In a recent post, I led up to the problem sentence for Nominalism.
(3) Red resembles Orange more than Square-ness.
The task for nominalism is to find an acceptable paraphrase for (3). (3) seems true, so whatever the paraphrase we come up with – it better be true too. We left off with (3**) as our candidate paraphrase.
(3**) The red-set resembles the orange-set more than the square-set
(Note: Red-set = set of all red things. Orange-set = set of all orange things. square-set = set of all square things.)
(3**) seems true. Imagine if you could have a God’s eye view of all the red objects out there, and you could compare them side by side with the set of all the orange objects and the set of all the square objects. I bet you’d be inclined to say that this set (or grouping, or fusion, or whatever) of red things does resemble the set of orange things more than the set of square things.
My New Concern
I think my knowledge that (3) is true substantially different from my knowledge that (3**). First, I know (3) immediately and directly on the basis of perception. I can know that the property red that I am looking at right now is more similar to the property orange than it is the property square, merely by looking at any collection of a red, an orange, and a square object. It doesn’t seem like my knowledge that (3**) works like that.
Now on the face of it, this looks like another one of those arguments where someone argues that one thing is not identical to another thing, because of the different ways in which the two things are knowable – (Think: Arguments from Introspection for Dualism – check out the bottom of page 14).
However, now I think the problem might run a little deeper and that there is another way to cast the argument. I think my knowledge that (3**) is true evidentially depends on my knowledge that (3) is true. How do I know that from a God’s eye view the set of red things would resemble the set of orange things more than the set of square things? It’s because I know that red resembles orange more than square.
Now, does that lend more support to the claim that (3**) cannot be an adequate paraphrase of (3)?
it seems like you may be begging the question. I could just as easily say that my knowledge that (3) is true evidentially depends on my knowledge that (3**) is true, and it seems it may even be more plausible. how is it that we come to understand the concepts of redness, orangeness and squareness? through experience, of course. so it isn’t really our ‘god’s eye view’ but our view of our own past experiences with objects named ‘red,’ ‘orange,’ and ‘square’ that gives credence to the inference that (3) is true.
Hi Scott,
Thanks for these comments.
Regarding your last point. Couldn’t we construct a scenario where someone encountered red and orange for the first time. (Say they were color blind to those two colors, but they had seen yellow, blues, greens, browns, blacks, and whites)
It seems like they would know that they are looking at new colors the first time they encountered red and orange. They could know that red resembles orange more than square upon seeing their first instances of seeing red and orange.
(I don’t know though. This is me shooting from the hip. Does that seem possible?)
given your thought experiment it still seems that you would know (3) in lieu of (3**) although you might define sets, eg. ‘red-sets’, as ‘the set of all red things that have or do appear to me redly’ rather than ‘the set of all red things.’ this may seem like an odd definition but if it were merely ‘the set of all things that appear to me redly,’ someone who sees all blue things in red would screw things up. this definition could perhaps solve your puzzle. ‘The set of all red things that have or do appear to me redly resembles the set of all orange things that have or do appear to me orangely more than the set of all square things that have or do appear to me squarely.’ this is a kind of convoluted attempt at solving your problem, i’ll post it and look back at it later, i’m not thinking clearly right now.
it seems the account i’ve given may fall to some of the problems associated with idea theories of language, although maybe a theory of conceptual role semantics could save me.. i’ll look into that.. in any case i think it’s an interesting puzzle that you’ve come up with for nominalism.