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    The Quine-Devitt scientific explanation strategy does not... — Carmelics
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    The Quine-Devitt scientific explanation strategy does not resolve the One Over Many problem for nominalists, but merely relocates it.

    Modality & PossibilityTruth & Knowledge
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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's criterion of ontological commitment requires that predicates appearing in canonical scientific notation carry no ontological weight unless bound by existential quantifiers.
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    • 2.Yet Devitt's ostrich nominalism must still account for why distinct predicate tokens 'F', 'F', 'F' apply to the same objects—a sameness that is not itself expressible without quantifying over a shared feature.
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    • 3.This sameness-of-application demand is precisely the One Over Many problem restated in metalinguistic terms, confirming relocation rather than dissolution.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Armstrong's argument in 'Universals and Scientific Realism' demonstrates that any nomological explanation of the form 'a is F because all Gs are F' presupposes a real connection between the properties G and F.
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    • 2.Nominalist paraphrase strategies that eliminate property-talk from object-level discourse must reintroduce something functionally equivalent at the level of laws or natural kinds to preserve the explanatory structure.
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    • 3.A problem that must be reintroduced at a higher explanatory level to preserve theoretical adequacy has not been solved but merely displaced upward in the regress.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.If a nominalist explains why object a is F by appealing to the fact that a is G and all Fs are Gs, the nominalist must then explain why a is G without appealing to the property of Gness.
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    • 2.Scientific explanations of predicative facts follow this pattern: explaining that a is F by citing a more fundamental predicate G.
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    • 3.Each such explanation generates a new instance of the same explanatory demand the nominalist was originally trying to satisfy.
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    Topics

    Modality & PossibilityTruth & Knowledge

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    Philosophy of Language2 linkedSkepticism1 linked

    Related

    A problem that must be reintroduced at a higher explanatory level to preserve th...Armstrong's argument in 'Universals and Scientific Realism' demonstrates that an...Each such explanation generates a new instance of the same explanatory demand th...If a nominalist explains why object a is F by appealing to the fact that a is G ...
    +5 moreShow less
    Nominalist paraphrase strategies that eliminate property-talk from object-level ...Quine's criterion of ontological commitment requires that predicates appearing i...

    Similar

    The Platonist explanation (P) is uninformative as an explanation of (N...82%Melia, Yablo, and Balaguer each argue that easy-road nominalism aligns...79%The nominalist is unable to account for the common features of certain...79%Even fictionalist nominalists who deny that (P) is equivalent to (N) c...77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: platonism
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    The Quine-Devitt response to the One Over Many begins with the claim that we can account for the fact that the ball is red, without appealing to the property of redness, by simply using whatever explanation scientists give of this fact. Now, by itself, this explanation will not satisfy advocates of the One Over Many argument. If we explain the fact that the ball is red by pointing out that its surface is structured in some specific way, then advocates of the One Over Many argument will say that
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Scientific explanations of predicative facts follow this pattern: explaining tha...
    This sameness-of-application demand is precisely the One Over Many problem resta...
    Yet Devitt's ostrich nominalism must still account for why distinct predicate to...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit