Essentialism (aka the idiocy of Nominalism)
Essentialism is the philosophy that states that essential characteristics of a thing can be separated from its accidents. What is an accident? It’s not just when you have a car wreck. In metaphysics, an accident is a characteristic of an entity that is not essential to its nature.
For example: I have two trees. They both have roots. They both have a main trunk. they both have branches. They both have leaves of some sort. The one on the left however is generally triangular in shape. It’s leaves stay green all year long and are very thin, hard and sharp. You can guess it is some sort of evergreen tree - pine for example. On the right is a tree that is generally broccoli shaped and has broad flat leaves that are not sharp and change colors and fall off in the fall. It is a deciduous tree - a maple for example.
It should be obvious what the essential characteristics of these trees are, and what the accidents are. The essential characteristic - the things that make them trees - are the trunk, the roots, the branches, the fact that they have some leaves of some sort. If any of these were missing in either case, we would not have a tree. We would have something untreeish. If there was a green shortish stalk that didn’t have any branches, but instead had petals, we would have a flower not a tree. But the accidents - the things that are incidental and not germane to the principal - can change without changing the essence of treeness. A tree can have a triangular shape or a broccoli shape. Or it can have other odd shapes. It can be tall or short. It can be a conifer or deciduous. It can have needles or broad, flat leaves. But in any case, it has roots, a trunk and leaves of some kind. (more…)
3 Examples of Nominalism
I guess I can’t always talk about Calvinism, seeing as how it’s not the only thing I think about. Today I’m thinking about Nominalism.
Nominalism:
the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them1
In short this is in contrast to a metaphysical epistemology which says that reality is bound to form and our knowledge of anything is an internalization of its form. In short, nominalism says ‘It is what I call it’ while metaphysics says, ‘I call it what it is’. Anyone who has traveled or lived overseas should be able to identify with the metaphysical position. When you get in your car in London and drive through the chunnel and come out on the other side to find you’re driving a voiture, are you suddenly no longer in a car? Of course not! The concept of car is tied to its form and matter, not the word assigned to refer to it. The same is true if you were to drive west instead of south and upon crossing the mountains you find you’re driving a cerbyd. Again, what you’re driving hasn’t changed, because the word has no bearing on it’s metaphysical reality.
You might ask if this is the same thing, because ultimately if we call it what it is, then it is what we call it, right? Not necessarily, because according to my Thomist friend, nominalists assert that it is the naming of the thing that creates its essence. Thus by saying something is something, you make it that way.
But let’s get out of the abstract. Let’s get to the concrete. My friend decries nominalism as one of the worst things to plague philosophy and Christianity. I don’t know enough about it to know whether that is true, but I do know three cases in which I have seen nominalism at work and in each case it is dreadfully wrong.
Total Depravity
As usual I apologize for my long drought of posting, and call on my typical excuse of busyness. Though I do have to say that on my list of priorities this blog is not very high. I certainly enjoy posting here, though there are a myriad of other responsibilities and distractions which can and have squelched my time for posting. Thank you for bearing with me.
Today I want to examine the doctrine of Total Depravity. I first want to state its importance. It is vital doctrine to believe for Calvinism, but it is also a crucial doctrine for the whole of Christianity. Much of the foundation of what we believe rests upon the truth of Total Depravity.
Briefly, Total Depravity (also called total inability) states that when Adam fell, all of mankind as a whole fell. The punishment for this fall is death, as God had warned Adam prior to the fall. This death takes place in three stages. Physical death is the end of our time on this planet. Eternal death is the unending punishment for our sinful state. Spiritual death is the depravity in which we find ourselves. Each man1 is spiritually stillborn. What is the nature of this death?