Mosaic Ark 123 Aristotle and Herding Cats
Mosaic Ark · Rachel Fulton Brown
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Show Notes
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? KC the realist would say “Yes. The forest and the tree and soundwaves exist irrespective of my presence.” A nominalist would say, “The forest only exists as a category of your mind. Only individual trees exist.” Professor Rachel Fulton Brown would say, “The medieval nominalists are the reason we are having a problem defining a nation today.” Listen as the ladies of the Mosaic Ark discuss why trying to get people to agree on categories and the language used to describe them is rather like trying to herd cats, and how the medieval philosophers tried to tackle the problem started by Aristotle. —Streamed February 14, 2025