From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 9:57 AM
To: Brian Holtz
Subject: Re: To JH, regarding materialism. [was Re: Death]

"Gurnemanz" <jim@nospamma.humph65.fsworld.co.uk> wrote

> "Derrick Boucher" wrote :
>
> > > > What reasons, then, would one have for supposing that there is
> > > > a realm of immaterial existence?
> > >
> > > Well, just one reason might be mathematics- ie one might
> > > find Platonism convincing.
>
> mathematical entities are seen as being abstract
> in not being spatiotemporally located and thus in not
> having any causal powers.

But would you not agree with Aristotle (against Plato) that universals
do not exist independently of the instances that instantiate them and
the minds that conceptualize them?  In such a conceptualist view,
universals do not indicate a separate "realm of immaterial existence"
any more than do opinions, dreams, or properties.

--
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net