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Andrej Jandrić - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Content Extraction, Ontological Mootness and Nominalism: Difficulties on the Easy Road
Erkenntnis, 2020Co-Authors: Andrej JandrićAbstract:In his latest book Aboutness , Stephen Yablo has proposed a new ‘easy road’ Nominalist strategy: instead of engaging in the hard work of paraphrasing a scientific theory which presupposes numbers in a Nominalistically acceptable way, Nominalists are, according to Yablo, entitled to accept the theory as true, while rejecting the existence of numbers, if from the theory’s content the presupposition that there are numbers can be subtracted away, yielding thus a number-free content remainder. Perfect extricability, i.e. extricability in every possible world, of the presupposition that there are numbers from any content apparently involving them is, in Yablo’s view, sufficient to make the existence of numbers moot. In this paper I will argue that perfect extricability fails as a criterion of ontological mootness.
William Bain - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Political Theology of International Order - Political Theology II: Society, Law, Constitution
Political Theology of International Order, 2020Co-Authors: William BainAbstract:This chapter argues that the idea of a society of states (or international society) reflects the theory of imposed order. The central claim is that the constitutional character of international society is intelligible in terms of postulates that can be traced to Nominalist theology. The society of states is an association composed of singular existents, with each being free in respect of all the others, which are related in a system of external relations—rules of law—that are legitimized by consent. The discussion explores the Nominalist character of this way thinking in the context of medieval debates about the nature and government of the Church, which developed into a general theory of constitutional government. In this sense, a society of states, like a system of states, is a worldly application of Nominalist theology. Differences between ideas of system and society are intelligible only from a position within a Nominalist framework of thinking and knowing. The chapter concludes by discussing the indeterminacy of the theory of imposed order in a world that affords no recourse to God when trying to reconcile the demands of freedom and the requirements of order.
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Political Theology of International Order - Martin Luther and the Theology of the Two Kingdoms
Political Theology of International Order, 2020Co-Authors: William BainAbstract:This chapter explores the Nominalist orientation of Martin Luther’s separation of sacred and secular, signified by his two kingdoms framework. The aim is to show that his thinking about the nature of God, character of creation, and authority of Scripture resonates with the theory of imposed order. Luther gives priority to the will, as against reason, which follows from his preoccupation with God’s freedom and power. This points to an inner unity in Luther’s thought, whereby his theology informs a parallel understanding of reality that emphasizes the contingency of singular things, a system of external relations, and explanation in terms of efficient causes. Luther’s importance in this context is not discerned in what he contributes to political theory; he transmits the Nominalist way of knowing and explaining reality that others would use to theorize political order. Consequently, his separation of the earthly kingdom and the spiritual kingdom does not de-theologize politics as much as signal the ascendency of the theory of imposed order and its theological commitments. In this respect, he contributes indirectly to a way of thinking and speaking about political order that stresses the Nominalist vocabulary of will and artifice.
Gyula Klima - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Metaphysics of Habits in Buridan
Historical-Analytical Studies on Nature Mind and Action, 2018Co-Authors: Gyula KlimaAbstract:This paper presents John Buridan’s Nominalist ontology of habits, as the acquired qualities of innate powers aiding or hampering their operations, against the background of a more traditional interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine to be found in Boethius, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Cajetan. The paper argues that considerations of his late question commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics may have forced Buridan to rethink some of his earlier arguments for his parsimonious Nominalist ontology of powers endorsed in such earlier works as his Questions on Aristotle’s Categories and De anima. The lesson to be drawn from this investigation seems to be that upon working out the details of a Nominalist programme in such fields as moral psychology and ethics, the requisite refinements sooner or later will involve such modifications of an originally “radical” programme that would bring it closer to what used to be the “mainstream” view. Even so, this much seems enough further down the line to change significantly how issues are framed relative to the “mainstream” view as well.
