Re: SUO: Abstractions, universals, and signs
Chris,
I agree with your criticism. That is one reason why I avoid
using the terms "universal" and "particular". Those are two
interesting terms from the history of philosophy that I don't
believe we really need to define or discuss the SUO. I used
them only because I was trying to relate several different
approaches to Nicola & Chris's slide #130, which does use
those terms.
>John, by your definition, every abstract particular is a universal,
>since if a predicate applies to only one entity, it also applies to a
>*class* of one entity. Is that your intention? I should think you'd
>want these notions to be disjoint.
This was a big issue in the middle ages, when the terminology
of universals and particulars was popular. But if we are
going to use some version of FOL as our defining language,
we can use terms like "predicate" or "definite description",
about which I think we can reach agreement much more quickly
than we can about "universals" and "particulars".
>In my experience, the term "abstract particular" applies not to
>exemplifiable things, but to abstract *non*-exemplifiable things, e.g.,
>the equator, numbers, sets, etc. So perhaps the distinction with some
>bite here is the one between abstract exemplifiable things (and things
>"built up" logically from them, which may not be exemplifiable like the
>property _square circle_) and abstract particulars which neither are,
>nor are "built up" logically from, exemplifiable things. (Of course,
>the notion of something being "built up" logically from other things
>would have to be clarified.)
That is my concern. There are too many topics that would have
to be clarified.
Basic principle: If possible, I'd like to keep the number
of metalevel terms to a minimum. If we can define "equator"
as a locus of points (using nothing more than Euclidean
geometry and FOL), I would prefer not to raise the issue of
whether that thing is or is not an "abstract particular".
John