Nestor, you wonder if universals arise as an artifact of the mind as part of a naming process. (Hopefully I got that right). Clearly some of that happens. Sophisticated artificial neural networks have demonstrated the ability to recognize and sort objects into useful categories based on observable features. No one I know believes computers form actual concepts in any meaningful way, not yet anyway. To be sure, people define man-made artifacts according to arbitrary sets of accidental properties and assigned functions. I can sit in a rocker, on five-gallon bucket, or in a bean bag and call them all furniture based on a function relative to human need. And we can divide people into demographic categories without any biological basis. At the same time, the threat of post-modernists painting reality as just a social construct should be enough to closely scrutinize whether that notion tells the whole story.
I don’t think attaching names to clusters of properties works for every condition. In some cases clusters of properties revolve around a common nature somehow responsible for the clustering. I think this happens with respect to natural physical objects like Men, or substances like water. People abstract observable features from physical objects to form a generic mental construct such as bipedal, opposable thumbs, rationality, etc. Experience also teaches people that a clear liquid that boils, freezes, and quenches thirst justifies calling it water. Here I think the Principle of Sufficient Reason compels us to wonder why such specific properties of cluster together and attribute a common essential nature responsible for that clustering. Natural science has revealed at least a few such instances. Each species of living organism, like Man, has its own distinct genetic structure that limits how any particular member gets expressed. The properties of water reflect an essential chemical structure, H2O. Someone could argue that these ‘common natures’ actually represent a deeper level of clustering, but I would reply that the common nature of the macro-level depends necessarily on the common natures of objects at micro-levels.
In my earlier post (and contrary to a position I took way back), I implied that treating existence as its own distinct property may not serve any useful purpose and could actually mislead.* I think we should concern ourselves more about whether it is possible to separate subjective artificial distinctions (invented) from objectively knowable externals (discovered) and less about what the fundamental stuff ‘is’. For example, did scientists invent or discover electrons? Likewise, did Aristotle invent or discover the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Even though electrons have so-called material properties (like charge) and the PNC has a formal one, a person can recognize both as objective features of reality. Electrons have a causal effect, but so does the PNC to the extent that it limits how reality works.
I don’t think attaching names to clusters of properties works for every condition. In some cases clusters of properties revolve around a common nature somehow responsible for the clustering. I think this happens with respect to natural physical objects like Men, or substances like water. People abstract observable features from physical objects to form a generic mental construct such as bipedal, opposable thumbs, rationality, etc. Experience also teaches people that a clear liquid that boils, freezes, and quenches thirst justifies calling it water. Here I think the Principle of Sufficient Reason compels us to wonder why such specific properties of cluster together and attribute a common essential nature responsible for that clustering. Natural science has revealed at least a few such instances. Each species of living organism, like Man, has its own distinct genetic structure that limits how any particular member gets expressed. The properties of water reflect an essential chemical structure, H2O. Someone could argue that these ‘common natures’ actually represent a deeper level of clustering, but I would reply that the common nature of the macro-level depends necessarily on the common natures of objects at micro-levels.
In my earlier post (and contrary to a position I took way back), I implied that treating existence as its own distinct property may not serve any useful purpose and could actually mislead.* I think we should concern ourselves more about whether it is possible to separate subjective artificial distinctions (invented) from objectively knowable externals (discovered) and less about what the fundamental stuff ‘is’. For example, did scientists invent or discover electrons? Likewise, did Aristotle invent or discover the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Even though electrons have so-called material properties (like charge) and the PNC has a formal one, a person can recognize both as objective features of reality. Electrons have a causal effect, but so does the PNC to the extent that it limits how reality works.
