conceptual nominalism

A collection of 34 posts

abstracts

Platonism is vacuous

Abstract ideas are, in my humblest of opinions, the source of the most important arguments in philosophy. The ontology (the nature of the existence) of abstract objects underwrites all other philosophy from morality to mathematics, aesthetics to personhood. You can't make serious claims about these latter ideas without

conceptual nominalism

What is transcendence?

Transcendence can mean an awful lot of things in many different contexts. But it is a word that carries some heft in philosophical and theological discussions. I have to say, though, that my opinion is that there is often equivocation going on in its usage. This entails that its meaning

conceptual nominalism

Cargosquid and Rights. Again. Am I Not Making Myself Clear?

I know this is quite laborious, but I was wondering, am I not making myself clear? I mean, I've written a whole heap on this and the ideas behind what I say, and the conclusions aren't that complex to understand, no? Of course, we're

abstracts

Ontology, Essentialism, Faulty Foundations and, Well, Racism.

Make a cup of tea: it's a big one. But a necessary one. I have let a thread flow on Emma Raducanu and subtle racism exhibited, unsurprisingly, by the British media. Enter stage right a bunch of race realists racists. But here's the thing. You may

abstracts

Breaching the Epistemic Barrier

I recently wrote an important piece explaining the foundations to my entire worldview. Go read it. I'll remind you of the impressive infographics I got my design department to put together: fallibilism? This is a great comment. So let me expand. It's ALL about epistemology. When

abstracts

The Foundation to My Whole Worldview

In a sense, this is about the most important piece I can write because out of it comes my whole philosophy. What you are about to read pertains to any abstract object: morality, meaning (of life or words), maths, purpose, and so on. I am just about to release a

conceptual nominalism

Responding to Breuer on Conceptual Nominalism

Luke Breuer kindly responded to my request and provided a critique of my position of conceptual nominalism recently. I hope to look at his claims and analyse them in my reply here today. I have a forthcoming book that sets out my position with a lot more depth and clarity

conceptual nominalism

Luke Breuer Takes on Conceptual Nominalism

I have a long history in my writing and philosophy here and elsewhere of adhering to a position called "conceptual nominalism". If you want more details, check out: * Philosophy 101 (philpapers induced) #2 - Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism * The Pertinence of Nominalism to Religious and Philosophical Debates

conceptual nominalism

Spontaneous Abortion: God Has the Right to Take Lives?

I was recently involved in a discussion/argument that started off with a Christian stating: We want freedom from stupid govt. lockdowns for a non-pandemic. [I will edit these quick Facebook comments only for grammar/punctuation.] Which then distilled down to a conversation about abortion. Because that's what

conceptual nominalism

Dekonstructing the Kalam: CosmicSkeptic, William Lane Craig & Conceptual Nominalism

In my first video in this series on the Kalam as pertaining to leading light of internet atheism, CosmicSkeptic, I looked at running a commentary that hoped to highlight the need for clarity in many of the points that Alex O'Connor made in a vide debunking his former

conceptual nominalism

Statues, The Sorites Paradox & Slippery Slopes

It's my favourite philosophical thought experiment. There is a reason that I find the Sorites Paradox compelling, insightful and very important: it is everywhere and has ramifications right across the board. I'll get onto it later. In my opinion, it goes hand in hand with conceptual

conceptual nominalism

Arguing about Naturalism with a Commenter

I am going to challenge the comment of Person223 that he placed on another thread about naturalism. I thank him for at least giving something approaching a substantial claim, something that many detractors over the last few days have singularly failed to do: A chair is a chair. Not everything

conceptual nominalism

Sean Carroll on His Poetic Naturalism

I previously introduced you to Sean Carroll's Poetic Naturalism, which I see as a naturalistic worldview entailing conceptual nominalism. Here are a few videos to explain his position: Poetic naturalism: The meaning of life: Purpose: Stay in touch! Like A Tippling Philosopher on Facebook: A Tippling Philosopher You

conceptual nominalism

Poetic Naturalism

I am a big fan of Sean Carroll for a whole host of reasons, but recently because of his book The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (UK), which, if you know my philosophical positions on big ideas and my endless deference to conceptual

Aquinas

Criticising the Idea of Potential and Actuality in Natural Law Philosophy

As some of you may know, I am presently editing a book by Gunther Laird calls The Unnecessary Science. Natural Law philosophy, about which I have talked a great deal recently, owes an awful lot to Aristotle, Aquinas and other thinkers from a bygone era. One of the cornerstones of

conceptual nominalism

Knowing Your Rights, Locke and Other Rights Problems - Take 2!

The rights debates raging on a number of recent comment threads have been pretty embarrassing for many of the people (gun advocates) taking part because they have simply not engaged with the conversation at the level it should have been. In fact, these haven't been "rights debates&

conceptual nominalism

KNOWING Your Rights, Locke and Other Rights Problems

The rights debates raging on a number of recent comment threads have been pretty embarrassing for many of the people (gun advocates) taking part because they have simply not engaged with the conversation at the level it should have been. This is a philosophical blog, at heart, and the articles

conceptual nominalism

The Second Amendment and Rights

A thread has recently exploded when I posted about the Second Amendment and drawing the line between acceptable and unacceptable weaponry. On the thread, one particularly obvious common denominator sprung up with all of the gun advocates, the idea of "rights": A right is no less a right

conceptual nominalism

Natural Law, Essentialism and Nominalism

I have said this many times before in different ways and as part of different posts, but I thought I would explicitly make this point on its own. Natural Law Theory and the essentialism upon which it depends, as part of a Thomistic/Catholic philosophy, depends on the negation of

abstracts

Making Moral Claims Without Doing the Groundwork

This post was recently posted on Facebook by someone I know and I was added to the link. I want to deal with this here because it is not only something this other person does all the time, but it is a really common occurrence when arguing about morality and

abstracts

Aquinas' Essence and Existence Argument: A Critique

Aquinas is famous for a number of arguments for God's existence, one such one being the argument from essence and existence from De Ente et Essentia [On Being and Essence]. I will briefly summarise it here. Everything supposedly has both essence and existence and they are two separate

conceptual nominalism

Human Rights Don't Exist until We Construct and Codify Them

Human rights don't exist. By this, I mean, as I so often state, they do not have ontic existence - they do not exist outside of our minds. Like all abstract ideas, for a conceptual nominalist like myself, the existence of such mental entities (labels, morality and so

abstracts

My Atheistic Moral Philosophy; Objective, Subjective and Theistic Morality

As promised, here, finally, is a hopefully succinct synopsis (ha, er, impossible) of my moral philosophy. In setting it out, I will also counter positions adopted and claimed by theistic thinkers and apologists (am I implying apologists aren't thinkers?). Let's set out the basics. What is

Buddhism

Buddhism and the (No-)Self

As I have expressed many times before on this blog, I am a conceptual nominalist. This means that I deny the ontic existence of abstract ideas – they exist only in the minds of conceivers. Of course, one of the great abstract ideas is the self. Personal identity is a fascinating

conceptual nominalism

More on "Objective" Morality

I recently posted a piece on objective morality in response to Jeremiah Traegar's article here at ATP. In discussing my response elsewhere, there were the following points that I would like to deal with here in order to kill two birds with one philosopher's stone. My