Universals and Particulars - Realism vs Nominalism Debate
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
- Join George and John as they discuss and debate different philosophical ideas. Today they will be looking into Universals and Particulars.
We understand particulars to be the specific things that occupy space around us, and each particular will possess specific qualities we refer to as universals. However what is the true nature of universals and do they exists in their own right as something distinct from a particular. Realism is the belief that universals do exist whereas Nominalism claims that only particulars exist. In this video the debate between Realism and Nominalism is explored and we attempt to answer the problem of universals.
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0:00 - Introduction
0:23 - Universals and Particulars explained
2:59 - The Problem of Universals
4:19 - Platonic Realism
5:55 - The Third Man Argument
6:56 - Moderate Realism
8:58 - Resemblance Nominalism
10:20 - The Problem of Companionship
11:28 - Trope Nominalism
#philosophy #universalsandparticulars #realismvsnominalism #metaphysics
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Isn't Space and Time itself both, "particular" ?
We need free pdf of your books please
I found this video...particularly interesting.
I’ll see myself out
😂
Ah, comedy…a universal delight.
I've been incorporating more of your videos into my grade 12 Philosophy class. Great stuff. Thanks for these.
That's great, glad we could help :D
Trope nominalism as described here 100% works for me. It's a simple concept that when built upon and combined with human processing creates/fuels the idea of universals.
Ockham’s basic challenge was that universals are just names. What he meant by this is the patterns we observe are not real. The world is meaningless and then I give it names. You said a chair is not a universal but it is. It’s already an abstract object. You can break all things down until we finally find ourselves in a quantum world. Ockham did this because he thought the prime aspect of God and ourselves was not reason but will. And so there was no structure or logos to the world. The logos was willed by God. There is no reason for anything anymore. Not so long after we get Galileo, who turns matter into substance. For Plato and Aristotle, matter was potential. But after Galileo matter is a substance, something that resists my will. Ockham did this whole transformation because he read Aquinas and thought that there was a contradiction in something being both one and many. Realism states that something is both one and many. The problem with Ockham (and modernity in general) is that everything I experience is both one and many. What they tried to do was pretend I don’t exist.
If humans never starting building chairs would "chair" still be a universal?
@@davidwilliams6966 yes, because chair is still a potential from tree.
@Jason Carter that is not what I said
@Jason Carter yes, as relations have an ontological status independent of an aspect of any given particular. For example, the center of a circle in mathematics has no location in the circle, but is nonetheless constituting the circle and exists without the circle. Basically, the center of a circle is not an aspect of the circle, but rather making the aspects of a circle possible. In order for a particular to be a potential, there must be an actual relational entity.
@Jason Carter no. In mathematics the center of a circle has no position in the circle. But at the same time, it constitutes the circle. As all circles must have a center. These are the parts of a circle:radius, diameter, circumference, arc, chord, secant, tangent, sector and segment. As you can see, the center is not listed as an aspect because it’s constituting the aspects. And the very thing that constitutes aspectuality can not itself be an aspect.
It is much easier to understand different views, when they're put into a discussion. Thanks!
Is nominalism itself a particular? No, nominalism is a view; and just like all views, it must exist outside space and time. Therefore, according to nominalism itself, nominalism must be an illusion that doesn't exist. QED.
No. The domain of review is also an aspect of what is under consideration. I do not conflate things (that which can have interactivity) as being the same as ideas (that which cannot have interactivity); such a conflation is on par with conflating the map as being the same as the territory.
I think the condition for something to have a universal is that the thing needs to have or be a particular first
@@MyContext Red herring. Did you read my argument? Nominalism can't be real according to its own definition. Only particulars exist in reality. Philosophical views such as nominalism itself are universals, therefore cannot exist in reality, but only in the imagination of a human being, i.e. a particular existing in spacetime.
@@User-oy4mw According to nominalism, particulars must exist within space and time. Philosophical views such as nominalism don't exist in space and time. People do. Therefore, nominalism can't be real, being a universal, a figment of the imagination of a particular, which is a human being.
@@_lonelywolf I see your point
Thanks for uploading this!
You're welcome :) hope you enjoy.
Thanks for this good video helped a simpleton like myself understand the basics of nominalism
Glad you found it useful :)
wow ! very interesting, clear and helpful+++ thanks for making this!❤
You're welcome, glad we could help.
This is so amazing explanation, thank you
You're very welcome!
Great breakdown, cheers.
Excellent! A seemingly obscure subject simplified.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
loved it, your content is awesome ! thanks
Thank you, glad you like the content :)
Very good explanation of the concepts, although I had to further look up the third man argument! I like the moderate realist position, but I can’t be bothered justifying why, I just do. Thanks!
