In the comments section of a recent post at one of Victor Reppert’s blogs I’ve been engaged in a very interesting and stimulating conversation with a fellow who calls himself ‘exapologist’ about the status of abstract objects (propositions, numbers, sets, etc.). I’m arguing for theistic conceptualism (abstract objects exist necessarily as ideas in the mind of God). Exapologist is arguing for a form of Platonism (abstract objects exist necessarily independently of anything else, including God).
Open Future
A blog by Alan Rhoda, Ph.D., mainly about philosophy, religion, and the metaphysics of time, free will, and future contingency.
A blog by Alan Rhoda, Ph.D., mainly about philosophy, religion, and the metaphysics of time, free will, and future contingency.
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Independently? I like the Husserlian approach, which many call Platonist.
They’re independent of humans in that anyone can present them. But whether that requires God to sustain them? Wait, we don’t want things that are independent of God.
Hmmm. That’s fascinating. I should check out the comments!
Great writing! If I can ever get off of my duff, I had envisioned going down a similar route in my own writing.
Alan,
Have you read this:
http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/welty/mphil.pdf
?
It’s only the MA thesis by Welty, done at Oxford. But he also wrote his dissertation on the same thing, which hopefully come out as a book soon.
Hi Paul,
No, I haven’t read that. The thesis looks extremely interesting. Thanks for the link.
Alan
I like your post ,now I must complete my research for my paper.
Finance Dissertation