Version Of Nominalism Research Articles

Introduction

Introduction

Grounding Nominalism

AbstractThe notion of grounding has gained increasing acceptance among metaphysicians in recent years. In this paper, I argue that this notion can be used to formulate a very attractive version of (property) nominalism, a view that I call ‘grounding nominalism’. Simplifying somewhat, this is the view that all properties are grounded in things. I argue that this view is coherent and has a decisive advantage over competing versions of nominalism: it allows us to accept properties as real, while fully accommodating nominalist intuitions. Finally, I defend grounding nominalism against several seemingly troublesome objections.

Charity and Error‐Theoretic Nominalism

AbstractI here investigate whether there is any version of the principle of charity both strong enough to conflict with an error‐theoretic version of nominalism about abstract objects (EN), and supported by the considerations adduced in favour of interpretive charity in the literature. I argue that in order to be strong enough, the principle, which I call “(Charity)”, would have to read, “For all expressions e, an acceptable interpretation must make true a sufficiently high ratio of accepted sentences containing e”. I next consider arguments based on (i) Davidson's intuitive cases for interpretive charity, (ii) the reliability of perceptual beliefs, and (iii) the reliability of “non‐abstractive inference modes”, and conclude that none support (Charity). I then propose a diagnosis of the view that there must be some universal principle of charity ruling out (EN). Finally, I present a reason to think (Charity) is false, namely, that it seems to exclude the possibility of such disagreements as that between nominalists and realists.

Naturalism and Abstract Entities

I argue that the most popular versions of naturalism imply nominalism in philosophy of mathematics. In particular, there is a conflict in Quine’s philosophy between naturalism and realism in mathematics. The argument starts from a consequence of naturalism on the nature of human cognitive subjects, physicalism about cognitive subjects, and concludes that this implies a version of nominalism, which I will carefully characterize. The indispensability of classical mathematics for the sciences and semantic/confirmation holism does not affect the argument. The disquotational theory of reference and truth is discussed but rejected. This argument differs from the Benacerrafian arguments against realism, because it does not rely on any specific assumption about the nature of knowledge or reference. It differs from the popular objections to the indispensability argument for realism as well, because it can admit both indispensability and holism. This argument motivates a new, radically naturalistic and nominalistic approach to philosophy of mathematics.

Population thinking as trope nominalism

The concept of population thinking was introduced by Ernst Mayr as the right way of thinking about the biological domain, but it is difficult to find an interpretation of this notion that is both unproblematic and does the theoretical work it was intended to do. I argue that, properly conceived, Mayr’s population thinking is a version of trope nominalism: the view that biological property-types do not exist or at least they play no explanatory role. Further, although population thinking has been traditionally used to argue against essentialism about biological kinds, recently it has been suggested that it may be consistent with at least some forms of essentialism—ones that construe essential properties as relational. I argue that if population thinking is a version of trope nominalism, then, as Mayr originally claimed, it rules out any version of essentialism about biological kinds.

Paradigms and Russell's Resemblance Regress

Resemblance Nominalism is the view that denies universals and tropes and claims that what makes F-things F is their resemblances. A famous argument against Resemblance Nominalism is Russell's regress of resemblances, according to which the resemblance nominalist falls into a vicious infinite regress. Aristocratic Resemblance Nominalism, as opposed to Egalitarian Resemblance Nominalism, is the version of Resemblance Nominalism that claims that what makes F-things F is that they resemble the F-paradigms. In this paper I attempt to show that a recently advocated strategy to stop Russell's regress by using paradigms does not succeed.

Some ontological problems concerning predication

The Aristotelian double characterization of a primary substance exploits the difference between the part-whole relation and the non-linguistic relation of predication. A problem arises whether and how the second relation could be reduced to something else. Such a reduction is explicitly declared or at least implicitly assumed in all version of conceptualism and nominalism. The moderate realism is often interpreted as a reductionism of this kind but such interpretations do not seem corect. Only the so called resemblance theory can be regarded as a successful attempt at the reduction in question. However, it seems that the predication per se cannot be disposed of even in this way. If so, then the nature of the relation of predication still waits for a precise analysia and description. This would provide an insight into the essence of a universal being.

Resemblance Nominalism and counterparts

1997). If properties are to be explained in terms of one object's resembling another, then this seems to leave the relational property of resemblance itself unexplained. The critics' objection is that this property itself must be explained by a dyadic universal of resemblance. Rodriguez-Pereyra believes he has an answer to this problem. His version of Resemblance Nominalism employs the full Lewisian panoply of modal realism with counterparts. While some might wonder whether the ontological benefits of nominalism outweigh the ontological costs of full modal realism, it seems fair to judge the combined view (nominalism plus modal realism) by its fruits in solving important philosophical problems. If indeed this view can avoid the above criticism and can explain what makes it true that a resembles b without positing a universal of resemblance, then that would be much to its credit.1 If, on the contrary, it cannot achieve this, and nominalism is saddled with at least one universal, then it would seem that the benefits of nominalism are not so great after all. In what follows I shall argue that Rodriguez-Pereyra's treatment of the problem fails to show that nominalism can eschew all universals.

