Page 65 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

illustrated by the ambiguity of the sentence Mary had a little lamb.
Bibliography
Lowe E J 1989 Kinds of Being: A Study of Individuation,
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Pelletier F J (ed.) 1979 Mass Terms: Some Philosophical
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Wiggins D 1980 Sameness and Substance. Basil Blackwell,
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It is an undisputed fact that particulars have proper- ties and stand in relations to other particulars. Those who believe in universals, the realists, analyze this fact by supposing that particulars are related to a distinct category of entity, universals, which are identified with properties and relations. Philosophers have suggested that universals offer solutions to a variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic problems. Historically, the primary problem is to give an account of the objective resem- blances of particulars (the so-called 'problem of uni- versals' or 'problem of the one over the many'). In metaphysical terms, how is it that distinct particulars can be of the same type? In linguistic terms, how is it that distinct particulars can be characterized by the same predicate? Realists explain sameness of type as the sharing of a universal by the particulars. Nom- inalists reject universals and so reject this explanation of sameness of type.
1. Realist Theories
Realist theories differ along two dimensions. First, universals can be either transcendent or immanent (the scholastic distinction between universalia ante res and universalia in rebus). For example, Plato's Forms are often interpreted as transcendent universals. They inhabit a puzzling platonic heaven separate from the particulars that imitate or participate in them. Ari- stotle brought universals down to earth by denying that they can exist separately from and independently of the particulars that are related to them—universals are 'in' particulars. D. M. Armstrong (1989) has tried to cash out the metaphor of immanence. He argues that a 'thin' particular, say Socrates, is related to a universal, say wisdom, by a primitive relation of instantiation. The 'thick' particular, consisting of Soc- rates instantiating all his nonrelational universals, actually contains those universals. Universals are located in space and time but, mysteriously, they are wholly present wherever they are instantiated.
The second dimension of difference between realist
theories concerns the abundance of universals. At the abundant extreme, a universal corresponds to each predicate. At the sparse extreme, universals are only admitted if they are required to characterize the objec- tive resemblances and causal powers of particulars. On the sparse view, the relationship between predi- cates and universals is more complex. As Armstrong says, 'given a predicate, there may be none, one or many universals in virtue of which the predicate applies. Given a universal, there may be none, one or many predicates which apply in virtue of that uni- versal' (Armstrong 1978, vol.2: 9). Armstrong's sparse and immanent theory of universals is motivated by empiricism. Universals exist in our space-time world and, by examining this world, science deter- mines a posteriori what universals there are.
2. What Work Will Universal Do?
In thought and language we pick out particulars and ascribe properties to them and relations between them. A realist theory of universals gives the onto- logical ground for this activity of predication. For example, the predicate 'is wise' applies to Socrates because he instantiates the universal wisdom. The predication relation is explained via the primitive relation of instantiation. One predicate can apply to many different particulars because each particular instantiates the universal that is the ontological cor- relate of the predicate. Socrates and Plato are both wise because each instantiates wisdom. So universals solve the linguistic form of the 'one over many' prob- lem.
But a sparse theory of universals cannot offer this solution because there is no guarantee that our predi- cates pick out the objective resemblances among par- ticulars that science will discover—there might be no universal wisdom. Hence, Armstrong offers his sparse theory as a solution to the metaphysical version of the 'one over many' problem. The objective resemblances between particulars (which may or may not be picked
Universals A. D. Oliver
Universals
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