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In Are numbers particulars?, David Gudeman states "nominalist, which I don't think anyone is these days." I was not aware that nominalism regarding universal is generally considered to be disconfirmed and is by most excepted as false. If yes, which argument has been so compelling? I am particular (no pun intended) surprised of this statement, as hardcore materialism is relatively common among people I know (not necessarily philosophers) and accepting universals to be true is not very materialistic in my opinion.

Make42
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    See [Nominalism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/); IMO it is hard to assert that some philosophical view has been "disproved". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Nov 25 '22 at 15:24
  • @MauroALLEGRANZA: I softened by wording. I did not mean mathematically/logically disproven. – Make42 Nov 25 '22 at 15:27
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    There was a 2020 poll of (mostly) analytic philosophers with a question [Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism?](https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4818) The results were (accept or lean towards): Platonism 38.38%; nominalism 41.85%. In the analogous [2009 poll](https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl): Platonism 39.3%; nominalism 37.7%. So nominalism is one of the two dominant positions on the subject. David Gudeman mentioned "some sort of nominalist" with multiple instances of what would have to be an abstract object 5, so not even a nominalist in the standard sense. – Conifold Nov 25 '22 at 19:02
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    @Conifold: The survey is about nominalism regarding abstract entities, not nominalism regarding universals. Whiel Gudeman said somewhat vague "some sort of" it was in the context of universals, so I think the survey does not count towards the discussion after all. – Make42 Dec 01 '22 at 11:02
  • Universals are a subset of abstractions, and the problems that abstractions provide for materialism is not limited to the set of "universal" abstractions. See the answer to this question: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/95025/do-universals-possess-a-different-kind-of-reality-to-particulars – Dcleve Dec 07 '22 at 20:17
  • Although it seems strange to claim a philosophical theory is disproven, if we talk about acceptance the long term trend is clearly in favor of nominalism. It used to be accepted that human races or animal species (also refered to as "kinds") were universals. Progress in biology as shown that it's wrong: all living individuals come from the same ancestor, and we regrouped them in categories a posteriori. Laws of nature also used to be seen as universal, but we know now they are just useful models of reality. We for even know if they are really true, just that they work good enough. – armand Dec 08 '22 at 08:18
  • @armand: And yet, every particular electron seems to fully be an electron, or, dare I say, every particular electron seems to fully instantiate the universal *electron*. – Make42 Jan 10 '23 at 16:55
  • @Dcleve: I am not sure if I agree that there exist no "concrete universals", but I do agree that abstract particulars pose a problem for materialism. (Maybe I should clarify that I am not a convinced materialist.) – Make42 Jan 10 '23 at 17:03
  • @make42 i wouldn't go that far yet, that seems highly presumptuous. We have a model of the electron that is coherent with our observation of reality so far, that's all. Nobody knows what an electron exactly *is*. Generally speaking, using intuition about highly unintuitive objects like quantum particles isn't sound. – armand Jan 10 '23 at 22:39
  • @armand: Do you mean that "And yet, every particular electron seems to fully be an electron, or, dare I say, every particular electron seems to fully instantiate the universal electron." seems highly presumptuous or did you mean a different statement of mine? – Make42 Jan 11 '23 at 14:22
  • @Make42 the one you quoted here. Nothing personal though. Consider that Democritus would have said the same : "every particular atom of fire seems to fully be an atom of fire, or every particular atome of fire seems to fully instantiate the universal atom of fire." Yet we know now there is no such thing as an "atom of fire". Democritus was wrong, but he didn't know it because his theory of atoms sufficed to explain what he could observe. Modern theory of science shows us that we are not fundamentally in a different position, just more refined. – armand Jan 12 '23 at 00:32
  • @armand: That may be the case, but this just "moves" the universality-property deeper down from "fire" to "electron"; from larger, many-types (of which there are few instances per type) to smaller, few-type things (with many instances per type). In fact, our world seems more universal-ly and less particular-ly than in Democritus time. In fact, the development of the Standard Model of particle physics is aiming at that. If we would to find out there are only three types of strings, we would be living in an even more universal-ly world. – Make42 Jan 13 '23 at 11:22
  • Also, every fire is somewhat different, electrons seem to be exactly the same, so much to entertain the idea that there is only one electron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe. If we were to live in a one-electron universe, indeed, there would be no need for a electron-universal. However, the idea is usually only considered to be a "fun thought experiment" not taken too serious. In other words, not only seems our world more universal-ly in that there are fewer types and more instances, but even those instances are now exactly the same, in contrast to Democritus's instances. – Make42 Jan 13 '23 at 11:29
  • No, it just means that we have an idea of things that seems to be neat and universal... until we get to know more and discover our tidy ideas are false. You have no objective reason to think there is a universal model of the electron somewhere else than in your head (the old phenomenon/noumenon unsolvable dichotomy). Chord theory or any other fancier, more complete theory will never solve this problem, for in order to demonstrate your model is perfect you would have to have observed every single observable fact in the universe (good luck with that...). – armand Jan 14 '23 at 04:31
  • @armand: Doesn't this boils down to "models cannot not be trusted" and that leads to "you cannot trust inductive inferences", because inductive inference requires models? This however also removes any way to justify believes in any theory about the "real" universe, not just universals. In other words, what are you still able to justify except the formal validity of a deductive argument, within an formal system that is also "made up"? Not that I would disagree, I am currently a skeptic, but you are not left much to work with. Or am I misunderstanding you? – Make42 Jan 14 '23 at 13:17
  • "You can't trust models" is the kind of hyperbolic doubt that will make your life unbearable. Basically, every time we send a comment on this site we are trusting our current model of the electron. Every time we take a plane we trust our life on the validity of the aerodynamic models used by its engineers. It's no inconsequential thing. Sometimes the model fails and we have a crash, but what is important is that it's good enough that we are willing to take our chances. Being aware that no model of understanding is perfect and trust no model is not the same thing. The latter is delusional. – armand Jan 15 '23 at 00:15
  • @armand: Ok, I missphrased that. I did not mean to say the trust for daily life in the sense "trust well enough to take you chances". I was aiming towards: observing something, forming an theory (e.g., claiming a universal) and then making an ontological claim that the world is really like that and that, not just "I have a model that works and if I pretend it to be true, I will do well in live". I mean making claims about the real reality of the physical world. Is that making sense? (Yes, Hume denied that this is possible.) – Make42 Jan 16 '23 at 13:11

