Is nominalism pretty much the same thing as the map-terrain divide? Can someone try to steelman conservative anti-nominalism such as Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences or this ?
I mean, non-nominalism i.e. Platonic idealism is just trying to reify parts of the map, trying to project human categories into reality, and this is fairly obvious, isn't it? Or I am missing something? Currently nominalism - if I understand it correctly: the idea that categories are man-made - is a fairly obviously true idea, considered true by anyone who ever heard about a map-terrain distinction.
And if I understand nominalism correctly, Buddhism is the most nominalist thing that exists, and yet it does not have these problematic features of Western civ, the features nominalism gets criticized for by conservatives, such as disrespect for tradition, such as egotism, decadence etc.
So how can anyone really argue against nominalism? Can someone try to steelman it for me? I may be missing something here.
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