Ostrich Nominalism and Peacock Realism: A Hegelian Critique of Quine

International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22 (5):734-751 (2014)
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Abstract

My aim in this paper is to offer a Hegelian critique of Quine’s predicate nominalism. I argue that at the core of Hegel’s idealism is not a supernaturalist spirit monism, but a realism about universals, and that while this may contrast to the nominalist naturalism of Quine, Hegel’s position can still be defended over that nominalism in naturalistic terms. I focus on the contrast between Hegel’s and Quine’s respective views on universals, which Quine takes to be definitive of philosophical naturalism. I argue that there is no good reason to think Quine is right to make this nominalism definitive of naturalism in this way – where in fact Hegel offers a reasonably compelling case that science itself requires some commitment to realism about universals, kinds, etc. Furthermore, even if Hegel is wrong about that, at least his case for realism is still a naturalistic one, as it is based on his views on concrete universality, which is an innovative form of in rebus realism about unive..

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Paul Giladi
School of Oriental and African Studies

Citations of this work

Mereological Nominalism.Nikk Effingham - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (1):160-185.
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References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
New Work For a Theory of Universals.David Lewis - 1983 - In D. H. Mellor & Alex Oliver (eds.), Properties. Oxford University Press.
Reason in philosophy: animating ideas.Robert Brandom - 2009 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
On what there is.W. V. Quine - 1953 - In From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 1-19.

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