Jack, List: Perhaps I misunderstood, but "agreed-upon meaning" struck me as a likely indicator of nominalism--the doctrine that "grass" and "green," as words signifying general concepts, "are mere names without any corresponding reality." Do you agree after all that my grass being green today is "the ontic reality," such that the proposition "my grass is green today" is true? Do you also agree that the structure of propositions matches that of real facts, such that even if no one had ever *actually *expressed this one in any particular human language, it would still be true? A scholastic realist says yes to both these questions, while a nominalist says no.
Peirce was as serious a scholar of Kant's work as they come, and he explicitly "return[ed] the verdict of nominalism," regardless of how Kant viewed himself. "Kant was a nominalist; although his philosophy would have been rendered compacter, more consistent, and stronger if its author had taken up realism, as he certainly would have done if he had read Scotus" (CP 1.19, 1903). Here is a longer excerpt from an early (and still unpublished) manuscript draft of CP 5.464 (EP 2:400). CSP: I was long enough within the Kantian fold myself to comprehend clearly in what their difficulty consists in, and how it arises, but the full explanation would be too long for this article. It may be said to have two sources; first, that the main propositions of Kant solve no problems, but merely transform, or restate them, and that in a way that tends to block the road of inquiry, the worst tendency that a philosophy can have. The reception the Kantians gave to the non-Euclidean geometry illustrated that. The second source of the Kantian misunderstanding,--only to be indicated here,--is Kant's nominalism. The essence of nominalism lies in its assumption that reality consists in a mode of being independent of thought, instead of in a mode of being independent of any actual thoughts, or judgments, *concerning the real object*. Accordingly, as soon as a nominalist is convinced that an object or meaning is constructed of thought, he pronounces it unreal without any further discrimination. Kant is ultranominalistic when he refers to his nonsensical things in themselves. (R 321, 1907) Of course, the last sentence makes it unmistakably clear that Peirce specifically considered Kant's notion of an incognizable thing-in-itself to be irremediably rooted in nominalism. "Now this scholastic realism is usually set down as a belief in metaphysical fictions. But, in fact, a realist is simply one who knows no more recondite reality than that which is represented in a true representation. Since, therefore, the word 'man' is true of something, that which 'man' means is real. The nominalist must admit that man is truly applicable to something; but he believes that there is beneath this a thing in itself, an incognizable reality. His is the metaphysical figment" (CP 5.312, EP 1:53, 1868). Even more strongly, "The absolutely unknowable is a non-existent existence. The Unknowable is a nominalistic heresy" (CP 6.492, c. 1896). As for "the syntactical element of iconicity in propositions," it is most obvious in Beta EG, where individuals are denoted by *continuous *heavy lines and concepts are attributed to them by *attaching *words to those lines, so we can literally *see *their logical relations. Frederik Stjernfelt observes in *Sheets, Diagrams, and Realism in Peirce* (2022) that this is unquestionably more iconic than the now-standard algebraic notation, where each variable denoting an individual must occur repeatedly--for every quantifier and predicate--instead of only once (pp. 138&172). Even in natural languages, Peirce observes a tendency for the syntax to embody "the flow of causation," giving the English sentence "Cain killed Abel" as an example (SWS 289-90, 1910 Nov 26-27)--it is just as compact and iconic as the corresponding graph in Beta EG, and much more so than spelling out ∃x ∃y (Cx ∧ Ay ∧ Kxy) as "there exists an *x* and there exists a *y* such that *x* is Cain and *y* is Abel and *x* stands in the relation of killing to *y*." On the other hand, Peirce recognizes elsewhere that certain arrangements of certain words are sometimes needed to represent logical relations in natural languages. He classifies these signs as "*Copulants*, which neither describe nor denote their Objects, but merely express universally the logical sequence of these latter upon something otherwise referred to. Such, among linguistic signs, as 'If ____ then ____,' '____ is ____,' '____ causes ____,' '____ would be ____,' '____ is relative to ____ for ____,' 'Whatever,' etc." (CP 8.350, EP 2:484, 1908 Dec 25). Even here, the syntax in each case exhibits a degree of iconicity--the antecedent precedes the consequent, the cause precedes the effect, the present state precedes the future state, etc. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Tue, Sep 9, 2025 at 7:24 AM Jack Cody <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, list > > I don't think it has to do with nominalism. I mean here's a description > definition of nominalism: > > ....doctrine > <https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&sca_esv=b77b92e33e02ffaf&q=doctrine&si=AMgyJEtf_wwxVVftS7Kej8ZWRY4P7gIcRG6G4u_Xg6bPl-yTECp_j1PcSZ8A_HoklT5kOf-e7sx5pnGLU4SYl7N7RneLPTUGti5UYpxAP-1HHyFQ93RfNis%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5k4-R08uPAxX2XEEAHaPPEXwQyecJegQIFhAS> > that > universals > <https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&sca_esv=b77b92e33e02ffaf&q=universals&si=AMgyJEt_i95eqLH3KOj-Ut-VGJJ77WvzNUmBAvuI6WxhNKmIrl95_LaTkh90xsuWN86qbxHRehXGcotf7kXJYuD2Q47X4KfHKs2n_0FRAkr_0gFs_REPyJw%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi5k4-R08uPAxX2XEEAHaPPEXwQyecJegQIFhAT> > or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality. Only > particular objects exist, and properties, numbers, and sets are merely > features of the way of considering the things that exist. (Taken from > Google). > > I mean, there's some sense in the above. You can go at it categorically > and affirm some of the criteria easily enough. It would have to be a far > more technical definition before I'd consent to that term and what it > denotes being the difference though I do think you are right that there is > a philosophical difference. I merely think that difference, if we made a > decision tree, (and I've sort of done this already), would be between > dynamic objects (and infinite inquiry, however one wishes to invoke it) and > the ding-an-sich. The weird part, for me, is that I don't disagree about > convergence — my own philosophical stance is that truth, as it is > regardless, is always present but cannot be measured in opinions. The > truth, as it is, (for me), is not so far from what Peirce postulates but I > do not think it an object but rather a real "thing" which if you could > understand it at all would be more an ideal (an actually extant/real ideal) > than any object — and here you can invoke the regulative hope of Peirce in > perhaps an interesting way? > > I don't have my core library to hand here but from memory Kant goes to > great lengths to demonstrate why the ding-an-sich (and the general system > he writes) is not nominalist. He knows, because of the dialogical context > at the time, that they will charge him of such. But no serious scholar, > surely, can read the Critique, et al, and return the verdict of nominalism > (though you could read much twentieth century, or nineteenth, also, and > actually return such a verdict). > > I'd have to know what is meant by it before I agreed, either way, as to > whether that's the stumbling block for I consider myself a "realist", also, > in the way I go about substantiating whatever it is I would claim. > > I'd ask that you clarify what you mean by iconic in the context of > propositions. Yes, off-the-top, I would agree, but I'm not sure it is a > genuine icon. If you could clarify the syntactical element of iconicity in > propositions, without being overly verbose (i.e., assume I am a child who > wants to know what you mean), then perhaps we could come to an agreement > there also? > > Best, > Jack > >
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