In this paper I examine critically the relationship between the realist and nominalist views of abstract objects. I begin by pointing out some differences between the usage of existential statements in metaphysics and the usage of such statements in disciplines outside of philosophy. Then I propose an account of existence that captures the characteristic intuitions underlying the latter kind of...

James Ladyman has argued that constructive empiricism entails modal realism, and that this renders constructive empiricism untenable. We maintain that constructive empiricism is compatible with modal nominalism. Although the central term ‘observable’ has been analyzed in terms of counterfactuals, and in general counterfactuals do not have objective truth conditions, the property of being observ...

For much of the High Middle Ages, the conflict between Plato and Aristotle took the form of lengthy debates over the nature of universals. Philosophers of a Platonic bent came to be known as “Realists” because they argued that universals had a real existence apart from the specific objects in which they dwelled. For example, we observe birds of many different shapes, sizes, and colors, but stil...

The scientific classification of human psychopathology raises a host of important philosophical issues ranging over all major areas of philosophical inquiry; logic, semantics, ontology, epistemology and ethics. The paper focuses on the major views of the ontological status of our psychodiagnostic constructs; idealism, nominalism and finally, neoaristotelian realism. Idealism holds that our psyc...

objects | mathematics, philosophy of | mathematics, philosophy of: indispensabilityarguments in the | mathematics, philosophy of: Platonism | nominalism: in metaphysics |ontological commitment | Platonism: in metaphysics | plural quantification | Quine, Willardvan Orman