SC - ...period quote about beets+ Nominalism

[Laura C. Minnick]

cclark at vicon.net wrote:

> My point was that while period people had far less technical knowledge about
> nutrition, they did have a concept thereof with some practical applications.
> And that it is fallacious to say that a concept didn't exist in period just
> because nobody had defined and quantified it to modern standards.

Yes, yes, yes... *however*, if you wanted to go the strict Nominalist
route (and that _IS_ period, if you'll remember), if you can't quantify
it- you have no concept of it and therefore no language to discuss it
in, it does not exist. A chair can have no 'chairness' unless I know it
to be a chair and can call it such. If I call it a 'frunk' it is a frunk
and not a chair. I have no concept of a chair. Ok- I always struggled
with this stuff too. Poor Father Augustine must have lost several of his
last few hairs trying to explain this to me. "But Father," I'd say, "how
can I gain understanding of something I have no concept of? If I knew
nothing before today of William of Occam, did he really exist?" It is
rather like the joke "If a man says something in the woods and no woman
is there to hear him, is he still wrong?" Actually, the tree falling in
the woods example is an excellent one for understanding Nominalism.

In our modern view, and out 'scientific eye', it may be instinctive to
say that nutrition existed whether the medieval mind knew of it or not.
But if we are attempting at all to understand out subject, we must
realize that for them- if they didn't know it was there- then it wasn't.
It did not exist. And in a world where reality is what you know and what
you believe, you can eat barnacle geese and beaver during Lent but not
maize.

As for me- I never would have thought Duke James Greyhelm to be capable
of attempted regicide (!) until he came after Queen Carmen with
(HORRORS!) a salt cellar! She was saved by a valiant herald who beat
back the menace with nothing but his own body and a belt! (My Hero!) It
is a good thing that I _believe_ in Seumas, or Queen Carmen might only
be a puddle of goo today!

'Lainie
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