[Wittrs] Re: Nominalism / Sean
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:02:01 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@...> wrote:
>
> .. I have no issues with someone believing in a scientific theory of how the
> mind works, and espousing a view that says that philosophy should be
> "naturalistic" about these things. In fact, I take that whole line of thought
> to be an offspring of Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein would not have opposed
> scientific theories of the mind per se; he was opposed to philosophic and
> logical theories as a foundation unto itself.
OK by me.
I'm still giving Wittgenstein much credit for launching
Turing's work, even if I deduct Wittgenstein credits for
not appreciating it.
> But now I'm confused at why you are referring to a computationally-based
> theory of cognition (or what have you) as a species of "nominalism."
It's more the other way around, I think.
> Aren't you committing the sins of borrowing the speaking
> conventions of an insignificant language game?
I'm not afraid of labels. Nominalism is all about labels.
We're as big about qualifying them, tossing them, and deflating
them generally, but I seldom see using a term in anything like
its normative manner, as being in any way improper.
In fact, I probably do not entirely understand
your question.
>That is, one does not make any intellectual progress with arguments over
>whether the tree is real -- in fact, all one does is have mischief with
>grammar. Why are you adopting a naming convention from this cereal-box sort of
>philosophy? What it seems to say is, "team A won, only we computed."
The name is just a convenience, perhaps it's better to
coin a neologism, but by the same token, what would that
buy? May I suggest you don't let labels bother you.
At least, not to the exclusion of reading further.
I should probably say something about this "tree" business,
but I'm not sure really where that comes from. I didn't
bring it up. And you seem to be warning me not to.
So, ... OK?
And, IF we should ever get to the point where we can
say, "team A won, only we computed", that would be
FANTASTIC! Out where I live, that's the whole game.
> Why not call it computational naturalism? Or computational perception? Or
> computational linguistics? Why adopt the nomenclature of a false game of
> allegiance?
What "false game of allegiance"? Is that on cable, I don't
get cable. I have to guess that this is somehow a reference
to nominalism, but I haven't the foggiest idea why anyone
would say such a thing. But again, I have very low sensitivity
to labels, they're cheap and replaceable, and yet useful,
and that's the whole point.
As to why just those words, well, you don't seem to have
any problem with "computational", though I could raise a dozen
or a hundred questions about that, too. Others do.
But the conventions are more or less common, and I hold them
harmless enough. We call it "football" here in the US when the
ball is this odd pointy thing, one of the holy grails of a
number of different threads of research in philosophy of mind,
language, psychology, science, and probably stuff like medicine
and biology, insofar as they have philosophies (I guess they do)
is something called a naturalized theory of mind. But there
is another tradition having to do with that, everybody claims
*their* theory is naturalized, and all those others are, well,
unnatural, I guess. Some stuff very, very different from mine
claims to be "naturalized", often meaning "irreducible". So,
for clarity, and because I think the priority works this way
too, I want to explain just how it is that my particular
theory *works*. Then I can lay claim to as much naturalism
as seems ... natural. I'm sure most people reading the
literature would read "computational naturalism" as a claim
about computation being naturalized. That, is generally
granted. On odd Thursdays I suppose it's forbidden, but
that's philosophy for ya. I think it has to be argued for.
I see a lot on this discussion group of people terrified of
words and claims, but isn't the whole Wittgenstein message
on these not that they are dangerous, but meaningless on
their own, until use gives them meaning? Indeed, isn't
that exactly your advice to me, to make the argument and
avoid the -isms? Of course the -ism carries no weight,
it's just a punctuation mark of sorts.
And finally, as long as you've got my fingers warmed
up, why "nominalism"? Because the non-nominalist view,
which I see as a broad swath of essentialist neo-platonist
and "realist" (about propositional attitude) -isms,
absolutely prevent a proper understanding of even mundane
computation. I need an -ism to throw back, and there is
one, of long provenance - too long, it has a big family
and you're never sure which one people are thinking of
when you raise the -ism. But there is nothing new under
the sun, and the conclusion that essentialism is bad
and some kind of deflationary *mechanism* is needed,
rhetorically, theoretically, was made by the Epicureans
long, long ago, and for the most part cannot be
improved upon, just filled out into the new niche
of computation. Well, actually, it may be that I
want to assert it even more broadly, anywhere that
a platonistic meme or connotation can be found, which
is pretty much everywhere. So, nominalism it is.
Josh
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