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There's consistently been an even amount of platonists & nominalists and this continues to be the case in contemporary philosophy, see the PhilPapers survey (actually, right now, there might be marginally more nominalists).

When platonism is contrasted exclusively with nominalism, this is about abstract objects and not properties (though transcendental universals are just one kind of abstract object that, if they exist, would also entail abstracta platonism): it is important to distinguish between the debate about the ontology of properties where platonism, immanentism, conceptualism, etc battle it out versus the debate about the existence of abstracta where it's just platonism (they exist), nominalism (they don't). Candidate abstracta may be platonic properties, sets, propositions, numbers, geometric shapes, etc. An example is that Quine was a nominalist in the former sense but a platonist in the latter sense.

Some of the arguments for abstracta platonism come from mathematical platonism, scientific realism & indispensability arguments, and meaning.

kuro
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I see the surveys showing no drop in support for nominalism among philosophers in general, and agree that may be the case among your materialist colleagues as well. But that does not appear to be the case among the theorists of materialism/physicalism.

I reference four good theoretical discussions from this century: the Rise of Physicalism by David Papineau, Physicalism by Daniel Stoljar, A Physicalist Manifesto by Andrew Melnyk, and Physicalism or Something Near Enough by Jaegwon Kim. All are physicalists or physicalist-leaning "near" physicalists.

Three of the four explicitly state that physicalism no longer is a monistic ontology. The possibility of non-physical objects or items in our world is compatible with physicalism, per those three authors. They do not even assert that non-physical things are causally inert, only that they do not act as causes in physics. The fourth, Kim, agrees that non-physical things exist, but holds that they are causally inert. Kim is the only one of the four who holds that physicalism is a monism, and our world NOT being monistic is why he is now only "near" physicalism.

Stoljar, the other "near" physicalist, was even willing to accept non-monistic physicalism. He only abandoned it because of Hempel's dilemma, which did not allow for the even minimal criteria of causal inertness for the non-physical. If one cannot define the physical vs non-physical, then causal inertness for the non-physical is not a claim with any content, so it cannot be the defining criteria of physicalism.

Stoljar, despite being an almost physicalist, actually has a very negative view of the REASON for physicalism's popularity. He considers the philosopher's role to be being displaced by science, math theory, and linguistic theory, such that philosophers are a bit at loose ends for what to do. But physicalism offers a ready made role -- explain to the public why when the world APPEARS to not be purely physical, it really IS. Note, this role is the same as that assigned to the branch of Apologism in theology. Philosophers as apologists for an ideology -- is not a very positive view of philosophers.

As an empiricist, who accepts indirect realism as the way to infer what is real, I have always been a bit mystified by nominalism. Math, abstractions, and experiences, are all as reasonably inferred to be real as matter. How nominalists propose to do epistemology, how do they know that abstractions are not real, I have never seen spelled out. Nor has it been at all clear to me what a "nominal" IS. Sure, it is a thought problem, created by a mind, to do a purpose. But none of that (thought, problem, mind, purpose) seem to be material, so how this explanation makes nominalism monistically material remained a mystery to me. This identical process is also how Popper's triplest ontology would describe model making, so I did not see how this description avoided ontic triplism.

Stoljar's explanation of apologism as a philosophic project, strikes me as particularly relevant to nominalism. Nominalism appears to me to mostly be a word salad designed to try to obscure the ontic nature of the emergence process that it is describing.

