1 De Waal on Peirce’s account of reality Paniel Osberto Reyes Cárdenas The University of Sheffield June 3, 2010 In his 1998 article: Peirce’s Nominalist-Realist distinction, an Untenable Dualism 1 . De Waal presents two interpretations that there is a reality: the nominalist and the realist. The crucial point at stake, De Waal thinks, is not the problem of universals in itself, albeit the definition of reality. Nevertheless all the issue came up by the question: “are universals real?” But the different results do not depend on the different views of universals, but in the fact of the difference in the conception of “real” (see W2: 489, 1871). In a previous article: The Real Issue Between Nominalism and Realism 2 , he tried to make clear that the nominalist hypothesis, according to Peirce’s criticisms, is not even an authentic hypothesis, just the complex denial of the possibility of explain reality. He thinks that the definition of Reality more ostensive on Peirce’s writings it was has came to be the “Scotistic definition”, since it has been inspired in Duns Scotus. It seems to me that are two main formulations of this Scotistic definition; first let us see the annotated version of 1909 in his MS 641.12 “…figments, dreams, etc., on the one hand, and realities on the other. The former are those which exist [read are] only inasmuch as you or I or some man imagines them [‘imagines’ is too narrow]; the latter are those which have an existence [read being] independent of your mind or mine or that of any number of persons. (W2:467, 1871)” The other important formulation is in his Consequences of Four Incapacities of 1868: “A realist is simply one who knows no more recondite reality than that which is represented in a true representation. Since, therefore, the word “man” is true of something, that which man means is real. The nominalist must admit that man is truly applicable to something; but he believes that there is beneath this a thing in itself, an incognizable reality. (W2: 239)” Summarizing Reality, De Waal wants us to take it as: What is independent of what you or I or anyone in particular thinks of it, or thinks it to be. (p. 183) For the realism of Peirce, is important to notice that if we reject Nominalism we need to hold a realist position. The interesting thing about this, in my opinion, is particularly that since Peirce considers phenomenalism, psychologism, materialism and many other positions as “daughters of nominalism”, then we are supposed to conclude that the negation of those “daughters” conducts us to realism as well. But this is logically problematic, I think, if is not made clear that every sort of nominalism has a shared basis of a belief in a gap between knowledge and the incognizable aspect of the things 1 Transactions of the Charles Sanders Peirce Society. Winter, 1998, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1. Pp 183-202 2 Transactions of The Charles Sanders Peirce Society. Summer, 1996, Vol XXXII, No. 3. Pp 425-442