At 08:02 PM 1/18/2015, Frederik Stjernfelt wrote:
FS: I know of no-one being a realist about any possible claim or
any possible universal!
All realists know it is only some universals which are real
("phologiston", "ether", "unicorn" and a host of others are not).
HP: In my mind this is a truism.
FS: True, but it is the same truism as Miller's
HP: No, it is not the same. You are saying that one can be a realist
about some concepts and not a realist about other concepts. This is
quite obvious and hence a truism.
Miller and I are saying that one can be more-or-less realist and
more-or-less nominalistic about one particular concept. This
complementarity is not a truism, because in fact many philosophers
who have trained (or "shackled") their minds with "either-or" logic
do not accept it. Your response to Stan claiming that invoking a
realistic component to a nominalist concept makes you a realist is an example.
Combined realist-nominalist components exist in all models and are
often difficult to clearly distinguish. In chemistry the models of
atoms and molecules have both. In evolution the concepts of selection
and species have both. In physics the concepts of space, time, and
wave functions have both.
Howard
-----------------------------
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 .
