Frances to listers...
The ongoing messages kindly posted by Cheerskep on the subject of
notionalism and by others on the subject of nominalism are good,
but only as far as they go, which range should be held as
limited. All kinds of subjectivism like mentalism and
psychologism and rationalism simply fail as general theories of
all signs, because some classes and signs will be found as
originating or existing outside the mind. Within their limited
range the theories of visions and notions and nominations are
however often useful and even necessary, but only as special
theories. If a limited range is agreed to, then the task is to
identify exactly what causes the limit and how the limited source
came about, and then to define precisely why the limits occur and
for which entities, and then specify when and where these limits
occur. There seems to be no doubt that some phenomenal stuff when
sensed will indeed excite or arouse or incite only a mental
reaction, such as a vision or notion, or a nomination in the case
of sensing some lingual signs. There seems to be doubt however
that the psyche can in fact generate its own inner stuff
epiphenomenally solely alone without the prior experience of any
objectively sensed phenomena. If the original stuff of mental
acts like visions and notions is on the other hand phenomenal,
rather than say supereal or epiphenomenal, then subjectivism must
fail as a general account of all such things. This admission
would then allow for a logical belief that some typical classes
of normal generals do exist objectively aside from life or sense
or mind. The classes of mathematics and logics for example come
to mind, as do the laws of nature and the laws of science; all of
which are accidentally discovered by mind as inclined
evolutionary dispositions, rather than being arbitrarily invented
by mind as imposed deliberated concoctions. The issue then turns
to the qualities of art, and if such art may be an objective
general class; and whether any aesthetic properties found in
token works of typical art can be ideally objective. With all the
learned participants contributing to this list, it should be
reasonably expected that some tentative consensus of opinion on
this matter might slowly emerge.