Plus nominalism cannot explain why theoretical physicists mostly treat math as more fundamental than matter. If matter reduces to the symmetry principles and probabilities and waveforms of the Standard Model, then math, and abstraction, is not "nominal" at all, but is more "real" than anything else.

The widespread abandonment of reductionism and its replacement by pluralist emergence among philosophers of science in this century, strikes me as removing both the plausibility of and need for a nominalist description of abstractions. Non-reductive physicalism basically admits to an ontically non-physical mind being emergent from matter, then ideas being emergent from mind. And non-reductive physicalism is the vastly most widespread view of physicalism among philosophers of mind.

I believe the theoreticians of physicalism have understood these challenges to physicalism that make physicalism no longer plausibly a monism, and that the unclear rationale for the "nominality" of ideas is no longer a useful bit of apologetics, hence none of the contemporary physicalist theoreticians are still arguing for nominalism. There is a lag between the theoreticians of a movement, and its adherents, which is why I think the survey is lagging the theorists.

If mine is an invalid understanding of the issue, I hope a better answer is posted here.

For interest, here are my reviews of Stoljar, Melnyck, and Kim. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1A8I0RTYJEDJM/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0521038944 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R13R2OUNXMIN6H/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0415452635 https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1LFTMUSP8VEWB/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0691133859

Dcleve
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  • Very interesting, thank you! I have to say though, that I have never heard a convincing explanation of "emergence", much less, an argument for its existence. What I have heard boils down to "There is some complicated stuff going on, so some crazy entities (e.g. consciousness), plop into existence." Or in your words, emergence appears to me to mostly be a word salad, that it obscures the fact, that one does not want to deny the existence of the "emerged" entity, but also admit it is fundamental. – Make42 Jan 10 '23 at 17:29
  • "Note, this role is the same as that assigned to the branch of Apologism in theology." - puh... I cannot say that appears so that God does not exist and now apologists need to explain why God exists after all. It seem to me to be the other way around: The world seems to be created, some people (many nowadays) bring arguments why it is not after all. (Now, many people believe that, but not because of appearance, but because of repetition of the statement.) Then apologists try to counter those points. Apologists "defend" the appearance, not attack that "it is different after all". – Make42 Jan 10 '23 at 17:37
  • For example, Richard Dawkins repeatedly says that nature seems to be designed. – Make42 Jan 10 '23 at 17:43
  • @Make42 -- the purpose of apologism in theology is to provide rationalizations to possible challenging questions, so that the faithful who WANT to remain faithful, will accept the rationalizations and stop thinking about the problems. Apologism is always motivated reasoning, the conclusion is set, and the goal is to justify that with rationalizations. One finds a very similar practice among atheist fora, among political movements, and among economic ideologues. Apologism is a needed role for any ideological movement. – Dcleve Jan 11 '23 at 00:28
  • @Make42 -- How emergence works, what will emerge, and why, and how causation operates between tiers of emergent phenomena is very much up in the air in emergence theory. Emergence in many applications therefore often fills the role of "and then a miracle occurs" in the classic chalkboard cartoon. HOWEVER, despite its poor grounding, we can be pretty confident that emergence is part of our world. Wetness is an emergent phenomena, only observed at a higher tier. Same with "surface", and much of our macroscopic worldview. So the theory is still TBD, but there IS emergence. – Dcleve Jan 11 '23 at 00:35
  • I agree, that the goal is set. But this is how natural science in practice also works: I set a goal (hypothesis) of what I want to show before I go on to prove or find evidence for that hypothesis. It is something along the lines of assuming a pattern and then looking for evidence for that. In my experience, this is rarely open-ended. Either we find evidence or not, but not evidence for a different hypothesis. If no evidence is found, nothing is published and nobody know. We might come up with a different hypothesis, rinse and repeat, but that iteration is also towards a set goal. – Make42 Jan 11 '23 at 13:59
  • The issue with that approach is the big data fallacy if you will: If you test enough hypotheses you will always find one for which you have significant evidence. The way to go about this (maybe not in theory but certainly in practice) is that a *different* team will set the goal to disprove one my team did. That just means they have the opposite *set* goal*. It becomes a competition and the better team wins (hopefully because of the better argument and hopefully the argument is better, because the hypothesis is closer to the truth - none of which is guaranteed, I can tell you stories). – Make42 Jan 11 '23 at 14:04
  • For example, I co-authored a Nature Neuroscience paper which gave evidence that a decades-old theory about neurons is false. But - and this is somewhat important - we were the "other" team. – Make42 Jan 11 '23 at 14:05
  • Your examples are surprising to me. I do not find it difficult - at least superficially - to describe how wetness is related to the Van der Waals force. I would not have dreamed of calling this emergence, as wetness (as in "being flowing, but also sticky") does not seem fundamentally different than the Van der Waals force. Conscientiousness and especially free will (if one believe they are real in any sense) on the other hand seem very different to me than dead matter. – Make42 Jan 11 '23 at 14:19