Realism, Nominalism, Resemblance Theory, and Contested Cases
Howard Benjamin Shaeffer
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Humboldt State University
1 Harpst St.
Arcata, CA
95521
hbs1@humboldt.edu
707-826-5755
Abstract: According to Renford Bambrough, Wittgenstein’s family resemblance account of
universals –which is at odds with both realism and nominalism -- solves the problem of
universals. After rehearsing Wittgenstein’s arguments against both nominalism and realism, I
argue that Wittgenstein’s view does not do an adequate job explaining how we resolve the
problem of universals for important, contested cases, such as art, justice, and science. I conclude
that we are, in those cases, driven back to nominalism. 2991 words.
1
Did Wittgenstein solve the problem of universals? According to Renford Bambrough1,
he did. On Bambrough’s interpretation (which I think is basically correct), Wittgenstein’s
resemblance theory of universals holds simply that what all games, for instance, have in
common, are that they are games. Wittgenstein is thereby at odds with both realism and
nominalism. The realist thinks that what all games (for example) have in common is that they
have the essential characteristics of games. The nominalist, on the other hand, says that the only
thing all games have in common is that they are called “games”. Suppose we disagree over
whether tossing a ball against a wall and catching it constitutes a game. The realist’s position
implies that our disagreement could in principle be settled on objective grounds: that there is a
real definition of “game” that exists independently of human agreement and against which our
judgments about what constitutes a game can be judged right or wrong. The nominalist’s
position implies that there is no such real definition, and that our disagreement cannot be settled
on principled grounds. What makes it the case that tossing a ball against a wall and catching is a
game, if it is a game, is simply that we decide to call it one.
Wittgenstein held that the meaning of a person’s speech is its use in human activity. An
analysis of the meaning of “game” will be a matter of describing the various ways in which the
word functions in the different contexts where it has a home, as it were. When we do, we find
that there is nothing that all the things we call “game” have in common:
Consider, for example, the proceedings that we call “games”. I mean board-games, card-games,
ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? Don’t say: “There must
be something common, or they would not be called ‘games’” – but look and see whether there is
anything common to all. For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to
all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but
look! …And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities
Renford Bambrough, “Universals and Family Resemblances”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. LXI
(1960-61), pp. 207-222.
1
2
overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.
(PI 66).
Although there are a number of features that figure in something’s being a game, there is no one
of these features that all games have in common. But the games form a family in that some
combination of these features is always present, though no one combination is always present.
It is obvious that Wittgenstein’s view has more affinities with nominalism than with
realism, insofar as they both have it that it is our saying that x is a game, ultimately, that makes
it the case that x is a game. But as Bambrough points out, the nominalist cannot explain how it is
a person is able to learn applications of terms like ‘chair’ to new cases. Suppose, he says, that
we invent a term (call it “alpha”) that refers to whatever we say it refers to, in accord with the
nominalist’s theory of how general terms work. Then it follows that we will have applied the
term arbitrarily to the things we label as alphas. But if that is so, then it will be impossible for
someone to learn the term such that he or she will know how to apply it in the future; and
furthermore, any such applications will necessarily be wrong, because those future items will not
be things that we have called “alpha”. So the nominalist cannot explain two important aspects of
concept possession, namely, our ability to learn how to apply concepts beyond the particular
examples we are given, and, perhaps more importantly, the capacity to do so correctly.
The
resemblance account, however, can explain both how one learns to apply terms to novel cases
and what makes it correct to do so. When one sees that the novel case sufficiently resembles
paradigm cases of alphas – cases that everyone more or less takes to count as alphas -- then it is
correct to apply the term alpha. Resemblance theory avoids realism without making meaning
arbitrary.
