Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Word and Object' and 'Problems of Philosophy'

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3 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

4441	'Resemblance Nominalism' won't work, because the theory treats resemblance itself as a universal [Russell]
	Full Idea: To be a universal, a resemblance must hold between many pairs of white things. We can't say there is a different resemblance between each pair, since the resemblances must resemble each other, so we are forced to admit that resemblance is a universal.
	From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 9)
	A reaction: Apparently this objection is much discussed and controversial. It looks like a threat to any theory of universals (involving 'sets', or 'concepts', or 'predicates'). We seem to need 'basic' and 'derivative' universals. Cf Idea 7956.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 4. Concept Nominalism

4429	If we consider whiteness to be merely a mental 'idea', we rob it of its universality [Russell]
	Full Idea: If we come to regard an 'idea' like whiteness as an act of thought, then we come to think of whiteness as mental, but in doing so we rob it of its essential quality of universality.
	From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 9)
	A reaction: Presumably we need an ontological commitment to the existence of universals, which is very Platonic. Fatherhood might be a better example, since whiteness is a quale.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism

8504	Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt]
	Full Idea: Quine is not an 'ostrich', because his strategy for dealing with property sentences is clear enough: all talk of attributes is to be dispensed with in favour of talk of eternal open sentences or talk of classes.
	From: report of Willard Quine (Word and Object [1960], §43) by Michael Devitt - 'Ostrich Nominalism' or 'Mirage Realism'? p.100
	A reaction: [See p.209 'Word and Object'] The proposal seems to be that a property like being-human (a category) would be dealt with by classes, and qualitative properties would be dealt with simply as predicates. I like the split, and the first half, not the second.