Consider this familiar argument:
We cannot know about the sorts of things that don’t causally affect us.
Abstract objects are the sort of thing that doesn’t causally affect us.
So, we cannot know about abstract objects.
But note that if it were possible for something to non-causally affect us, that could well be good enough for us to know about it. So, unless we have independent reason to think that the only way things can affect is is causally, instead of (1) we should only affirm:
- We cannot know about the sorts of things that don’t affect us.
But to argue against abstract objects, we then need:
- Abstract objects are the sort of thing that doesn’t affect us.
However, on heavy-weight Platonism, abstract objects do affect us. Coldness makes us cold, being in pain makes us hurt, etc. So, the heavy-weight Platonist will reject (5).
"However, on heavy-weight Platonism, abstract objects do affect us. Coldness makes us cold, being in pain makes us hurt, etc. So, the heavy-weight Platonist will reject (5)."
ReplyDeleteI don't want to say something stupid, but is it really true that the property of coldness makes us cold? Suppose that an object has a low temperature, and this is sensed by us when we touch it. It seems to me that the property "cold" is not what makes me cold, but it is the physical features that are described by this property. To give a different example, if I am pocked by a needle, the pain I experience occurs due to causal interactions of concrete entities. At the same time, it can be said that the property of being sharp of the needle caused me to obtain the property of being hurt by it. However, this does not seems to commit me to the idea that the property of being sharp caused the property of being in pain. Perhaps, I am just a little confused?
Can a platonic object affect our minds?
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't seem to help the Platonist much. For how could abstracta affect us in a non-causal way? Not by personal or scientific explanations or acts. Conceptual act? But how is that even informative? What do the abstracta actually do in order to affect our minds?
ReplyDeleteTo use more traditional analysis, material causation, efficient, formal and final. None seem to work well for the case of Platonic objects and us (if we wanna keep being platonists instead of Aristotelians).
Unknown:
ReplyDelete"it can be said that the property of being sharp of the needle caused me to obtain the property of being hurt by it"
But the heavy-weight Platonist will insist that now I am hurt because I instantiate the property of being hurt. And so I am hurt because of the Platonic object, the property of being hurt. Without that Platonic object, I wouldn't hurt.
Griffin the Grey:
On heavy-weight Platonism, of course. Whatever mental property I have, I have it in virtue of instantiating one or more Platonic entities.
Atno:
I think formal causation is the closest to it. The Platonic entities *pain* is the formal cause of me hurting.
I agree formal causation is the best option here, but then it seems we stop being Platonists. Because the idea that the abstracta are not really abstracta, but actually just the forms in the objects, is more plausible - the Aristotelian idea that forms exist only as particulars in the the substances, being numerically distinct though formally identical, and only exist as universals, as true abstracta, in the mind. So it doesn't help the Platonist, I think.
ReplyDelete