From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 04:38:27 BST
David,
> Don't understand why you think anti-essentialism=nominalism.
Well, here are some definitions from my dictionary (New World):
essentialism: a theory which stresses essences as opposed to existence.
essence: a) the inward nature of anything, underlying its manifestations.
True substance.
b) the indispensible conceptual characteristics and relations of
anything.
universal: a metaphysical entity characterized by repeatability and
unchanging nature through a series of changing relations, as substance.
nominalism: A doctrine of the late middle ages that all universal or
abstract terms are mere necessities of thought or conveniences of language
and therefore exist as names only and have no general realities
corresponding to them.
So I see a nominalist as one who denies the reality of the concept of words
(its signified), this being an example of an essence. I don't see someone
being one and not the other, but I could be misunderstanding, so please fill
me in on the difference.
>
> I am a realist as per essentialism but do not think we can reduce
> reality down to any essential properties.
If one removes "reduce" and "properties", doesn't this say that you are a
realist as per essentialism, but do not think any essence is real? Again, I
plead confusion.
>
> But not an anti-realist as per a nominalist. Nor giving priority
> to concrete particulars, as these are indistinguishable without
> language
>
> I wish to avoid giving priority to either universals or particulars.
Ok. Note that the logic of contradictory identity goes further in seeing the
two as contradictorily identical, which is to say that language is created
by their conflict.
>
> Reality=experience and this includes language as playing
> a role in the emergence of reality/experience and is therefore
> universals+particulars from the first word.
Right.
> This is also a sort
> of curse because we can try and treat language as a synchronic
> achievement and attempt to fix reality once and for all, however
> language is always a living language and closure is never possible.
Ditto.
> I am also happy to go a step further than pragmatism and say that
> there is a equi-primordial Being (static quality) and Becoming(dynamic
> quality)
> character to reality that is a very convincing ontological basis for
> understanding
> experience/reality.
Again, the L of CI points out that reality has not only the character of
being and becoming but is actually constituted by, so to speak, these two
fighting each other. As one narrow sin on one, it turns out to be the other.
So,although one may start with the equation SQ=Being and DQ=Becoming, it
will not stay stable, and one can also say that SQ=Becoming and DQ=Being,
and so the ontological basis is not a basis. It shifts endlessly.
> Unlike the Platonic bias towards only Being that tries
> to pin reality down to an essential-static quality, although the dynamic
has always been
> trying to force its way back into discussion, usually in the form of the
subject.
Agree, except I'm not sure of the last phrase "usually in the form of the
subject". Are you thinking of, e.g., Romanticism? I would agree with that in
general, but one of my heroes is Coleridge, who sees everything as being
based on what he called the law of polarity, which is, in essence [sic], the
same as the logic of contradictory identity. So, he would not put the
dynamic on the side of the subject or the object, but sees both as both
static and dynamic, and, of course, in a state of self-contradictory
identity (which he calls polarity).
- Scott
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