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Thought-Transplants, Demons, and Modalities
The Language of Thought in Late Medieval Philosophy, 2017Co-Authors: Gyula KlimaAbstract:This chapter argues that the author’s earlier argument for the claim that the new Nominalist conception of concept-identity significantly contributed to the emergence of what became known as “Demon-skepticism” after Descartes, needs to be supplemented by further considerations concerning the type of modalities involved. More specifically, the possibility of the “full-blown, solipsistic Demon-skepticism” envisioned by Descartes requires, besides the Nominalist conception of concept-identity clearly present in Adam Wodeham’s work, the type of non-S5 modality espoused by Descartes which was still not endorsed by Wodeham.
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Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic - The Nominalist semantics of Ockham and Buridan: A “rational reconstruction”
Handbook of the History of Logic, 2008Co-Authors: Gyula KlimaAbstract:Publisher Summary This chapter outlines the innovative semantic theories of the two great 14th-century Nominalist thinkers whose work eventually gave rise to the quasi institutional separation of the Nominalist via moderna, the “modern way,” from the realist via antiqua, “the old way” of doing logic, science, philosophy, and theology in the late middle ages. The historical significance of Ockham’s innovations is that they were the first to introduce a radically new type of theoretical disagreement into scholastic discourse, a type of disagreement with which we, as heirs to these historical developments, are all too familiar, namely, the conflict between proponents of paradigmatically different conceptual schemes. Indeed, the real strength of their nominalism is not so much their criticism of the older, realist way of construing these relationships as their detailed, systematic account of how a philosophy of language based on a strictly Nominalist ontology is possible. The chapter concludes with some detail what sort of modifications the standard semantic construction of modern quantification theory would have to undergo in order to faithfully reflect the two competing medieval conceptions.
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the Nominalist semantics of ockham and buridan a rational reconstruction
Handbook of the History of Logic, 2008Co-Authors: Gyula KlimaAbstract:Publisher Summary This chapter outlines the innovative semantic theories of the two great 14th-century Nominalist thinkers whose work eventually gave rise to the quasi institutional separation of the Nominalist via moderna, the “modern way,” from the realist via antiqua, “the old way” of doing logic, science, philosophy, and theology in the late middle ages. The historical significance of Ockham’s innovations is that they were the first to introduce a radically new type of theoretical disagreement into scholastic discourse, a type of disagreement with which we, as heirs to these historical developments, are all too familiar, namely, the conflict between proponents of paradigmatically different conceptual schemes. Indeed, the real strength of their nominalism is not so much their criticism of the older, realist way of construing these relationships as their detailed, systematic account of how a philosophy of language based on a strictly Nominalist ontology is possible. The chapter concludes with some detail what sort of modifications the standard semantic construction of modern quantification theory would have to undergo in order to faithfully reflect the two competing medieval conceptions.
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The Essentialist Nominalism of John Burdian
Review of Metaphysics, 2005Co-Authors: Gyula KlimaAbstract:I TO MANY CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS, the phrase "essentialist nominalism" may appear to be an oxymoron. After all, essentialism is the doctrine that things come in natural kinds characterized by their essential properties, on account of some common nature or essence they share; while nominalism is precisely the denial of the existence, indeed, the very possibility of such shared essences. Nevertheless, despite the intuitions of such contemporary philosophers, (1) John Buridan was not only a thoroughgoing Nominalist, as is well known, but also a staunch defender of a strong essentialist doctrine against certain skeptics of his time. So the question inevitably arises: could he consistently maintain such a doctrine? In the following discussion I will first examine Buridan's essentialism to show why he could reasonably think that he can both adhere to his Nominalist metaphysics and endorse a version of essentialism that can serve as the foundation of genuine scientific knowledge in the strong Aristotelian sense. In the subsequent section I will argue that on the basis of his logical theory of essential predication Buridan is definitely able to maintain a version of essentialism that is sufficient to provide the required foundation of valid scientific generalizations and to refute skeptical doubts against the possibility of such a foundation. Next, I will examine the question whether Buridan's solution is consistent with the broader context of his logic and epistemology. In this section I will argue that although Buridan's logical theory is consistent with his Nominalist essentialist position, his cognitive psychology is not. In particular, I will argue that Buridan's abstractionist account of how we acquire our simple substantial concepts is incompatible with his account of the semantic function of absolute terms subordinated to these concepts. Finally, I will draw some general conclusions from this discussion