You're welcome, thanks for watching.
great video guys keep up the good work
Thank you very much!
Excellent presentation of semantic absurdity. It comes down to whether one asserts that fx color exists and red exists independent of a thing with color, whether concepts and classes (forms) are real. Nominalists in practice tend to confuse the spectrum from rare to common trope/property values as undestinguishable "Some men may be feminine ergo woman does not exist". The opposite of a realist is an absurdist.
I'm actually learning this right now in my metaphysics class. What a coincidence that you made this video.
Haha me too! 😂
Metaphysics at which school?
I hope you find this video useful. Good luck in the metaphysics class.
I find myself aligned with contingent moderate realism. I'm an essentialist. Nominalism is the mind imposing on reality. Reality is not informing us we are informing reality.
"Reality is not informing us"
So, when animals eat only plants, are they not informing us that they eat only plants, lending us to classify them as such? Sure, we, in part, impose intelligibility onto it. But, to say that we get no intelligble information from reality doesn't seem accurate.
So to sum up, realism is the idea that universals exist independent of particulars and nominalism is the idea that the universe consists of particulars alone. Throughout the video we notice the philosophies gradually bleed into one another from the various arguments put forth towards both sides. As we point out the faults of one side for another what we are doing is merely pointing out the ways in which they are not incorporating the arguments from the other, as ultimately both arguments aren't mutually exclusive to one another and are two sides of the same coin and the juxtaposition of both arguments serves to merely point out the complementary and conflicting nature of both these arguments in a manner that is seamless and organic
The problem is that language is less exact and more fuzzy around the edges than concepts are. Language can’t perfectly encapsulate concepts without running into counter examples that can trip the language up. We do our BEST to match concepts up with language, but it’s an imperfect practice (but on a practical level it’s extremely sufficient).
THIS is what Socrates missed. He kept trying to prove to people that there were problems with “Concepts”, because he could expose problems with “Words” that (very closely but imperfectly) are assigned to the concepts.
The Truth is always found somewhere in the middle of a debate.
this just gave me more questions
Woooow, amazing
Fantastic guys!
Thank you!
Love the vid, as per usual.
Thank you!
Very well explained
Thank you!
This effectively shows the incoherence of nominalism. The appeal to tropes is itself a categorization and is thus self-defeating. is it true that all categories are conventional or is that statement itself a convention? The assertion that all categories are conventional reduces to "All X's are Y," which is just another way of categorizing them (X = categories and Y = convention). Since this is in the form of all X's are Y, it is itself a categorization or a grouping. And this of course undermines the entire assertion because it implies that it is just as arbitrary and disconnected from reality. So, why believe it?
To say that X and Y are “similar in some ways” just means that they have some things that are the same and other things that are different. Otherwise, they would either be totally the same (i.e., X = Y), or totally different, and thus have nothing to do with one another. When you focus upon what X and Y have in common, you are focusing upon their nature or essence, especially if what they have in common is part of what defines what they actually are.
So, either they really have something in common to ground the grouping, or they do not really have something in common to ground the grouping. If the former, then you have realism. If the latter, then all groupings are just projections of the human imagination via arbitrary conventions, and thus have no justification to be called “true” at all, which makes them useless for human knowledge.
Wonderful stuff. If I don't quite feel I have cracked the problem of the nature of reality perhaps that is because it is un-crackable, by us. Your problems seem similar to the wave/particle duality of light. We can only approach an understanding through dialectical, oppositional, thinking but the 'true' nature of light, which is a unified real phenomenon continues to elude us and perhaps always will. But a pragmatic approach is the 'horses for courses' one, use whatever works in given situations. This may seem defeatist, surely we can 'get it', a true comprehensive understanding in the end, but will we? See Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorems.
The purrrfect cat
Doesn't have to be complicated, we notice similarities and group them into sets.
I always ask, when does a heap become a pile of yellow become orange? Redness is just a concept in our imagination...nominalism.
great explanation wow.
Thank you!
godlike!
can particulars be extended to quantum particulars? Then they could be super-positioned particulars?
that is a very interesting video and specially the last 2 minutes deals with the recent thinking schools and the most coherent explanation from both sides.
However there is still something missing and I couldn't find the answer in this video:
Just like objects (instances) , we can also posit that properties have also particulars and universal.
This claim of realists that the universals are within each particular, is not satisfactory
as an example:
We have an abstract green color as universal, but we also have particular green color in each particular apple.
The particular green color does exist in each particular apple and I think both realists and nominalists agree upon that.
It is all about that abstract green color in our mind, for which nominalist say it doesn't exist outside mind, but realist have no answer for that (based on this video).
