|
“Isn’t your work—our work—all about accessing and deploying underlying sequences and patterns? Mapping particulars on to great universals? Isn’t that the art to which, in one way or another, we’ve both devoted our best years?”
— McCarthy, Tom. The Making of Incarnation: A Novel
The hardcover first edition was published by Knopf |
|
"It is said that the students of medieval Paris came to blows in the streets over the question of universals. The stakes are high, for at issue is our whole conception of our ability to describe the world truly or falsely, and the objectivity of any opinions we frame to ourselves. It is arguable that this is always the deepest, most profound problem of philosophy. It structures Plato's (realist) reaction to the sophists (nominalists). What is often called 'postmodernism' is really just nominalism, colourfully presented as the doctrine that there is nothing except texts. It is the variety of nominalism represented in many modern humanities, paralysing appeals to reason and truth."
— Simon Blackburn, Think, |