3
The realist assumes we need a rule or criterion that, when applied to any test case, will
determine whether we are or are not dealing with a game. If we lack such a criterion, then we
have no justification for applying the word to new contexts, and in that case, the realist speaks,
we speak gibberish whenever we use the word. But if Wittgenstein is right and the word’s
meaning is in its use, we have no reason to expect that our definition will be able to cover any
logically possible case, and no need for it to do so:
I say “There is a chair”. What if I go up to it, meaning to fetch it, and it suddenly disappears
from sight? “So it wasn’t a chair, but some kind of illusion”. – But in a few moments we see it
again and are able to touch it and so on. …Have you rules ready for such cases – rules saying
whether one may use the word “chair” to include this kind of thing? But do we miss them when
we use the word “chair”; and are we to say that we do not really attach any meaning to this word,
because we are not equipped with rules for every possible application of it? (PI 80)
Furthermore, the need for an explanation of the meaning of the terms only arises in contexts in
which there is a specific misunderstanding, and it is satisfied when the specific misunderstanding
is resolved:
Suppose I give this explanation: “I take ‘Moses’ to mean the man if, there was such a man, who
led the Israelites out of Egypt, whatever he was called then and whatever he may or may not
have done besides.” – But similar doubts to those about Moses are possible about the words of
this explanation… --But then how does an explanation help me to understand, if after all it is not
the final one? In that case the explanation is never completed, so I still don’t understand what he
means, and never shall!” ‘—As though an explanation as it were hung in the air unless supported
by another one. Whereas an explanation may indeed rest on another one that has been given, but
none stands in need of another – unless we require it to prevent misunderstanding. (PI 87)
The realist’s demand for a criterion for every term only leads to an infinitely regressive analysis,
Wittgenstein thinks, and so the explanation will, ultimately, be unsupported. But that has the
absurd consequence that we do not understand one another ever. It is absurd because it is
contradicted by the evidence. We see language “working” every moment of every day, since it is
woven into every aspect of our daily lives, in ways that are central to our success at cooperative
4
activity. There are some contexts where “Stand roughly here” is perfectly exact, depending on
what we are trying to accomplish (say I want to take your picture in front of a landscape). Why
should we say that because I cannot specify what precisely I mean by “here”, I am therefore not
speaking meaningfully, especially if the photo comes out as we wanted?
Notice, however, that Wittgenstein’s examples are examples where it is difficult to
imagine much of importance being at stake in whether or not we agree to the extension of the
term. It is difficult to imagine a conversation in which whether a child tossing a ball against a
wall and catching it (say) constitutes a game, or whether a barstool constitutes a chair, matters.
This is not to say that we cannot imagine such cases. But for the most part, it does not matter,
with regard to these terms, what we say, so long as we understand one another. You may insist,
and I may deny, that the child is playing a game. But if you give me your reasons for saying so
(“it involves using a ball with skill”, maybe), then I can say that while I don’t agree, I can see
your reasons for saying so, and as long as there are no misunderstandings when we are speaking
of games in other contexts, you can call it a game if you wish. Or I may want to count a barstool
as a chair because a person can sit on it, whereas you think it must be the sort of thing a person
can sit in. But, again, it is as we wish, so long as we know what the other means. When nothing
of importance hangs on whether the particular before us is an example of an x, the standard of
reasonableness in calling it an x is correspondingly weak.
But what about cases where something important is at stake? Plato, the arch-realist, was
concerned not with terms like “game”, or “chair”, but with consistently contested terms that had
important political and social implications, terms such as “virtue”, “justice”, “art”, or “science”.
These are cases in which it is wrong to say, as Wittgenstein says of “game”, that our inability to
draw a boundary never troubled us before when we used the term (PI 68). These terms do in fact
5
trouble us; they are often the basis of deep and sometimes even violent disagreement. So, yes, if
the realist’s only motivation for wanting a strict criterion is a theory of meaning in which we do
not speak meaningfully unless our words are supported by definitions, then Wittgenstein’s
response seems persuasive. But that is not the realist’s only, or perhaps even main, motivation
for wanting a strict criterion. The need for the criterion in these cases arises from the need to be
able to settle important disputed cases. (It is still true that we do not need a criterion for every
possible case; but we do, it might be argued, need a criterion to sort through the contested cases
with which we are constantly face). Nor will it help to say, as Wittgenstein does at PI 68, that
we can draw a boundary if we choose, but that this boundary is only useful for particular
purposes, and needn’t be drawn at all. For the person who is concerned about whether capital
punishment for child rapists is just will not want an arbitrary definition of justice, or one that
simply fits the particular case (whatever that may mean). It seems, then, that Wittgenstein has
not shown that the realist has no good reason for wanting a definition. What he needs to show, I
think, is that that need is an empty one because it cannot, as a matter of necessity, be met.
If Wittgenstein is right about meaning-as-use, then he already has an argument against
the possibility of a definition at his disposal. Once we agree that the meaning of a term or phrase
is its use in human practices, we are committed to saying that there can be no a priori limit on
how the term will be used. Human life is organic; language games grow and change, come and
go. There are always new possibilities and the closing off of previous possibilities. Thus we
cannot say, once and for all, what, for instance, is a “game”, because we do not know what will
constitute sufficient resemblance to other games in the future, or how the context in which games
6
are played will change. (For evidence of this, consider the fact that there is at this moment a
serious debate about whether chess constitutes a sport).
