Resurrecting Realism
Posted by TheChristianEgoist 11 years, 2 months ago to Philosophy
Objectivism rejects Realism without fully understanding what it is -- or considering the grave consequences of rejecting it.
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Boils down to a "realism" in which we cannot understand reality. This may be an historical classification, but I reject that.
Rand starts with A is A. Concepts are a way of integrating multiple specific instances of things, and does not mean that they exist separate from those instances. for instance, "red-ness" does not exist separate from those things which are red. Red-ness is when your eye sees light within a certain frequency or wave length band. That's objective. But the name red is clearly not objective. A label for something real. If you're colorblind and cannot see red, that does not mean red does not exist. It seems to me that nominalists are confusing names with reality. and the argument against realists being presented is that names are not reality. That is clearly true. Names are just a handle. Language is just a way to understand the world, it is not the world.
In other words, Plato was mostly interested in that First Issue (in the blog), and once he settled that issue, he was pining for answers to the other 2 issues. His theories on the latter two were dismal, at best -- but that doesn't negate the truth he discovered concerning the first issue. We need to be able to distinguish between things like that.
Concerning your examples with Red-ness. Realism is not concerned with the 'label' given to a concept (i.e. "red" in english is "rojo" in spanish -- and we could have used the word "blue" to describe the same color which we presently refer to as "red"). That is not what matters. The Realist is concerned with that to which the concept refers in reality. Is the similarity in color between a rose and between blood ("red"), real or not? Are they really similar to each other or do we only imagine them to be? Likewise with dogs, humans, cats, tables, etc... The attributes which we abstract in order to form concepts like "dog", "human", etc... are those attributes real and shared by the many particulars? If not, then we cannot say that there is an objective grounds for the concept formation which we perform. If yes; if the similar attributes (man-ness, dog-ness, table-ness, etc..) ARE real, and if they are exhibited in any number of particular things, then those attributes do not subsist in any one of those particular things, but must exist apart from any of those particulars.
Either universals (the similar attributes which we use to unite things into concepts) are real, and therefore are metaphysical objects, in and of themselves, which can be known -- or they are not real, and our concept formation is completely arbitrary and subjective.
The problem Objectivists has with this position is that they automatically jump to the latter two issues: "What type of metaphysical things is it?" -- usually starting with the assumption that if something is not physical than it is not real, and "How do we discover anything about it?". Both are good questions and important issues to study -- but they are premature until it has been established that the universals actually *exist*; that they are real, metaphysical objects. Only then can we move on to discuss what type of objects they are, and how we can know anything about them.
"Either universals (the similar attributes which we use to unite things into concepts) are real, and therefore are metaphysical objects, in and of themselves, which can be known -- or they are not real, and our concept formation is completely arbitrary and subjective."
the universals do not have to exist "in and of themselves" in order for them to be rooted in objective reality. For instance: red-ness. It does not have to exist in and of itself, as a matter of fact, it does not exist in and of iteself. Scientifically, red (as a category) are certain band of wavelengths of light. But this light is not "red-ness" this light is an electro-magnetic wave. Red-ness is based on objective reality but does not exist in and of iteself.
so the concept of universals, stated this way, is flawed.
If those similarities in the properties which we refer to as "red-ness" are not objectively real "in and of themselves", then what *objective* basis do we have for speaking of them as if they were similar (i.e. for forming the concept of "red-ness")?
The objective reality exists behind "red-ness." The best answers we have today are that everything is made up from 11 dimensional waves and those are the only "universals" in the this philosophical question. Philosophy can not be divorced from physics in reality. and physics is the proper realm to discover what these universals are.
I agree. Let's call that particular frequency "x". If that frequency occurs in one instance - and then occurs in another, was it the same frequency or not? Are the two frequencies similar or not?
You can go as deep as you want into the physical phenomena - it won't change the philosophical issue being discussed.
Look at "dog" or "human" or any other concept and ask the same question. Are the essential attributes which we use to classify a thing into a concept real or not? Are the attributes objectively real and shared by multiple particulars? If yes, Realism and Objectivity. If no, Nominalism and Subjectivity.
Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Augustine did not have the modern understanding of physics and it is profoundly relevant to the discussion of reality, which is exactly what physics deals with.