Of physical objects has spatial location insofar as its elements do. It seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that such sets have location in time-for example, that the singleton containing a given object comes into and goes out of existence with that object. I must agree that many sets, the empty set or the set of real numbers,f ore xample, cannot be said to have location, but I disagree in the case of sets of physical objects. the various numerical beliefs acquired on this occasion are perceptual, and I further claim that they are beliefs about a set, that is, I claim P acquires the perceptual beliefs that there is a set of eggs before P, that it is three-membered, and that it has various two-membered subsets. Here is her response on causal efficacy and spatio-temporal location of universals:Ĭonsider the following case: P needs two eggs for a certain recipe, reaches into the refrigeratorf or the egg carton, opens it, and sees three eggs there.
In other words, she rejects the "sense data" theories which reduce perception to sensation of particulars (this is supported by cognitive science studies, see Metaphysically, what comes before the cognitive ability to make distinctions?). So causal relation can be mediated by an inferential link to direct interaction, and elementary universals, like finite sets and numbers, are present, she claims, in the content of perception of sets of physical objects. First, causal theory does not require direct causation, some knowledge is by inference, including inductive inference from simple cases, which may well apply to universals. Penelope Maddy addresses both the issue of spatio-temporal location and causal relation of universals to us in the context of (non-Platonic) mathematical realism see Perception and Mathematical Intuition and Mathematical Epistemology: What is the Question. Consciousness, by providing a means to make causal use of abstract entities, provided a massive survival advantage.Īnswering the follow on questions: "how do they manage to remain abstract entities, and why are they necessary?" Abstract entities remain abstract, and they are necessary to do hypothesis formation and testing.Īs references, here is Popper's Tanner Lecture, spelling out his 3-worlds theory: Īnd here is Popper outlining the development of consciousness in a 3-worlds model, see in particular section 4: And evaluate the hypothesis - that X will likely lead to death - without having to actually DO X and find out - that X leads to death. A living thing can ask - "what happens if I do X". He postulated that consciousness was an unexpected emergent phenomenon of early life, which allowed life to use abstract entities as hypotheses. And consciousness can interact with abstract entities. Karl Popper offered an answer - abstract entities cannot directly interact with matter. "How do abstract universals causally interact with us"
Your "it seems that" is just an unjustified assumption.Your "it seems that" is just an unjustified assumption. Additional work after Newton showed that superposition is a feature of much of the world, so solidity and non-congruency are also not valid assumptions. That assumption was refuted by Newton, who showed that fields can act over distance. Your point 2 seems to assume Leibniz's approach to causation, that something needs to have proximal contact to be causal.Universals do not have location, nor time.So, my questions are: If universals do not have a spatio-temporal location then how do realists explain their causal interaction with us and particulars? If they do then how do they manage to remain abstract entities, and why are they necessary? Given then above, it's hard to accept the existence of universals. In that case, we have no need for universals. If we don't take them to be abstract entities, then their causal relation to us reduces to physical causation between particulars. If we take them to be abstract entities then again it seems that it's impossible for universals to be causal relata. If universals do have spatio-temporal location, then either we take them to be abstract entities or not. If universals do not have a spatio-temporal location, then it seems that it's impossible for them to be causal relata. If universals exist, either they have a spatio-temporal location or they do not. Here is a sketch of an argument against universals based on the common assumption that their must be a causal relation between a knower and the object of knowledge ( causal theory of knowledge). Conversely, realists says that there are universals. With respect to universals nominalists maintain that there are no universals and only particulars exists.
0 kommentar(er)
