Nominalism is the position that universals and/or abstract objects do not exist
Questions tagged [nominalism]
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Do realists and nominalists actually disagree about what really is, or do they just disagree about words?
So I am reading Loux's contemporary introduction to metaphysics, and he starts by giving two broad ideas about universals.
Do realists and nominalists actually disagree about what really is? For example, it feels like all the arguments for realism…
Toby Peterken
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Realist vs Nominalist views of empirical data
I was recently intrigued by this passage regarding time-series data from The Grammar of Graphics, section 3.2:
Among the many prevailing views of the role of empirical data in
modern science, there are two opposing extremes. On the one hand, the
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Arash Howaida
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Can nominalist logicians reject universals but accept universal statements?
I am aware that Nominalism comes in at least two flavors, one in particular is the denial of universals. Under this paradigm of Nominalsim, is it possible for a mathematician or even a logician to be a Nominalist? Can s/he outright deny universals…
J. Dunivin
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Why should we care about the Platonism vs. nominalism debate?
I understand the debate to be about whether abstract concepts actually "exist". As such, it is clearly an important question for ontology.
However, I fail to see any practical reason to care about this debate. Is there any scenario in which we would…
J Li
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What is the meaning of Principle C'' in Hartry Field's 'Science Without Numbers'?
For Field, the following is 'perfectly obvious', but I would like confirmation that I understand it completely.
Let A be a nominalistically statable assertion.
Let A* be the assertion that results by restricting each quantifier of A with the…
Amy
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Can nominalists believe in their own death?
Can nominalists believe in their own death? You often hear people talk about death as nothing-ness, which suggests a universal nothing. And nominalists say that universals do not exist.
Just trying to figure out why I often seem so averse to…
luke
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Does nominalism about kinds/universals entail eliminativism/nihilism about ordinary objects?
If one holds a nominalist or conventionalist view of universals or kind, then do they believe that there are ordinary objects?
Craigory
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Do nominalists say that unicorns and married bachelors don't exist in the same way?
I'm a philosophy novice that's trying to wrap my head around nominalism. In my current thinking there is a big difference between two categories of things that don't exist: non-actual concepts and logical contradictions. For example:
unicorns,…
curiousdannii
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If mathematical platonism is true, is mathematics then a discovery?
A perennial meta-mathematical question is whether mathematics is an invention or a discovery.
If mathematical platonism is true, it means that mathematical concepts exist as ideas, and therefore, or so it seems to me, that mathematics is a process…
Mozibur Ullah
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Is nominalism to assert something is only what we call it?
Is the following concise definition of nominalism correct:
Nominalism is to assert something is only what we call it.
?
Or are there problems with it?
Geremia
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Is the Problem of Universals still a prominent topic of debate?
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy includes an entry for the Medieval version of the debate of universals, but not for anything contemporary. There's an entry on universals in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but the most recent surveys…
user1050268
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Are "univerals" created? Do they evolve?
I've come across the philosophical debate about "universals" versus "particulars". On the one hand, some believe there are no universals, only particulars (nominalists). On the other hand, there are those who believe there are universals (realists).…
luchonacho
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On the universal and preconception in stoic logic: the word "natural" (naturale) from Diog. L., VII, 54
Foreword: as an Italian student, I hope that I will not make many mistakes in translating the lexicon from my native language to English; sometimes this will happen, and so putting the Italian word in curved braces seems to me the best thing to do…
user35385
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How is nominalism different to universalism?
I wonder how this would be best explained to the public without prior knowledge (such myself).
We have on one side the contradiction between e.g. the general or abstract “(being) yellow” vs “yellow things”. Most people would have difficulties…
Mikael Jensen
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Nominalist views and contradictions
Given a flavor of nominalism which denies that simple sentences and existential quantifiers referring to mathematical objects are literally true (pretense theory, fictionalism, figuralism, etc.), suppose there is a circle, C. According to my…
user20658
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