DOI: 10.5176/2382-5677_PYTT15.2
Authors: Dr. Donald Poochigian
Abstract:
Understood by the linguistic turn is that reality is nominal, creating a crisis in philosophy as the study of the ultimate nature of things. Gone is the Enlightenment ideal of a reality discoverable by human reason. Overlooked is philosophy is viewable as successful in its quest, indicated by the very lack of agreement among philosophers. Rationalism muddies the water, leading to a search for a single coherent reality. Not finding it, philosophy is thought to fail. Relativism is different concepts applying in the same reality, alternative constituents of common possible elements and/or common possible relations. It is difference in consideration of a reality, in an allowed choice within a common environment. Thus, nominalism is normative, but different worlds is not. Rather than how to regard reality, different worlds is the reality regarded, what is received, not given. There being no common environment of shared experience and/or logical space within which to choose alternative arrangements, different worlds are not nominal preference, but real essence. Whether awareness constitutes different states of mind or different worlds is unknowable, since we only seem to find ourselves within awareness. There is no isolated perspective from which to definitively identify its character, each perspective being incomplete.
Keywords: philosophy, consciousness, nominalism, different worlds, reality
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