How would Russel respond to fictional examples? Would he say because I have read thousands of superman comic books, each counting as a particular for superman drawn slightly differently, therefore a universal "superman" exists? That seems absurd to me. What's wrong with saying Superman is just a concept in your minds. What's wrong with saying the values, virtues and tropes Superman represents, are also just concepts in our minds to inspire us? Why must we demand Superman metaphysically or ontologically "exists" (whatever this means) for it to be valuable? I don't understand why Russel cared so much about Universals, and didn't just concede the nominalists were right. It's just language, that's all it is. There's countless relationships in the english language, between nouns, verbs, adjectives, punctuation and so on. Would he argue any of these relationships or similarities somehow means a universal "noun" or "verb" for english exists? I doubt he would, but I also don't see how he could argue against it. For such a brilliant mind, it puzzles me greatly.
You're intentionally picking an absurd example. Superman is a fictional character. When people talk about universals they don't mean that Superman is floating in Plato's realm of forms along with a bunch of Pokemon. They are talking about the problem of individual instantiations of qualities/properties such as "being red" or "having a positive charge", and how these individual examples of "red" things and "positively charged" things relate to one another and to the general concepts of "redness" and "positiveness". In other words, the problem of universals can be phrased as "what, if anything, do all instantiations of redness/positiveness have in common?" Some philosophers reject universals (e.g. Wittgenstein). If that's what you believe, fine, it's a perfectly respectable opinion to have among philosophers. But the superman point is a strawman. If you want to make an argument for the rejection of universals, you need to explain why it is that all protons act exactly as if they universally shared in the common properties of having a charge of 1.6 X 10^-19 coulombs and a mass of about 1 amu, if there aren't any universal properties for them to share in. Why do all these individual instantiations of protons act consistently as if they had the same properties (mass, charge, etc.) and why can science model their behavior so accurately based on the tacit assumption that they do have universal shared properties, if there truly are no universal shared properties that they all have?
@@JB-kn2zh I do not think the superman example is a strawman. I am well aware that people like Russel believe universals are *real* - my point is to showcase that they are, as David Hume illustrated, fictions. So of course I'm going to compare fictional things to other fictional things. As for your challenge of why all atoms appear to have the same structure, there are various answers. From a purely physics side, the current leading theory in Quantum Field Theory suggests that particles do not actually exist as particulars. That is to say, there are no singular protons. What there are, is fields, and it is from these fields excited quantum states create the illusion of individual photons. Nevertheless, let's assume for a moment the classical view of photons is accurate. My point in bringing up superman, is to showcase that things can have similar, or shared properties, without there being a universal *thing* they all share. Surely you accept this premise, lest you believe in the universal superman being real, in some way. Once you have accepted it, it's your job to now explain which universals exist, and which do not, in a non-arbitrary manner. Prefferably, in a scientific manner. But this is where you run into trouble. Because for something to be scientific it has to be falsifiable, observable, predictable, etc. You cannot observe universals, you simply have to postulate they exist. But why? We already established that it is perfectly logically possible for protons to exist with shared properties without there being a universal. If you don't like my superman example, here's another one: Is there a universal room temperature? Have you never noticed that every single time you pour tap water into a glass, and let it sit on the table, eventually it warms up to room temperature? How peculiar! I could fill up all the glasses in my house, and they would all share this *universal* room temperature property. I therefore conclude there is a universal, platonic form of room temperature, that is abundant throughout the universe instead of local to my environment. You see how silly this is? I assume you're well versed enough in physics to know this is just basic thermodynamics, but the argument could still be made. The point stands: **Shared properties is not evidence of universals!** It seems very likely to me that since all the protons in the universe were birthed in the same environment (big bang) that therefore you would expect their properties to be similar. You can explain this perfectly without universals. And even if I could not explain it, to say universals can, and therefore they *do* without empirical evidence to support it first, is an appeal to ignorance fallacy. But let's take this a step further, how sure are you, really, that protons have this shared property? Truth is you aren't sure, as Daivd Hume demonstrated with his famous problem of induction. You have to make the assumption of the uniformity of nature. Maybe the speed of light was different in the past. Maybe it's different in some part of the universe we haven't discovered. Maybe gravity will behave differently in 10.000 years because some supermassive black hole somewhere creates an instability, who knows. It is the height of hubris and arrogance, to me, to assume there is some universal for anything at all, and not only propose it as an explanation, but to declare there cannot be any other explanations. What silliness.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter I still think your first point was a straw man, but that’s fine. This is an actual argument, even though it clearly leads to radical skepticism if, as Hume says, there are no innate ideas and induction is fallacious. Seeing there is no basis for knowledge under this worldview, I don’t see the point of even continuing the conversation. No knowledge will actually be established by its furtherance, and scientists get along a lot better just assuming there are natural laws rather than by rejecting them outright because some British empiricists told them to.
