Philosophical Pluralism
[[blue just wanted to lend an opinion on the topic of philosophical pluralism:
The Notion of Philosophical Pluralism
Broadly speaking this is an ontology that holds three notions of existence to be certain.
Physical Concepts: There are things that I may physically interact with; these are objects in the world that affect my sense of touch, smell, sight, hearing and taste. These are things that I eat to stay alive, such as my evening meal; I talk to and listen to during my evening meal, such as my partner at home; the bed I sleep in, the motorcycle I ride to university to study and the clothes I wear throughout that experience. It is also the aches and pains from physical training the afternoon previous, and the lethargy imposed by a night of tackling some obscure attempt at epistemology. These are physical things that continuously affect my life. They are real in the sense that they are real physical Phenomenon. When I die, or if I do not see them, most of them continue to exist in some manner.
Abstract Concepts: There are things that I know by abstraction. I know that the colour red exists, I have seen it, it exists in many shades, some of these collapse into other shades, but there is always a point that I can say with certainty I see red or I do not. This is an abstracted concept of a physical object. Other things I know from abstraction are rules of geometry and mathematics that I may or may not be able to physically demonstrate. I may however be able to derive and prove certain mathematical theorems about any such things as I please with enough training. Certainly I can say that the square root of sixty five is equal to a certain number that has the properties of being multiplied by itself to equal the afore mentioned number, without knowing what that number may be. This is an abstract concept. It has physical meaning or it does not, depending upon my powers of physical observation. This does not detract from its abstract truth however.
Mental Concepts: There are things I only know in thought. These may be any such things as I can imagine or have described to me. They may be mistaken for physical objects if I attribute physical qualities to such a thing that resides in my mind, such as the large pink furry rabbit in the corner of the room who is eating a donut. Who is obviously not physically there(?), but in some circumstances I may believe he is there. I may be able to think of things as they truly existed, and this would be attributed to my memory, or I may think of things as I wish them to exist. But I may also think of things that may never exist. Whether these things may exist or not is inconsequential. It may be that I think of something that exists in a certain way, or I may create a thing in my mind that cannot exist but consists of parts of things that exist, or I may create something wholly unique from the physical realm that exists only in thought in its totality. No matter what these are all merely thoughts.
My actions may be guided by abstract and mental concepts but they can only ever be, and be known as physical concepts. If I ring a bell, if I describe a concept by speech, word or physical representation (mimic) I still must do so in physical terms. The same may be said for conveyance of abstract concepts; this may only be done physically.
Alex Karolis ]]