The Conceptual Contingency of Mathematical Objects

Platonists often allege that mathematical entities exist of conceptual necessity, so that any view that treats such entities as fictitious is simply incoherent. (Position (i).) Less often, nominalists counter that such entities are in fact impossible, so that it is platonism that is incoherent. (Position (ii).) I think that on the most obvious construals of conceptually (and conceptually possible etc.), both of these views are false: the right view (position (iii)) is that it is whether mathematical entities exist. This means that the debate between platonism and nominalism on the existence of mathematical entities cannot be straightforwardly settled on conceptual grounds: other grounds are required. In formulating positions (i)-(iii) I have used the notion of conceptual necessity (and conceptual possibility etc.), and some philosophers would reject this notion as incoherent. But I find the position that there is nothing in this notion hard to take seriously. I don't dispute that talk of conceptual possibility is unclear in important ways; consequently, it could (prima facie) turn out that which of the three positions is true depends on how this notion is to be clarified. But my claim will be that in fact there is no reasonable construal of conceptually on which the existence of mathematical entities is necessary. (I'm not sure I want to take quite so strong a line against the position that it is impossible for mathematical entities to exist: this may admit some interpretation in which it's defensible, as we'll see.) I will focus my discussion on recent work by Bob Hale and Crispin Wright, especially theirjoint paper Nominalism and the Contingency ofAbstract Objects (1992). Hale and Wright are among those who hold that it is necessary that mathematical entities exist. But their joint paper is mostly directed against the nominalist alternatives: and primarily, against contingent nominalism, the view (iiib) that it is whether mathematical entities exist, and that in fact they don't. (They focus on the version of nominalism that I advanced in Realism, Mathematics and Modality (1989).) I think it is clear that if their arguments against nominalism were correct, they would also undermine contingent platonism, the view (iiia) that it is whether mathematical entities exist, and that in fact they do. The main burden of this paper will be to defend view (iiib) against their critique; but in fact almost nothing I will say bears on the choice between (iiia) and (iiib). In my view the decision between (iiia) and (iiib) turns in large part on whether the well-known indispensability arguments for the existence of mathematical entities can be undercut; or more generally, on whether we can undercut arguments for the existence

Platonism versus Nominalism

According to Goodman1, one important advantage of his Structure of Appearance over Carnap's Aufbau is that his is a nominalist, whereas Car nap's is a platonist, construction. Superficially, it is clear enough why Good man should say this: Carnap employs set-theory, whereas Goodman allows himself only mereology. One object of this paper is to show that this super ficial impression is rather misleading?that closer comparison of the two books reveals that each has a claim to be regarded as the more nominalist. Another aim is to show that Goodman takes his book to be quintessentially nominalist partly because his conception of nominalism is somewhat eccen tric. And a third aim is to show that when nominalism is understood in Good man's fashion it is difficult to see what the motivation for it is; more specifically, that Goodman's arguments for his version of nominalism are not compelling. I shall begin with a brief exposition of each book, and then proceed to some comparative remarks, as a preliminary to arguing in detail for the three theses stated above.

Nominalism, Platonism and "Being True of"

One attempt to avoid platonistic ontology involves using the notion true of.' Using this notion, one claims that predicate, say white, is true of particular object whereas sign such as proper name to the object. This is done to avoid holding (1)' that predicate to universal property while the proper name to an individual and (2) that sentence used to predicate the one sign of the other indicates the fact that the individual exemplifies the property. -Thus, an attempt is made to offer coherent ontology recognizing only individuals. If cogent, this gambit provides more parsimonious ontology than platonistic alternatives. Here I shall argue that the gambit fails. A key point will be that an ontology is reflected in our use of language not only by the signs we explicitly hold to be connected with objects but also by the ways we connect signs to things. Let a and W be proper name and predicate respectively. Let stand for refers to. On what I shall call the platonistic account the signs a and W both stand or are put in the relation R, to an individual and color respectively. They are, as some say, interpreted or paired with such objects. On the alternative account the name a is also thought of as referring to the particular but the predicate is not taken to refer to anything. To take the predicate as mere label of several objects just as the name is label of one is to propose different version of nominalism, one that is sometimes referred to as the doctrine of common names. On the present nominalistic gambit the predicate is taken to stand in different relation to the particular than the name stands in, the