concerning the relationships between metaphysical essentialism and the philosophy of mind and language. II If we want to maintain that Buridan was both an essentialist and a Nominalist, as we certainly should, then we have to do what we normally do when ascribe two apparently incompatible attributes to the same thing. We have to provide such explanations of the intended meanings of the attributes in question that show them to be in fact compatible, but, at the same time, we should also be able to show that these intended meanings are not just ad hoc, twisted interpretations, but are genuinely in line with common, proper usage. So what do we mean, precisely, when we say that Buridan was an essentialist? When we call someone an essentialist, we usually mean at least one of two things: (1) the person we call an essentialist is committed to attributing essential predicates to things, or (2) the person is committed to attributing some common, shared essences to things. Let me call the first version of essentialism "predicate essentialism," and the second "realist essentialism." Clearly, with this distinction at hand we should be able to provide a coherent interpretation of calling someone a "Nominalist essentialist" in the sense that the person in question is a predicate essentialist, while not a realist essentialist, since his nominalism consists in the denial of there being shared essences, but not in the denial of there being essential predicates. However, obviously, this simple word magic can do the job only if we are able to show that predicate essentialism is compatible with the denial of realist essentialism. In any case, my first contention is that this is precisely what Buridan is trying to pull off: one of the basic aims of his philosophy of language and metaphysics is to show that he can be a staunch Nominalist in denying real essences to things in the way realists conceive of them, (2) yet at the same time he can attribute scientifically knowable essential predicates to things. …
Juergen Von Hagen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Prominent Numbers, Indices and Ratios in Exchange Rate Determination and Financial Crashes: in Economists' Models, in the Field and in the Laboratory
2009Co-Authors: Robin Pope, Reinhard Selten, Sebastian Kube, Juergen Von HagenAbstract:The prior paper in this sequel, Pope (2009) introduced the concept of a Nominalist heuristic, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios. In this paper the concept is used to show three things in how scientists and practitioners analyse and evaluate to decide (conclude). First, in constructing theories such as purchasing power and interest parity to predict exchange rates and to advocate floating exchange rates, economists unwittingly employ Nominalist heuristics. Second, Nominalist heuristics have influenced actual exchange rates through the centuries, and this finding is replicated in the laboratory. Third, Nominalist heuristics are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes the evaluation stage, and are also incompatible with prospect theory which assumes that, while the evaluation stage can involve systematic mistakes, the overall decision situation is ultra simple. It is so simple that: a) economists and psychologists can mechanically model and identify what is a mistake, and b) decision makers can maximise. However, contrary to prospect theory, in the typical complex situation, neither a) nor b) holds. Assuming that a) and b) hold has resulted in the 1988 crisis from applying the Black Scholes formulae to forward exchange rates and contributed to sequel financial crises including that of 2007-2009. What is required is a fundamentally different class of models that allow for the progressive anticipated changes in knowledge ahead faced under risk and uncertainty, namely models under the umbrella of SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory. The paper’s findings support a single world currency rather than variable unpredictable exchange rates subjected to the vagaries of how prominent numbers, ratios and indices influence events via the models of scientists and practitioners.
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Prominent Numbers, Indices and Ratios in Exchange Rate Determination: in Economists' Models, in the Field and in the Laboratory *†
2008Co-Authors: Robin Pope, Reinhard Selten, Sebastian Kube, Johannes Kaiser, Juergen Von HagenAbstract:This paper, a sequel to Pope et al (2008b) shows three things in how scientists and practitioners analyse and evaluate to decide (conclude). First economists unwittingly employ Nominalist heuristics, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios feature in constructing theories (eg the purchasing power and interest parity models), to predict exchange rates and to advocate floating exchange rates. Second Nominalist heuristics have influenced actual exchange rates through the centuries, and this finding is replicated in the laboratory. Third Nominalist heuristics are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes the evaluation stage, and are also incompatible with prospect theory which assumes that, while the evaluation procedure can involve systematic mistakes, the overall decision situation is nevertheless sufficiently simple: a) for economists and psychologists to identify what is a mistake, and b) to be compatible with maximisation. But in the typical complex situation giving rise to Nominalist heuristics neither a) nor b) hold, so that what is required is a fundamentally different class of models that allow for the progressive anticipated changes in knowledge ahead faced under risk and uncertainty, namely models under the umbrella of SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory.
