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Realism of particulars12/28/2023 ![]() Reacting against this view, scholastic nominalism and its foremost proponent William of Ockham held that abstracts or universals lack an extra-mental reality and that particular or individual objects have "essential" or substantive reality. Thomist-inspired realism in the later Middle Ages claimed that Platonic abstracts or universals exist independently of-and prior to-particular objects. Like her theoretical nominalist uncle Pandarus and her practically minded father Calkas, Criseyde misconstrues signs and words to attain her personal ends. By abstaining from lauding Criseyde's nominalist intentionality, Chaucer endorses a realist position that affirms not only an ontological but also an ethical connection between signs and what they signify. ![]() Preoccupied with the ephemeral particulars of present existence, Criseyde is a nominalist whose misdirected agency bespeaks a self-directed and self-serving intentionality that is oblivious to the ethical correspondence between "words" and "things," or particulars and universals. 6 I contend that Criseyde's agency, rather than her lack of agency, is lamented by Chaucer. Hill have all identified Criseyde as a nominalist but there has been no ethical evaluation of her agency within a Boethian framework that privileges realist metaphysics, despite Eugene Vance's perceptive observation that " ethical questions of semiosis bearing on our motives and intentions in the way we exploit the equivocity of signs" are of special importance in Troilus. Talbot Donaldson, and in the early twentieth century George Lyman Kittredge have all abstained from passing judgment on Criseyde, deeming her to be "baffling" or an "open text who is capable of generating multiple fictions." 4 Neither a "calculating woman" nor an "innocent" victim "seduced by treachery," Criseyde has, to use Charles Muscatine's words, a "consistent ambiguity." 5 Criseyde's ambiguity, however, need not exclude her characterization as a nominalist. 2 Due to her "opacity" she has been read by critics from the 1970s to 90s as a helpless and tragic victim of patriarchal society who warrants empathy or, alternatively, as an independent-minded individual whose calculated self-equivocation, adaptability, and agency are worthy of admiration. Chaucer's "much loved Criseyde," in particular, has been the notorious subject of critical praise and blame. 1 This philosophical problem of universals structures the conflicts of Chaucer's eponymous heroes in Troilus and Criseyde, who oscillate between voluntarism and cosmic determinism. Neorealists are also divided between defensive and offensive realism.That the philosophical tenets of scholastic nominalism underwrite Chaucer's poetry has been firmly established in Chaucer studies, yet whether Chaucer's allegiance on the question of universals lies with realist or nominalist epistemology-or with neither-still remains a point of critical contention. Neoclassic Realism: It believes the international orders results from both, in combination with domestic politics.Neorealism: This attribute it to the dynamics of the anarchic state system.Classical Realism: It believes and follows from human nature that this is the human nature of fear and insecurity which gives rise to the contention among the nations and which led to the World War I and II.Realists are divided into three classes based on their view of the essential causes of interstate conflict. So, this makes the political theorists to make changes in the theory according to give a satisfactory interpretation to the world affairs. The different events which take place at international sphere are interpreted with the help of Realism as a theoretical interpretation.Įvents such as World War I, II were interpreted by realism but the Cold War end and the New World Order dominated by a multiplex system of nations and organizations with state as well as non-state actors is difficult to explain with the help of Realism theory. These three components are the basic ideals of interpretation of theory of Realism in International politics. Statism talks about the existence of state and its identity, survival deals with the power struggle between the states and security of states and self-help deals with the self sufficiency of a state rather dependence on alliance making. Realism is based on three basic components which are: Statism, Survival and Self-Help. At present, Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz and Mearsheimer etc are considered to be the realist thinkers. Realism trace history through the work of Thucydides in ‘The History of Peloponnesian War’ and later in the works of Hobbes, Machiavelli etc. Realism is considered as one of the oldest thought for interpreting the relations between the states and the balance of power at international level.
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