So I am still seeking their stance on this matter.
Plato raises the 3rd man argument in the first half of his book, Parmenides. But he also answers this objection in the second half.
Unfortunatly, He does Not answer It, but demonstrates only the full range of erroneous thought. For If you read the second half, concerning the inquiry by parmenides, you will find, that they reach No Solution.
I mean red does fundamentally exist in that it is a particular wave length of light.
For the concept 'all dogs' to have meaning, there must be some Thing we can mentally think about that in some mystical sense includes all dogs. It does not appear we're literally thinking of everyone of them, but we believe our thought is OF them all.
Not necessarily, it's just an amalgam of particulars
@@davidwilliams6966 you really think we're mentally contemplating all the dogs there are?
@@1950sTardigrade Isn't the whole metaphysical question just about whether the universals are sets, due to particulars being antecedent to it, and in effect informing the categories(sets). Or, if universals define the particulars themselves and are thus also isolated and separate?
Thus if we were to accept that "dogs" can be categorized, then couldn't nominalism also justify itself by saying that the particulars(dogs, which before applying nominal categories are unnamed) inform us of the attributes/qualities that we then put into sets? So by seeing the qualities of dogs, which we infer by the particulars, lead to setting nominal categories that aren't universals. In this way I think nominalism can work.
I just started Phil so might be wrong on all of this.
@@puppetmaskerr nominalism can work, but only in a very Wittgensteinian model of language. it can describe why we call things 'dogs,' but it doesn't explain how 'dogs' can mean anything.
in my view of language, 'meaning' is a form of embodiment.' so either the word embodies nothing, it embodies each individual dog at once (which seems deeply unintuitive) or it embodies an abstract category, meaning categories do exist as entities 'separate' from the individuals.
categories also must exist for Laws to work. Take the law of momentum- how can this law exist, except as 'if something is moving, it will continue to move.' But 'something' here is not a thing, it is a category including all things. Unless the structure of reality itself is operating via linguistic fiction, which would just require another level of laws, then categoricals must exist as real abstract objects.
Tropes, ropes and automobiles! ;)
I air on the side of realism, but there is definitely a place for nominalism with respect to certain natural kinds. Chairs, for example.
How would you defend against the notion of fictional universals, then? The exact same logic of finding a pattern of resemblance between real particulars, and extrapolating that therefore universals exist, could be applied to fictional particulars as well. For example, I've seen plenty of images of harry potter. Books, movies, games, posters. I've imagined harry Potter in my head lots of times, you could even count each instance of that as a particular. So does this now mean there is such a thing as a "universal Harry Potter" that definitely exists? Or what about particulars of instances of magic, is there a universal magic that is ontologically real? That seems absurd.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter I would take a logical atomist sort of approach. The real universals are the irreducibly simple formal types, like particular patches of color that are evidently resemblant, whereas Harry Potter is just a named agglomeration of simples and is thus not a universal unto itself. Harry Potter is nominal.
Agreed the universal chair is unnecessary and adds nothing
@@Google_Censored_Commenter The appeal to tropes is itself a categorization and is thus self-defeating. Is it true that all categories are conventional or is that statement itself a convention? The assertion that all categories are conventional reduces to "All X's are Y," which is just another way of categorizing them (X = categories and Y = convention). Since this is in the form of all X's are Y, it is itself a categorization or a grouping. And this of course undermines the entire assertion because it implies that it is just as arbitrary and disconnected from reality. So, why believe it?
To say that X and Y are “similar in some ways” just means that they have some things that are the same and other things that are different. Otherwise, they would either be totally the same (i.e., X = Y), or totally different, and thus have nothing to do with one another. When you focus upon what X and Y have in common, you are focusing upon their nature or essence, especially if what they have in common is part of what defines what they actually are.
So, either they really have something in common to ground the grouping, or they do not really have something in common to ground the grouping. If the former, then you have realism. If the latter, then all groupings are just projections of the human imagination via arbitrary conventions, and thus have no justification to be called “true” at all, which makes them useless for human knowledge.
And..."David Coleman" is my real name.
@@davidcoleman5860 a whole lot of words. But none of them relevant to my comment unfortunately, you're welcome to try again.
World of forms equal mental catalogue of prototypical examples.
❤️
They are close to ibn tayamyah but we say universala exist but not outsid3
A major problem with trope nominalism is that one could continue to identify tropes in a particular until it no longer allows for a classification of the object into any class.
