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user131753
05:23
For people who are interested to know more about Russell's logic, see here.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
15:16
@Dcleve: Well, chat is just that - chat. There are no standards but decent human behaviour (code of conduct). I agree that people might assume high standards and that there is a lack of visibility, though. As of topic strings, you can start chat rooms (and promote them in Meta) on basically any topic you are interested in
 
3 hours later…
Dcleve
Dcleve
17:52
@Philip Klöcking : I have yet to post a question on Phil SE, and this forum seems like a great place to ask about that. I recently attended a meetup that discussed the nature of abstract objects, and focused on the dispute between Quine and Carnap in the 1950s. Here is a link, which ties to the references: meetup.com/History-of-Philosophy/events/254425642
continuing -- I found the dispute between the two logical positivists to be less substantive than it was hyped as, and wrote my own commentary on the "dispute": docs.google.com/document/d/…. In it, I noted that the discussion basically refuted LP, but shed little light on abstract objects.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
@Dcleve: Sounds like an interesting event, glad that things like these are still done outside of university
LP = ?
Ah, logical positivism, I see
Dcleve
Dcleve
continuing again -- another attendee put a question to the floor -- these two basically admitted to the existence of abstract objects, but then said nothing about what their "existence" means. And asked if there were any other thinkers who actually have something to say about abstract objects. And got no replies, other than my own citation of Popper and indirect realism.
I am a tentative 3-world Popperian, but agree that his 3 worlds may result in too large (infinite) an abstract object universe. Are there any other thinkers who have useful alternative views on abstract objects? And should this be here, a separate dedicated chat, or skinnied down to one or several questions?
user131753
@Dcleve Michael Dummett, Edward N. Zalta and Alexius Meinong.
user131753
In particular see this.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
@Dcleve: I think a separate chat and several questions (e.g. relation between Quine's and Carnap's arguments, respective relation to Popper, reference request for ontologies accounting for abstract objects since 1960) would be promising.
Dcleve
Dcleve
18:06
Thanks @user 170039 . I am not familiar with any of the three. Are there particular books or papers I should look for? And a thumbnail summary? One of the downsides of philosophy discussions is that "you should read papers X, Y, and Z, and or/book Q" then shuts the discussion down for 3 months!
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
There are many thinkers that build upon Quine and correct him in some respects, e.g. Sellars, Putnam, McDowell. There are some extreme positions like e.g. Peter van Inwagen and Daniel Dennett and the above-mentioned authors
user131753
@Dcleve You may begin by reading this article and then if you are interested then by reading Zalta's book on Abstract Object.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
@Dcleve: A very nice book and a good read on the relation between ontology and language is Tim Button (2013), Limits of Realism
Indeed, the SEP article is a good start if it is about abstract objects in particular
The articles of Kit Fine (Fine, Kit, 1994, “Essence and Modality”, Philosophical Perspectives 8, 1–16.; –––, 2006, “Our Knowledge of Mathematical Objects” Oxford Studies in Epistemology 1: 89–110.) are often referred to
I totally get the "read books A,B,C,D" being kind of a downer, but actually, this is how it works. I invested time to read 300 of the most dense of pages ever written by Sellars only to be told to read an anthology, a 50 page essay and a recent commentary (another like 600 pages) as mandatory background
Dcleve
Dcleve
Thanks all. I started the SEP article on abstract objects, and have already dismissed it. Here is why, quoted from a post-meetup email to some other participants: "But as a pragmatist, math and logic's existence matters a lot less to me than things like -- how can FUNCTIONS (IE the supposed solution to Multiple Realizability) be physically causal?
How can absurd conceptions of HONOR have lead so many to their deaths over millenia? How can the act of making change wrong, precipitate an extended interaction between me and a store clerk? How can the British Constitution (does not physically exist) be causal of anything? How can there BE memetic selection?

Abstractions are massively and dramatically causal, and any ontological worldview has to explain this as a first order prediction, and provide us insights into how this happens. "
The SEP article starts with the assumption that abstract objects are non-causal, yet we know empirically that they most definitely are very causal.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
18:24
@Dcleve: Only if concepts are automatically considered objects. Concepts/ideas may very well have pragmatic reality without having ontological relevance, i.e. not constitute objects. Hinges very much on the understanding of what an object is
E.g. McDowell is a realist regarding abstract concepts like morality and freedom while Sellars and Putnam most certainly are not.
For Sellars, normativity is bound to semantics, not ontology
Dcleve
Dcleve
@Philip Klöcking -- I don't follow why dismissing "object" solves the issue of assuming non-causality? Even nominalism is based on observed effect -- IE on causality. Plus both Quine and Carnap leaned toward nominalism, but agreed reluctantly that indirect realism was more useful/powerful a working assumption.
I also tend to consider the linguistic turn of philosophy to have been a major mistake and dead end, so Tim Button elaborating on the "relation between ontology and language" I fear would not be useful for me.
2
I understand and agree on the importance of reading the actual papers and books -- but philosophy is ALWAYS dense and time consuming -- a non-professional simply cannot dedicate the time to read most of what is written even in a field of interest. Thumbnails help focus one's reading into areas that are more fruitful.
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
18:46
@Dcleve: I find it hard to grasp what you are actually looking for. In a sense, epistemology, ontology, and philosophy of language cannot be separated since even true propositions - if they are to be knowledge - are tokens of language. For modern accounts of nominalism, you may have a look here
2
@Dcleve: Regarding Tim Button, he is a good read in that he shows that all the language-theoretical arguments cannot ultimately justify "internal realism" (of mental representations or thoughts) nor "external realism", i.e. the reality of trees, tables, etc. as we perceive them. He analytically rejects nominalism, realism, and radical scepticism.
2
and all this in a way that is not overly abstract, but actually readable because of the irony of turning the arguments against them
In other words: He turns the means of the linguistic turn against the epistemological and ontological arguments that emerged from it, i.e. shows the absurdity/inconsistency/meaninglessness of purely language-theoretical arguments in epistemology and ontology - language-theoretically. The strength of his book is that he does not even pretend to be able to find a definite answer in analytical philosophy
Dcleve
Dcleve
19:44
@Philip Klöcking , your thumbnail has increased my interest in Tim Button, thanks. If you read my commentary on Quine-Carnap, I am not a fan of most analytic philosophy. And clear writing is HUGE plus!
Philip Klöcking
Philip Klöcking
@Dcleve: I think you are actually naturally close to the pragmatist position, i.e. the Dewey - Wittgenstein (the late) - Quine - Putnam tradition. I also think that for "clear and concise" being the maxim of analytic philosophy, the overly technical and logical considerations often push them away from readability and common sense

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