2
But what of resemblance itself, though? What justifies us in claiming that two things
resemble one another? How do we know how many properties two things must have in common
in order for them to sufficiently resemble one another? How do we know which are the relevant
points of comparison?
It is obvious that Wittgenstein would reject a realist account of
resemblance. Presumably Wittgenstein will want to say that all cases of resemblance are so in
virtue of their resembling paradigmatic cases of resemblance.
Will we say, in teaching
resemblance, “…this and other similar relationships we call ‘resemblance” (PI 61)? It is obvious
that this method of teaching presupposes that the learner already knows what resemblance is. So
how do we learn resemblance itself? And what makes us correct in saying that two things
sufficiently resemble one another such that they can be categorized the same?
The question presupposes that the child first learns what resemblance is, and then applies
this knowledge to the learning of other concepts. How else could it be?, we are tempted to ask.
And this, in a way, is Wittgenstein’s point as Bambrough interprets him: we do not determine
that all chairs are chairs by resemblance; rather, we learn what resemblance is when we learn
concepts such as “chair”. As our elders point out to us chairs, we learn to judge when we are in
the presence of chairs. The resemblance account of universals is not an account of how we learn
what chairs (for instance) are; it is simply a way of pointing to the fact that we learn what chairs
2
(Wittgenstein does not make this argument. Instead, he returns to the idea that no sign
(of which ostensive definition is an example) is self-interpreting. Sometimes others interpret our
speech in ways we expect them to; other times they do not. This shows that the rule itself always
stands in need of interpretation. But then, won’t the rule for interpreting the rule itself stand in
need of interpretation, and so on without end? Our perceived need for a rule that works in every
conceivable context cannot be satisfied, because the rule itself always needs interpretation. But
we know it is always possible to misinterpret).
7
are by being trained simply to recognize chairs. It is not that we first learn resemblance and then
apply it to other concepts; we learn resemblance when we learn those other concepts. This may
sound absurd, but I do not think that it is. Consider a person learning to drive a car. At some
point, one has to be able to judge when it is safe to cross a highway, or to merge into traffic.
And in learning this, we learn to judge the speed of the other cars, the space between the cars,
etc., so that at some point we can determine when it is safe to proceed. But we do not find
ourselves applying a standard of resemblance between cases.
Rather, we simply use the
judgment that we have honed by practicing at driving. I do not infer that it is safe to cross; I see
that it is safe, just as I do not infer that the children tossing a ball are playing a game, I see that
they are. It is true, perhaps, that this particular case is significantly like other cases when we
crossed traffic safely. But that is not the basis on which we judge that it is now safe.
Still, though, the problem that I mentioned before, namely, the problem of contested
cases, remains. For it is precisely here that our judgment falters. Consider, for instance the case
of art. A person might reasonably claim that Olafur Eliasson’s Your Mobile Expectations: BMW
H2R Project—which essentially consists of a stripped BMW frozen in 2 tons of ice – is not really
art. I say that it is. After all, it is being displayed in the San Francisco MOMA, the person who
created it is a well known artist (though this begs the question), etc. Here it will not do to say
that the question of whether it is art is settled by asking whether it sufficiently resembles other
cases of art because, as we have said, there is no objective criterion for sufficient resemblance,
and whether they sufficiently resemble one another depends, on the view we are considering, as
much on whether they are artworks as vice versa. Only the judgment of those who have
experience in identifying artworks will resolve the issue. And, obviously our judgment differs.
8
So where does this leave us? We have seen that there are good arguments against
possibility of giving a criterion for distinguishing (for instance) art from non-art. And we have
seen that the resemblance account will not help us either. Perhaps we should return to
Wittgenstein’s directive that we “look and see”. When we do look and see how it actually works
with regard to art, we see that all the terms of the language game of art (not to mention others) –
shift and slide and are negotiated every day by art-historians, artists, critics, journalists, and other
members of the artworld, so that the concept of art is always in the process of being decided.
And we see furthermore that this decision is not based on principle grounds – that would be a
return to realism – but rather to contingent facts about the art-institution, for instance, who is in
power and what are their moral and aesthetic commitments, how do they understand the history
of art and its relation to current society, etc. But now, it looks as if the nominalist is right after
all; for it looks as if what determines whether something sufficiently resembles another to be
considered art is, after all, a matter of our deciding that it does. This is not, as in the case of chair
or game, a matter of using our judgment, for, as I have said, here our judgment gives out.
Rather, if we do decide to count Olafson’s work as a work of art, it will not be for reasons that
we can give to justify the choice.
9