[MD] Philosophy and Abstraction

[Matt Kundert]

DMB said:
As I understand it, psychological nominalism has nothing to do with 
radical empiricism and I really don't see how it's at all plausible to 
assert that they are somehow parallel.

Matt:
Sure, which is why I wrote something to make it more plausible.

DMB said:
In fact, Sellars is denying "pre-intellectual" experience but that term 
is being used against traditional sensory empiricism wherein this 
"pre-conceptual" experience is a raw sensation, like a patch of red, 
to use the classic example. The radical empiricist uses those terms 
very differently.

Matt:
Hunh, indeed--and _by that very fact_ it gives my suggestion 
plausibility (i.e., you've just pointed out that Sellars wasn't attacking 
radical empiricism).

DMB said:
Sellars is denying" immediate experience" in a Cartesian framework, 
wherein the world gives itself to us through the senses. Radical 
empiricism is not making any claims that would be at odds with what 
Sellars is doing.

Matt:
Yes, indeed, I agree. You appear to have thought that I was wielding 
psychological nominalism as an attack on radical empiricism.  Either 
that's a mistake in what you've thought I've been suggesting for a few 
years, or I don't yet understand what you think the difference is 
between them that makes a difference.

DMB said:
More broadly speaking, Sellars is basically a scientific materialist, a 
verbal behaviorist and roughly equates thinking with brain activity. 
Generally speaking, he has an entirely different tone and 
temperament.

Matt:
Yes, Sellars--as Rorty points out in Philosophy and the Mirror of 
Nature--has some residual scientism that we're gonna' want to toss 
out.  And, generally speaking, I thought you wanted us to look 
beyond the tone and temperament of a thinker at the content of 
their thought?  Isn't that what you keep telling me about you?

My point has never been that you, or anyone else, should become a 
Rortyan or Sellarsian, never even that you should even read Rorty or 
Sellars.  However, if one did read them--so goes what I have been 
suggesting---then I think there are some parallels between the 
content of their philosophical thought (even yes, absolutely, there 
were many stylistic differences).  I have no doubt that there are 
differences between the content of their thought.  I've just been 
trying to highlight a point of agreement.

DMB said:
I mean, destruction of the myth of the given poses no problem for 
the radical empiricists.

Matt:
My lord, when did I say that?

Matt