Eric, List, Correcting typos and adding remarks ...
We are passing through decohering times, so let me link to a couple of things I wrote on this issue that state my current view well enough and are probably more coherent than I could come up with on short notice: https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2015/01/20/pragmatism-about-theoretical-entities-1/ https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/09/21/nominalism-and-essentialism-are-the-scylla-and-charybdis-that-pragmatism-must-navigate-its-middle-way-between/ Regards, Jon On 1/27/2017 6:48 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: > Eric, > > Welcome the List ! > > It's Friday night and I have the feeling you'll get more advice than > mere mortals can handle so I'll limit myself to one or two remarks. > > Looking back over the month and the last couple of decades on the List > I think the interminable quality of many debates about Nominalism vs. > Realism are due to the attempts by many to pin Peirce down on a map > of the Ancient World, philosophically speaking, whereas Peirce was > one of the leading figures in a movement that reshaped that map > in radically new ways. > > More later, > > Jon > > Sent from my iPad > >> On Jan 27, 2017, at 6:19 PM, Eric Charles <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Oh hey, my first post to the list.... >> >> I must admit that I find much of the recent discussion baffling. >> In part, this is because I have never had anyone explain the >> Nominalism-Realism distinction in a way that made sense to me. >> Don't get me wrong, I think I understand the argument in the >> ancient context. However, one of the biggest appeals of >> American Philosophy, for me, is its> ability to eliminate >> (or disarm) longstanding philosophical problems. >> >> With that in mind, I have never been able to make sense of the >> nominalist-realist debate in the context of Peirce (or James, etc.). >> The best I can do is to wonder: If I am, in a general sense, a realist, >> in that I think people respond to things (without any a priori dualistic >> privileging of mental things vs. physical things), what difference does it >> make if I think collections-of-responded-to-things are "real" as a collection, >> or just a collection of "reals"? >> >> I know it might be a big ask, but could someone give an attempt at >> explaining it to me? Either the old fashioned way, by explaining >> what issue is at argument here.... or, if someone is feeling even >> more adventurous, by explaining what practical difference it makes >> in my action which side of this debate I am on (i.e., what habit >> will I have formed if I firmly believe one way or the other?). >> >> Best, Eric >> >> ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Supervisory Survey Statistician U.S. Marine Corps > -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
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