"Nominalism"

To: egoism@topica.com
Subject: Re: No Use For A God
From: "David G. McDivitt" <dmcdivitt@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 08:34:48 -0500

What you fail to understand, Dennis, is I am speaking from an alternative model. You are speaking from one metaphysical model, which is "essentialism". I am speaking from another metaphysical model, which is "nominalism".

You continue trying to express and reinterpret my words in an essentialist, universalist, realist manner. That does not work.

I found some good links to help describe our differences:

http://www.drury.edu/faculty/ess/history/modern/nominalism.html

http://web.syr.edu/~nmagee/ockham.html

http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/pking.htm

I do not like to send people off chasing references because I myself do not like to go chasing references, but the above mentioned links elaborate the nature of our debate completely, and it is a well known debate. Because my position has such historical significance, I sure as hell do not concede anything to you. Please go chew on that for awhile.

To: egoism@topica.com
Subject: Re: No Use For A God
From: "David G. McDivitt" <dmcdivitt@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 10:11:58 -0500

OK. I will try another approach. If you have asked me not to ignore your arguments, please do not ignore my response, OK?

For all intents and purposes, yes we do all function in a seemingly synchronous reality. We are all of aware of the same things, pretty much. I challenge you to differentiate between any given thing, and the idea you have of what that thing should be. So, on the one hand you have the thing, and on the other hand you have an idea of the thing.

As we go about our daily lives with our synchronous realities, often times we have disagreements. Realities have become nonsynchronous. Debate, argument, or discussion may ensue in an effort to make realities synchronous again.

If there is a thing, and there is an idea about the thing, for logical simplicity and elimination of unnecessary terms, why must the thing and the idea of the thing both exist? That there is a thing beyond our idea of it is itself an abstraction.

My attempt here is not to say various items no longer exist, the world is really a dream, or any fantastic thing can come true if only we think hard enough about it. I am simply making statements pursuant to logic the same way a person removes like terms from both sides of an equation in mathematics.

By dropping the idea a thing exists beyond our idea of it, and simply using the idea, we end up with the same result in every instance. However, if we say ideas exist only, without saying some true thing exists beyond which no one can elaborate further on anyway, it must be acknowledged different people shall have different ideas. Each person then, lives within the realm of their own ideas. People converse, argue, debate, and share in an attempt to bring these separate realities into alignment with each other.

The difference between a logical metaphysical model and realistic metaphysical model must be understood. The logical model simply skips the extra and unnecessary step of postulating the realness of items, beyond our ideas of those items. No essence or universality is implied in the items themselves.

The question is whether we ultimately need some realistic platform, somewhere, to fall back on. From a strictly logical perspective, the answer is no. If we did have that platform, that platform would yet have the same idea structure as anything else. The *idea* there is such a platform is therefore contradictory and invalid. Again, please let me stress this is a logical metaphysical model and only rules of logic apply. *If* the *idea* of reality cannot be supported *logically*, then that idea must be thrown out. That we as human beings are left floating in space with no absolutism whatsoever to stand on, is merely an emotional issue, and one which must be dealt with *if* our metaphysical model shall be one of pure logic. Analysis shows the realism we cling to for emotional security is the root of subjectivity, and subjectivity is not caused by fantasy which is often the claim, but fantasy is merely an idea, and what ideas do not prove survivable or useful do not last.

Regarding the Super Bowl, if there were five million people watching the game then there were five million realities of the game, and five million games. The point is, most people have allowed their realities to be synchronous in this regard.

Dennis, I want to make a point perfectly clear. Agreement, similar learning, similar culture, similar science, and synchronicity do not eliminate the individual realities people have. If and when a person wants to, that person can break free and be different.

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