in…

  • Against Ostrich Nominalism (2021 Update)

    Cyrus asked me whether being an ostrich indicates a moral defect. He is invited to repeat his question in his own words in the Comments. Logically prior question: what is an ostrich? The entry below is a redacted version of one from January 2013. ……………………………………….. As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with…

  • Nominalism, Existence, and Subsistence

    Here are five versions of nominalism by my current count: Mad-Dog Nominalism: No word has an extra-linguistic referent, not even proper names such as 'Peter' and 'Paul.'  Extreme Nominalism: The only words that have existing referents are proper names like 'Peter' and Paul'; nothing in reality corresponds to such predicates as 'blond.' And a fortiori nothing…

  • A Realist Walks into a Bar . . .

    . . . looking glum. Bartender: "What's the matter, pal?" Realist: "My nominalist girl friend says we have nothing in common!"

  • Against Ostrich Nominalism

    As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with the ultimate concerns of human existence, and thus surpassing in nobility any other human pursuit, it is also miserable in that nothing goes uncontested, and nothing ever gets established to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners.  (This is true of other disciplines as well,…

  • Nominalism and an Identity Theory of Predication

    The Worthy Opponent comments, We nominalists hold that 'God is good' is true when what is signified by 'God' and what is signified by 'good' are numerically one and the same thing. I stumble over this.  Apparently, it is The Opponent's view that a sentence such 'Socrates is good' is true when what is signified…