@@JB-kn2zh It could lead you to radical skepticism, however, that's not where it has lead thinkers like Karl Popper, myself, or even David Hume himself. This is a philosophical exercise meant to cut down those who bite off more than they can chew, when they assert things must necessarily be the case, or that X thing in the universe is absolute absent all assumptions. So, where do we go from here? We start with the realization that those previous ideas we once thought of as desirable, unintuitvely, aren't. Certainty in knowledge is not desirable, because it prevents us from building our knowledge. If we were truly certain, what would be the point in doing scientific tests? Why try broaden an understanding we think is certain? This can only be done if we fully embrace on how shaky, assumptous ground our knowledge rests. But this need not be a problem, really. Should you pay attention, you will notice that it is purely an emotional need you have for certainty, not a strictly rational or logical one. One can still believe in the knowledge we've gathered as true, whilst retaining it is inherently tentative, always open to rivision by new empirical observations, while still relying on it to build bridges.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter like I said I don’t feel like this conversation is going to be very fruitful, so this will be my last reply but Popper’s epistemology is generally considered to be obsolete by philosophers of science and epistemologists nowadays. Scientists still have a basically Popperian worldview, but most philosophers reject it. I am willing to admit it’s possible that universals do not exist separately from their instantiations. But rejecting the ontological reality of causation and natural laws, (not merely our ability to know them) just seems like a step too far. And it leads to contradictions in your own argument. For example, you claim that all protons have similar properties because they all came into existence in a similar environment. But if there is no causation and universality, I don’t even understand how, in your worldview, you can justify the claim that the same cause (a certain environment) would create similar effects in different cases. Why? The environment something is “birthed” in cannot possibly have an effect on what’s “birthed” if there’s no causation. You clearly believe in causation, since you sneak it in when it’s convenient.
If you had the coordinates you could just say where the ant is. Exactly. Without needing to refer to the room Ant is at "coordinates" Since this sentence states where the ant is. Somewhere in spacetime. From that perspective is the 'in the room' state an unnecessary addition. There's no real need to make a relationship between the two particulars to describe where the ant is
How can "in" not be physical? If the ant were not in the room, the physical state of affairs would be different. How can you not see that?
Thank you for the helpful video!
How would Russel respond to fictional examples? Would he say because I have read thousands of superman comic books, each counting as a particular for superman drawn slightly differently, therefore a universal "superman" exists? That seems absurd to me. What's wrong with saying Superman is just a concept in your minds. What's wrong with saying the values, virtues and tropes Superman represents, are also just concepts in our minds to inspire us? Why must we demand Superman metaphysically or ontologically "exists" (whatever this means) for it to be valuable? I don't understand why Russel cared so much about Universals, and didn't just concede the nominalists were right. It's just language, that's all it is. There's countless relationships in the english language, between nouns, verbs, adjectives, punctuation and so on. Would he argue any of these relationships or similarities somehow means a universal "noun" or "verb" for english exists? I doubt he would, but I also don't see how he could argue against it. For such a brilliant mind, it puzzles me greatly.
You're intentionally picking an absurd example. Superman is a fictional character. When people talk about universals they don't mean that Superman is floating in Plato's realm of forms along with a bunch of Pokemon. They are talking about the problem of individual instantiations of qualities/properties such as "being red" or "having a positive charge", and how these individual examples of "red" things and "positively charged" things relate to one another and to the general concepts of "redness" and "positiveness". In other words, the problem of universals can be phrased as "what, if anything, do all instantiations of redness/positiveness have in common?"
Some philosophers reject universals (e.g. Wittgenstein). If that's what you believe, fine, it's a perfectly respectable opinion to have among philosophers. But the superman point is a strawman. If you want to make an argument for the rejection of universals, you need to explain why it is that all protons act exactly as if they universally shared in the common properties of having a charge of 1.6 X 10^-19 coulombs and a mass of about 1 amu, if there aren't any universal properties for them to share in. Why do all these individual instantiations of protons act consistently as if they had the same properties (mass, charge, etc.) and why can science model their behavior so accurately based on the tacit assumption that they do have universal shared properties, if there truly are no universal shared properties that they all have?
@@JB-kn2zh I do not think the superman example is a strawman. I am well aware that people like Russel believe universals are *real* - my point is to showcase that they are, as David Hume illustrated, fictions. So of course I'm going to compare fictional things to other fictional things.
