From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 23:03:26 BST
Scott,
Scott said:
The error of the nominalist (anti-essentialist) is that of continuing to make a language/reality distinction, just as the representationalist does. If there were no universals there would be no particulars, and vice versa. I don't just mean we couldn't say "that is a (particular) flower". I mean there wouldn't be a flower. The flower can only exist as a flower because it participates in its species' "language", but on the other hand the species does not exist except through its expression in particular flowers.
Pragmatic materialists would likely reply by saying they just want to get rid of the universal/particular distinction. But they can only do so by privileging reality over language, since language is the embodiment of the universal/particular distinction. With just particulars, one can think that one can say "There's a tiger". But one needs universals to say "Relax, there are no tigers around." To put it another way, you can't get to words about things if "originally" there are only things.
Matt:
Interesting angle. I don't think the pragmatist gets caught in the same vice as the representationalist because I don't think the pragmatist makes a distinction between language and reality. When pragmatists say they are naturalists or Darwinian about language, that means that language is a part of reality just like everything else, its not distinct in any metaphysical kind of way. Language naturally arises as a tool that certain animals use to cope.
This means that the pragmatist can only agree when Scott says, "If there were no universals there would be no particulars, and vice versa." The difference between the pragmatist and the Platonist is that the Platonist thinks that universals and particulars exist outside of language, whereas the latter-day pragmatist thinks that universals and particulars exist inside of language. There were no universals or particulars before language evolved as a tool because there was no one to talk about them. The pragmatist views the interface between universal and particular the same way he views the appearance/reality distinction and the "problem" of free will in a deterministic world: they are linguistic tensions that should be alleviated by the right kind of therapy. They are only viewed as a big deal by people who are doing metaphysics, people who think that our language "gets at" or "hooks up" with something outside of itself.
Matt
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