Take an apple - what tropes can class it with other apples? Roundness, colorness, having a petal, etc. Great. Dig further - any other tropes we can identify? Bumps. Great, we can class it into ‘bumpy’ objects. Location of the bumps? Sure! The bump on the apple is ‘here’. Oh- Well, other objects have bumps, but ‘here’ relative to the apple is not the same as on the apple itself, and so on and so forth. Tropes may, according to the video, lead into a catastrophic, undifferentiated grouping.
This isn't a 'problem' but an accurate observation, and indeed a helpful observation for connecting philosophy to practical decisions and behaviours.
Of course no two apples are really identical. Identity is about being a particular.
We can limit our attention to those characteristics or tropes that are relevant to the purpose for and context in which we are dealing with particulars.
@@WiggaMachiavelli That’s what it seems like, but where do we ‘draw the line’ for trope nominalism then, wherein the identity of a particular begins to fade?
@@virologistic7546 We are dealing with conceptual tools. We can pick and choose which tools we want to use and how.
The pertinent qualities of particular apples vary based on what you propose to do with them. Consider eating one fresh, making a conserve, setting up an attractive display at a market, or putting it out for pig feed.
The first and second - we probably care about taste, variety, ripeness, appearance, etc. to varying extents. The third - might not even need to really be an 'apple' but could be a plastic prop. The fourth - again, being an 'apple' or not is not that important because what we really want is something cheap, easy and that provides appropriate nutrient and energy content without being unsafe. What is important about 'the apple' is more about what is 'important' than it is about the apple.
If we instead do want to focus on the apple down to the detail of every possible trope that might pertain to it in particular, then inevitably we will produce sets containing exactly one thing. Such a category is useless with respect to particulars, just as is 'the ideal apple'.
@@virologistic7546 I don't think that necessary needs to be explicitly defined as long as concepts serve the purpose of 1 accurately representing the world or 2 accurately conveying information from one person to another I think the it stems from viewing logic as a cosmic force rather than simply our tool for understanding the world around us like if an apple falls from a tree it does not happen because logic or because we can reason ie our thoughts do not cause that to occur it happens because gravity our understanding does not need to be a 1-1 representation
The chap on the right was way over complicating the issue. Is like drowning in a glass of water.
can someone pls explain why can't we have 2 particulars in the same place at the same time? I understand the concept of 'one can't cross the same river twice' cuz the change of time-bound, movement of river. bu ti don't get why cant there be 2 particulars in the same place and same time...
Because a particular occupies the space. So the other particular cannot occupy it at the same time.
Or is the question is deeper and you asking why they can’t? Especially that space is not something that exists physically. That’s a tough one…
Perhaps more a physics question than a philosophical one
From what I'm gathering...a particular is basically every single individual object that exists... itself, as a physical object. For example, I'm sitting in front of my TV. THIS tv...THIS *particular* TV, this physical object...cannot be anywhere else than it is at the same time while it is sitting in my living room.
It sort of reminds me of the Marine's Rifleman Creed. "there may be others like it, but this one is mine". In the sense that, yes, there are other objects that exist that share every single characteristic and description (or "resemblance", or "universal", as it relates to these concepts) as this TV, but this TV is only this TV, and can only be in one place at one time.
That's where I think I got lost with particulars, that at the beginning of the video I thought "what do you mean two calculators cannot exist in the same place at the time or a different place at the same time?" But they mean...THAT calculator. THAT physical calculator...is a particular.
Can we call universals mental constructs that we all refer to? For example, the color Vermillion is the same in India as in Switzerland as in Cambodia and Canada etc?
That sounds like moderate realism if I am not mistaken.
You have defined Nominalism. Nominalism is the belief that there are no universals and nouns are simply mental constructs.
@@outofoblivionproductions4015 No, it is not. Nominalism denies the existence of universals. If universals are mental contructs, then there are univerals. This would be closer to moderate realism and conceptualism.
@@outofoblivionproductions4015 Nominalism rejects their actually being a similarity between the things. So, they would say that there is no commonality between a man and a man, even though we call them that.
so these are both the same guy right?
The solution to the problem of companionship is simpler than trope nominalism.
Resemblance nominalism assumes that only particulars and resemblances exist. These problematic “sets” are neither.
But even if we grant the sets, it’s a made up problem. You mean to tell me you’re going to add items to a set until it doesn’t have the same properties it started out having, then complain? Please.
