【推文】Yuri Bezmenov's Ghost - "WTF" is nominalism

連結

• 原推文 - x.com/Ne_pas_couvrir...

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原文及個人翻譯

I suppose if you're asking "WTF" is nominalism. Ok. In classical metaphysics, the debate over universals pits realists (who say universals are real in some sense, either as innate forms, Platonic ideals, or immanent structures in things) against nominalists (who say universals are not real things, only names we use). Looking at garbage Wikipedia, "nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist, except as names or labels." So, in other words, for nominalists, only particular, individual things exist in reality; when we speak of a general quality (like "redness" or "humanity"), we're not referring to a real entity that all red things or all humans share. This means we're just using one term to group many similar individuals for convenience.

如果你在問「什麼鬼」是唯名論，好吧。在古典形而上學中，關於普遍概念的辯論將現實主義者（認為普遍概念以某種方式是真實的，無論是作為內在的形式、柏拉圖的理想或事物內在的結構）與唯名論者（認為普遍概念不是真實的事物，只是我們使用的名稱）對立起來。根據垃圾維基百科的說法，「唯名論是普遍概念和抽象對象並不真正存在，除了作為名稱或標籤的觀點。」所以，換句話說，對唯名論者來說，只有特定、個別的事物在現實中存在；當我們談論一般性質（如「紅色」或「人類」）時，我們不是指所有紅色事物或所有人類共享的真實實體。這意味著我們只是使用一個術語來方便地群組許多相似個體。

Lets make this more simple. Think of the concept "tree." A realist might say that all particular trees partake in a universal treeness or form of tree that really exists (perhaps in a metaphysical realm or in the mind of God or as an immanent essence). A nominalist, by contrast, would say "tree" is merely a name we apply to individual plants that resemble each other in certain ways; there is no one thing called "Tree" that exists beyond all the individual trees. Hobbes was making this point, how we use one universal name (like "tree") for many individuals, but "the things named are every one of them individual and singular." The universal concept is just in our mind and language, not in the things themselves.

讓我們把它變得更簡單。想想「樹」這個概念。一個現實主義者可能會說，所有特定的樹都參與一個普遍的樹性或樹的形式，這確實存在（也許在形而上學的領域，或在上帝的心中，或作為內在的本質）。相反，唯名論者會說，「樹」只是我們應用於許多相似植物的單一名稱；除了所有個別的樹之外，沒有稱為「樹」的單一事物存在。霍布斯正在強調這一點，我們為許多個體使用一個普遍的名稱（如「樹」），但「被命名的事物都是各自的、獨特的。」普遍概念只存在於我們的心中，我們的語言中，而不存在於事物本身。

So, nominalism emerged in medieval philosophy. The term comes from Latin, of course. Specifically, nominales. This means "names-men"). It's the idea that only names are universal. William of Ockham is often cited as a key nominalist. Ockham argued that God's absolute power isn't constrained by any natures or forms in creation, which led him to deny that universals have any reality. In his view, only individual substances exist, and our universal concepts are just convenient labels that we use arbitrary 'names' assigned to this or that object."​ By "arbitrary," he meant there isn't a natural or necessary connection between the word and a real essence; we could have named things differently if we wanted. (Do note, Ockham didn't deny that things have properties – only that there is a separate universal entity corresponding to those properties. So trees exist and are similar, but "treeness" does not exist apart from the trees.)

所以，唯名論在中世紀哲學中出現。這個術語當然來自拉丁語，具體來說是「nominales」，意思是「名字-人」。這是一種想法，即只有名字是普遍的。威廉·奧卡姆（William of Ockham）通常被引用為唯名論的關鍵人物。奧卡姆認為，上帝的絕對權力不受創造中任何本質或形式的約束，這導致他否認普遍概念有任何現實。在他看來，只有個別物質存在，我們的普遍概念只是我們使用的方便標籤，是我們任意分配給這個或那個物體的「名字」。他說「任意」的意思是，詞語和現實本質之間沒有自然或必要的聯繫；如果我們想，我們可以給事物命名不同。（請注意，奧卡姆並沒有否認事物有屬性——他只是否認有對應於這些屬性的單獨的普遍實體。所以樹存在並且相似，但「樹性」除了樹之外並不存在。）

So, nominalism = only individual entities are fundamentally real; universals (general concepts, categories, forms) are human constructs or names. It stands opposed to the realist philosophy of someone like Plato (who believed universals like Justice or Redness exist in a real abstract realm) or Aristotle/Thomas Aquinas (who believed universals exist within things as real forms or essences). Nominalists say, "No, those 'universals' are not out there or in things - they're in our heads (or just words)."

所以，唯名論 = 只有個別實體是根本真實的；普遍概念（一般概念、範疇、形式）是人類的構建或名稱。它反對像柏拉圖那樣的現實主義哲學（他相信像正義或紅色這樣的普遍概念存在於一個真實的抽象領域）或亞里士多德/托馬斯·阿奎那（他們相信普遍概念存在於事物中，作為真實的形式或本質）。唯名論者說，「不，那些「普遍概念」並不存在於那裡或存在於事物中——它們存在於我們的頭腦中（或只是詞語）。」