Hi John,
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
You wrote:
<snip/> ...
The term "in practice" refers to the way
people with different
points of view can collaborate. However,
different philosophical
positions can have a major difference on the way
people think
about a subject and what research directions they
choose to pursue.
There are lots of philosophical specifications
written in long texts to discuss highly focused topics. The "approved"
positions are ephemeral. Mathematically, the terminal nodes are the only
real ones. The rest are mere links. Syntax, like psychostructural
projections, are all constructed to manage reality, compress "important"
traces of experience for efficiency, identify what's "important" by
experience, and organize a library of memories, IMHO.
For example, if you think that the labels attached to
species are
just words that have no deeper explanation than mere
coincidence,
then you're not likely to search for any deeper
principles to
explain the taxonomy of plants and animals.
But if you believe that there is some deeper reality
underlying
the grouping into species, then you'll search for some
reason.
For example,
</distraction\> ...
But both positions #1 and #2 are more likely to lead
to a
search for the mechanisms underlying the taxonomy than
a
purely nominalist view that says the grouping is
nothing
more than a collection of labels attached to certain
groups.
Thanks! A lovely, intuitive
description of nominalism that makes it equivalent to entity tracking in
concept space, IMHO.
-Rich
John