4:25 is it Platonic Realism or Platonic idealism?
it's Platonic Realism, idealism is similar to Platonism but is different
Realism is for people like Plato and Aristotle and Plotinus. Idealism comes post-Descartes and post-nominalism. Idealism is usually applied to people like Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schopenhauer.
the example realist said 'you can destroy a particular but not universal, red vast can be smashed, but the redness cannot' what if I bleach the vase and smash it into dust, what is the universal of dust then? is it atom? if yes, then all particulars can ultimately narrowed down to the same universal- atom. in other words, every particulars share the same universal, so I can be the red vase, and red vase could be me? ... I think universal is a human made concept, what realist says 'universals can exist in the same place & time twice' further proves this point, because it is a production and concept of human mind, that's why it is not limited by the time and space like particulars. for example, many years ago where there is no concept of color or shape, then don't have such universals. Moreover, In platonic realism, Plato claims that 'every particular is a mere shadow of the perfect form', I think the perfect form itself is a concept, human's production, which means it doesn't really exist, it's human's conceptualization (I think Platonic realism is actually nominalism). In moderate realism as well, 'universals are just properties that particulars have' which indicates what resemblance nominalism says 'we only recognize resemblance cause we perceived particulars first' which means, universals are replied on/depended on particulars. overall, I think particulars and truly exist, they are complex, cant exist twice in the same form, time. however, universals do exist several times and several places because it is production of human, we can control it, define it, and even redefine it, it is changeable, helps us to understand and define the world, but just because it is very helpful, it doesn't mean that it truly exist...
just some personal opinion, I don't know much about philosophy, but has always been interested, this video was very informative and triggered some thoughts, pls don't attack me and what I said thanks... and thanks for making and sharing such educational video!!
Bit of a problem here. See 'system theory' and 'emergent properties'. Certain properties belong only to complex systems, but are nonetheless real.
A universal is not an atom. A universal is a pattern in the world. For the realist, the world is made of patterns. Universals are trying to explain why things appear structurally and functionally organized. Realism holds something is both one thing and many things.
@@mariog1490 universals aren't "trying to explain" anything, as abstract concepts they wouldn't have a will. Recognizing a pattern of similar particulars doesn't get you there, just a type of shorthand
@@davidwilliams6966 yes it does, because Ockham’s main challenge to realism is the destruction of relations. For Ockham relations aren’t real entities, just perceived plurality that is posited. David Hume, a famous nominalist, destroys realist ideas like causality by saying there is no perceived relation. The whole nominalist project is a reduction of entities to supposedly give explanation by simplicity.
@@davidwilliams6966 and I meant people who are arguing for universals are trying to explain who something is both one and many. Which seems self-evident to me. But Ockham saw this as a contradiction.
I think I'm realist human I can't believe fantasy...
Nominalism was an attack on the concept of katholou (i.e. Greek for 'catholic' - that is, to be according to the whole). Nominalism effectively dismisses that anything can have a fractal nature, whereby the part (i.e. the particular) is patterned according to the whole. Reality is laid out in a katholou manner, as is self-evident. Thus, the particular and the universals exist via particulars participating in the whole and the whole in the particular, like that of a fractal. The bifurcation of the universals and the particular is therefore a myth.
Starting to sound like Plato there. Excellent!
@@mariog1490 Haha... There likely is some Platonic influence there. I'm drawing this conclusion from my Orthodox Christian tradition, which is largely influenced by the Greek Fathers of the Church who had a harmonized relationship to Neoplatonism. Plato's "world of forms" is analogous to St Maximus the Confessor's logoi and logismoi contained within the mind of the Divine Logos (Christ).
@@iliya3110 I love Maximus and pseudo Dionysius.
@@mariog1490 Me too! :-)
If you like them, you may also like Jonathan Pagaeu’s “The Symbolic World” channel. He’s Orthodox and draws a lot from St Maximus.
@@iliya3110 I’m a big fan of Jonathan and have watched him for awhile. I’m also a big fan of his friends, Paul Vanderklay and John Vervaeke. But Jonathan is the most interesting to me, as he challenges a fundamental nominalism.
Okay, so I think I am a nominalist.
It sounds like y’all are talking about the same thing you’re just debating on how you want to word it…
So like I have my universal and particulars and you’re like no it’s only particulars and sets(universals)
Can’t we just settle it and call it something so we can move on… help me understand
I am a nominalist. Universals are patterns dependant on the observer. Even the patterns themselves are finite and contingent.
No, the common characteristics of triangles, is having 3 sides. This characteristic is true, regardless of who’s observing it.
I don’t believe in the existence of universals!! So let me just re-name the concept of universals as “Tropes”…and then claim that tropes have existence but not universals lol. There’s no such thing as automobiles, but there are vehicles lol
Banananess is just amusing
That's not what the third man argument is about at all. There's not even a real metaphysical issue it shows. It just shows that there will be infinitely many Forms for every predicate, since the set of a Form and its particulars is distinct from the set of particulars.
Nominalism seems correlated with Hedonism
No?