List: As I have said before, careful definitions are important when discussing nominalism vs. scholastic realism, so I am following up on my initial post in this thread to address some issues subsequently raised by others. Again, I suggest that anyone who denies the reality of 3ns in some context is a nominalist *in that respect*, while a scholastic realist consistently affirms the reality of 3ns across the board, *along with* 1ns and 2ns. Peirce's first discussion of "seven systems of metaphysics" in accordance with his categories is in a manuscript where he aligns "Form" with 1ns, "Matter" with 2ns, and "Entelechy" with 3ns.
CSP: It may be remarked that if, as I hold, there are three categories, Form, Matter, and Entelechy, then there will naturally be seven schools of philosophy; that which recognizes Form alone, that which recognizes Form and Matter alone, that which recognizes Matter alone (these being the three kinds of nominalism); that which recognizes Matter and Entelechy alone; that which recognizes Entelechy alone (which seems to me what a perfectly consistent Hegelianism would be); that which recognizes Entelechy and Form alone (these last three being the kinds of imperfect realism); and finally the true philosophy which recognizes Form, Matter, and Entelechy. (NEM 4:295, 1901) In this text, Peirce identifies three varieties of nominalism (all denying 3ns) and three of "imperfect" realism (affirming 3ns but not 1ns and/or 2ns) in addition to his own three-category extreme scholastic realism. Unlike in the 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, he here characterizes Aristotle as "a nominalist with vague intimations of realism" because he "endeavors to express the universe in terms of Matter and Form alone," exhibiting only "an obscure conception of what he calls *entelechy*, which I take to be a groping for the recognition of a third element which I find clearly in experience" (NEM 4:294-5). He goes on to say the following about Kant. CSP: [T]he nominalist ought to deny that there are even any such ideas as Law and Cause, otherwise than in the sense of Uniformity and Antecedent. ... But if one is going to get rid of modes of connexion by calling them unreal, why not at once say that all connexion is unreal, and say that the world is really made up of individual facts consisting of pure Matter, in the sense of that which is individual, and that these are in themselves isolated, it being merely our way of looking at them which, as it were, projects one upon another? Kant bears traces of having passed through this phase of opinion; and indeed he never altogether emancipated himself from it; although his "deductions" constitute a quite needlessly indirect refutation of it. Any logically healthy mind must instinctively feel that this position is unsound; as a scientific logic will show it to be without resort to Kant's subjective method. Some Kantians, by the way, hold that Kant's argument is not subjective; and perhaps they are right in a certain sense; but Kant plainly understood it to be so. (NEM 4:296) Nominalists view reality as *composed *of isolated facts consisting of individual things, with no connections between them except those that we *ascribe* to them in accordance with concepts like uniformity and antecedent. Kant evidently did not fully escape from this position, because he resorted to a "subjective method" when attempting to refute it. By contrast, scholastic realists view reality as a *continuous *whole from which we *prescind *facts. "There is no such thing [as an isolated fact]; and an isolated fact could hardly be real. It is an unsevered, though presciss, part of the unitary fact of nature" (CP 5.457, EP 2:356, 1905). "Thus, the question of nominalism and realism has taken this shape: Are any continua real? Now Kant, like the faithful nominalist, that Dr. Abbot has shown him to be, says no. The continuity of Time and Space are merely subjective. There is nothing of the sort in the real thing-in-itself" (NEM 4:343, 1898). In this case, Kant is a nominalist because he denies the reality of *continuity*, specifically of time and space. On the other hand, scholastic realism *does not* entail predetermined and fixed laws, whether physical or psychical. Peirce also advocates *tychism*, the reality of absolute chance (1ns), such that laws have been and still are *evolving*. That is why, in his cosmology, it is only in the *infinite future* that the universe would rigidly conform to unchanging laws--precisely the state of things that he associates with 2ns. In other words, it is because of 1ns, not 2ns, that "rules can [and do] change." Instead, the distinction between 3ns and 2ns corresponds to the *reality *of law, which is denied by nominalists but affirmed by scholastic realists, vs. the *actuality *of its instantiations, which is affirmed by both. However, "symbolic indexical" is self-contradictory without clarification that the relevant signs are *propositions*, which are *primarily *symbolic but *involve *indexical parts to denote their dynamical objects. In Peirce's 1903 taxonomy, a proposition is classified as a *dicent symbol*--the sign-interpretant relation is an existent (2ns), while the sign-object relation and the sign itself are both necessitants (3ns). Likewise, "indexical actuality of 3ns" is self-contradictory, or at best misleading; 3ns *itself *is symbolic and not indexical, real but not actual. In "the societal context," it seems to me that the question of nominalism vs. scholastic realism is whether *all *social and political norms are arbitrary, such that they can be changed by the human will--individually or collectively--or *some *social and political norms are real, such that they are as they are regardless of what anyone thinks about them. For example, are rights invented by human governments, or grounded in the reality of human nature? Is being male or female a choice that someone can make, or an immutable biological fact? Is morality just a matter of subjective desires and consensus conventions, or are there objective ethical truths that an infinite community would affirm after infinite investigation? Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt >
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