As for your challenge of why all atoms appear to have the same structure, there are various answers. From a purely physics side, the current leading theory in Quantum Field Theory suggests that particles do not actually exist as particulars. That is to say, there are no singular protons. What there are, is fields, and it is from these fields excited quantum states create the illusion of individual photons. Nevertheless, let's assume for a moment the classical view of photons is accurate.
My point in bringing up superman, is to showcase that things can have similar, or shared properties, without there being a universal *thing* they all share. Surely you accept this premise, lest you believe in the universal superman being real, in some way. Once you have accepted it, it's your job to now explain which universals exist, and which do not, in a non-arbitrary manner. Prefferably, in a scientific manner. But this is where you run into trouble. Because for something to be scientific it has to be falsifiable, observable, predictable, etc. You cannot observe universals, you simply have to postulate they exist. But why? We already established that it is perfectly logically possible for protons to exist with shared properties without there being a universal.
If you don't like my superman example, here's another one: Is there a universal room temperature? Have you never noticed that every single time you pour tap water into a glass, and let it sit on the table, eventually it warms up to room temperature? How peculiar! I could fill up all the glasses in my house, and they would all share this *universal* room temperature property. I therefore conclude there is a universal, platonic form of room temperature, that is abundant throughout the universe instead of local to my environment. You see how silly this is? I assume you're well versed enough in physics to know this is just basic thermodynamics, but the argument could still be made. The point stands: **Shared properties is not evidence of universals!**
It seems very likely to me that since all the protons in the universe were birthed in the same environment (big bang) that therefore you would expect their properties to be similar. You can explain this perfectly without universals. And even if I could not explain it, to say universals can, and therefore they *do* without empirical evidence to support it first, is an appeal to ignorance fallacy.
But let's take this a step further, how sure are you, really, that protons have this shared property? Truth is you aren't sure, as Daivd Hume demonstrated with his famous problem of induction. You have to make the assumption of the uniformity of nature. Maybe the speed of light was different in the past. Maybe it's different in some part of the universe we haven't discovered. Maybe gravity will behave differently in 10.000 years because some supermassive black hole somewhere creates an instability, who knows. It is the height of hubris and arrogance, to me, to assume there is some universal for anything at all, and not only propose it as an explanation, but to declare there cannot be any other explanations. What silliness.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter I still think your first point was a straw man, but that’s fine. This is an actual argument, even though it clearly leads to radical skepticism if, as Hume says, there are no innate ideas and induction is fallacious. Seeing there is no basis for knowledge under this worldview, I don’t see the point of even continuing the conversation. No knowledge will actually be established by its furtherance, and scientists get along a lot better just assuming there are natural laws rather than by rejecting them outright because some British empiricists told them to.
@@JB-kn2zh It could lead you to radical skepticism, however, that's not where it has lead thinkers like Karl Popper, myself, or even David Hume himself. This is a philosophical exercise meant to cut down those who bite off more than they can chew, when they assert things must necessarily be the case, or that X thing in the universe is absolute absent all assumptions.
So, where do we go from here? We start with the realization that those previous ideas we once thought of as desirable, unintuitvely, aren't. Certainty in knowledge is not desirable, because it prevents us from building our knowledge. If we were truly certain, what would be the point in doing scientific tests? Why try broaden an understanding we think is certain? This can only be done if we fully embrace on how shaky, assumptous ground our knowledge rests. But this need not be a problem, really. Should you pay attention, you will notice that it is purely an emotional need you have for certainty, not a strictly rational or logical one. One can still believe in the knowledge we've gathered as true, whilst retaining it is inherently tentative, always open to rivision by new empirical observations, while still relying on it to build bridges.
@@Google_Censored_Commenter like I said I don’t feel like this conversation is going to be very fruitful, so this will be my last reply but Popper’s epistemology is generally considered to be obsolete by philosophers of science and epistemologists nowadays. Scientists still have a basically Popperian worldview, but most philosophers reject it.
I am willing to admit it’s possible that universals do not exist separately from their instantiations. But rejecting the ontological reality of causation and natural laws, (not merely our ability to know them) just seems like a step too far. And it leads to contradictions in your own argument. For example, you claim that all protons have similar properties because they all came into existence in a similar environment. But if there is no causation and universality, I don’t even understand how, in your worldview, you can justify the claim that the same cause (a certain environment) would create similar effects in different cases. Why? The environment something is “birthed” in cannot possibly have an effect on what’s “birthed” if there’s no causation. You clearly believe in causation, since you sneak it in when it’s convenient.
If you had the coordinates you could just say where the ant is. Exactly. Without needing to refer to the room
Ant is at "coordinates" Since this sentence states where the ant is. Somewhere in spacetime.
From that perspective is the 'in the room' state an unnecessary addition. There's no real need to make a relationship between the two particulars to describe where the ant is