nominalism - A Tippling Philosopher (Page 2)

A Tippling Philosopher

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nominalism

A collection of 37 posts

On Original Sin - answering Thomas L. McDonald

I was some years back sent a link to Thomas L. McDonald's piece "The Origin of Man, Original Sin, and Why It’s All Your Fault" on his Patheos blog (that now seems broken, a link to it elsewhere is here). I will set out what

Pastafarians have arrived!

Pastafarians have hit the headlines in various forms over the last few weeks. Firstly, Pastafarian weddings have been allowed in New Zealand (and someone I work with is the cousin of one of the first wedded couple, and I am hoping to get a first hand account). Then, a court

The Kalam Cosmological Argument and William Lane Craig #2 (revisited)

I am soon to release a book on the Kalam Cosmological Argument which has been long in the pipeline, but is finally ready, short of a foreword. As a result of its imminent creation (er, out of something!), let me remind you of an old couple of posts that deal

conceptual nominalism

My favourite nominalism / evolution image

I am a conceptual nominalist, which I explain to some extent here. One of my favourite images to explain this is below. Also good for explaining the species problem, which reflects or exemplifies the nominalism/realism debate.

conceptual nominalism

Immigration: what's all the fuss? My thoughts... (part 1)

With the rise and rise of UKIP, even despite their consistent foot-in-mouth propensity (and perhaps because of it), I have written a piece looking at UKIP in a skeptical light and am now due to write about the subject which concerns them the most. Immigration. This is quite a useful thing to do beca

Abortion and Personhood

I have made sticky (sent to the top of the blog post list) the post Andreas Schueler wrote about the biological aspects of personhood, life and thus the ramifications on views on abortion. The post is excellent and reflects issues with nominalism and realism: how we attach abstract, conceptual labels

By Adrian Pingstone (talk · contribs) (Self-photographed) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

conceptual nominalism

Scottish Independence - my thoughts

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel and flag-waving the first action of a warmonger. yes-no2 I am British, English, and live on the south coast of the UK. That said, the coming Thursday referendum affects me as much as most people in the country. I will set out what is, for me and m

The "I", personhood and abstract objects

The "I", personhood and abstract objects

I have talked about abstract objects many times before, such as here. It is a fundamental area to almost everything in philosophy and is not debated nearly enough. We had a Tippling Philosophers' debate in the pub last night about the 'I' and personhood, which came down to whether they really existe

Philosophy fundamentals - abstracts and abstract ideas

This subject is fundamental to much of philosophy. It underpins disciplines like moral philosophy, and so it provides the ontology of the building bricks of our reality. This video explains abstracts and why they are so vital: http://youtu.be/E8geWQmte0A

On Beauty

We had a Tippling Philosophers night the other night on beauty, and these are the quick notes I sent to someone who was unable to be there. Let me know what you think: My belief is that: Beauty is a word which all too often means "I like that".

Philosophy 101 (philpapers induced) #2 - Abstract objects: Platonism or nominalism

So having posted the Philpapers survey results, the biggest ever survey of philosophers conducted in 2009, several readers were not aware of it (the reason for re-communicating it) and were unsure as to what some of the questions meant. I offered to do a series on them, so here it is – Philosophy 10

The Kalam Cosmological Argument and William Lane Craig #2

Having looked at the issue of causality in the last post, I would like to continue to analyse the first premise in the KCA. This objection is connected to the last objection in its implications on the KCA. To remind people of the KCA: 1) The universe that begins to