SUO: Re: Question about Example in KR Book

["John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>]

Jay,

 > Do let us try to avoid strawmen. Are the theses named by these
 > terms (nominalism, realism) contradictories or contraries?
 > What exactly do you mean by 'nominalism' and by 'realism'?

I am not answering strawmen.  I am directing my attacks at
poor misguided nominalists, such as David Hume, Ernst Mach,
the 20th century behaviorists, and most of the 20th century
analytic philososphers.  Very few, if any, successful
scientists are nominalists -- they actually believe that
they are investigating something real.

I would define nominalism as the position that scientific
theories are summaries of descriptions of observations.

I would define realism as the position that thoroughly tested
scientific theories describe something that really exists --
not perfectly, but to a degree of approximation that can be
measured and quantified.

There are, of course, many different versions and qualifications
of both nominalism and realism.  But that is a very long story.

John