Robin Pope - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Prominent Numbers, Indices and Ratios in Exchange Rate Determination and Financial Crashes: in Economists' Models, in the Field and in the Laboratory
2009Co-Authors: Robin Pope, Reinhard Selten, Sebastian Kube, Juergen Von HagenAbstract:The prior paper in this sequel, Pope (2009) introduced the concept of a Nominalist heuristic, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios. In this paper the concept is used to show three things in how scientists and practitioners analyse and evaluate to decide (conclude). First, in constructing theories such as purchasing power and interest parity to predict exchange rates and to advocate floating exchange rates, economists unwittingly employ Nominalist heuristics. Second, Nominalist heuristics have influenced actual exchange rates through the centuries, and this finding is replicated in the laboratory. Third, Nominalist heuristics are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes the evaluation stage, and are also incompatible with prospect theory which assumes that, while the evaluation stage can involve systematic mistakes, the overall decision situation is ultra simple. It is so simple that: a) economists and psychologists can mechanically model and identify what is a mistake, and b) decision makers can maximise. However, contrary to prospect theory, in the typical complex situation, neither a) nor b) holds. Assuming that a) and b) hold has resulted in the 1988 crisis from applying the Black Scholes formulae to forward exchange rates and contributed to sequel financial crises including that of 2007-2009. What is required is a fundamentally different class of models that allow for the progressive anticipated changes in knowledge ahead faced under risk and uncertainty, namely models under the umbrella of SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory. The paper’s findings support a single world currency rather than variable unpredictable exchange rates subjected to the vagaries of how prominent numbers, ratios and indices influence events via the models of scientists and practitioners.
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Nominalist Heuristics and Economic Theory
2009Co-Authors: Robin Pope, Reinhard Selten, Sebastian KubeAbstract:This paper introduces a new theoretic entity, a Nominalist heuristic, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios. Abstractions used in the evaluation stage of decision making typically involve Nominalist heuristics that are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes the evaluation stage, and are also incompatible with prospect theory which assumes that, while the evaluation procedure can involve systematic mistakes, the overall decision situation is nevertheless sufficiently simple: 1) for economists and psychologists to identify what is a mistake, and 2) to be compatible with maximisation. But in the typical complex situation giving rise to Nominalist heuristics neither 1) nor 2) hold, and therefore what is required is a fundamentally different class of models that allow for the progressive anticipated changes in knowledge ahead faced under risk and uncertainty, namely models under the umbrella of SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory. A sequel paper. Pope et al 2009b, shows field and laboratory evidence of heuristics in the form of prominent numbers entering exchange rate determination.
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Prominent Numbers, Indices and Ratios in Exchange Rate Determination: in Economists' Models, in the Field and in the Laboratory *†
2008Co-Authors: Robin Pope, Reinhard Selten, Sebastian Kube, Johannes Kaiser, Juergen Von HagenAbstract:This paper, a sequel to Pope et al (2008b) shows three things in how scientists and practitioners analyse and evaluate to decide (conclude). First economists unwittingly employ Nominalist heuristics, defined as a focus on prominent numbers, indices or ratios feature in constructing theories (eg the purchasing power and interest parity models), to predict exchange rates and to advocate floating exchange rates. Second Nominalist heuristics have influenced actual exchange rates through the centuries, and this finding is replicated in the laboratory. Third Nominalist heuristics are incompatible with expected utility theory which excludes the evaluation stage, and are also incompatible with prospect theory which assumes that, while the evaluation procedure can involve systematic mistakes, the overall decision situation is nevertheless sufficiently simple: a) for economists and psychologists to identify what is a mistake, and b) to be compatible with maximisation. But in the typical complex situation giving rise to Nominalist heuristics neither a) nor b) hold, so that what is required is a fundamentally different class of models that allow for the progressive anticipated changes in knowledge ahead faced under risk and uncertainty, namely models under the umbrella of SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory.