UNIVERSALS PROBLEM The problem of universals can be stated as a question whether our general concepts, especially these concepts

which describe natural species like "man" or "animal", refer to some entities that are real, though they exist in a different manner than individual things, or are they just useful mental tools, that allow us to talk about many individuals at the same time. Intertwined with this question is the fundamental problem of giving a justification to our general knowledge, which for ancient and medieval thinkers was knowledge par excellence. If general concepts do not have a direct referent in reality, how can we claim that they bring knowledge that is worthwhile? Therefore, in opposition to a traditional and still quite popular description of the problem - as a question whether universal entities exist or not - we can define the problem of universals as a question of how the nature of reality should be conceived if our general concepts are to be justified and properly rooted in reality. Porphyry (234c. 305) in the Isagoge wrote an introduction to the main terms of Aristotle's Categories prompting the medieval debate over the status of universals. And this book contains the following lines:
I shall beg off saying anything about (a) whether genera and species are real or are situated in bare thoughts alone, (b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and (c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them.

EXTREME REALISM This is precisely the position which I call exaggerated realism - it postulates the existence of universal entities as a consequence of the application of the principle of correspondence. This definition shows that it is not the specific nature of universal entities (such as their transcendence, as opposed to immanence) that is crucial for judging a given form of realism as exaggerated but the sole existence of universal objects, whether transcendent or immanent. Exaggerated realism is, therefore, defined as a position saying that universals exist and that they are universal entities. Platos position is that in order to explain the qualitative identity of distinct individuals, we must accept that there is another entity besides the resembling individuals, an entity weve called a universal, and which Plato would call a Form. If two apples, for example, are both red, this is because there is a Form of Red that is able to manifest itself in both those apples at once. Really there are three different components in this picture. There is the individual, a particular apple; there is the red of that apple which exists right in or with that apple; and finally, there is the Form of Red, which manifests itself in the red of this apple (and of course, the red of other apples). On Platos view, Forms are immaterial. They are also outside of space and time altogether. They are wholly abstract, we might say. Of course, for the Form of Red to make an individual apple red, the Form must somehow be related to the apple. Plato postulates a relation of participation to meet this need, and speaks of things participating in Forms, and getting their qualities by virtue of this relation of participation. One last point about the nature of Forms proves crucial. For the Form of

Red to explain or ground the redness of an apple, the Form of Red must itself be red, or so it seems. How could a Form make an apple red, if the Form were not itself red? The extreme realists or Platonists, . . . hold that abstractions exist as real entities or archetypes in another dimension of reality and that the concretes we perceive are merely their imperfect reflections, but the concretes evoke the abstractions in our mind. (According to Plato, they do so by evoking the memory of the archetypes which we had known, before birth, in that other dimension.) Universals do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects exist, even though Plato metaphorically referred to such object to explain his concepts. More modern versions of the theory avoid applying potentially misleading descriptions to universals. Instead, such versions maintain that it is meaningless (or a category mistake) to apply the categories of space and time to universals. Regardless of their description, Platonic realism holds that universals do exist in a broad, abstract sense, although not at any spatial or temporal distance from people's bodies. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms. Briefly, extreme realists argued along the following lines. One knows such facts as the following two: 1) Socrates is human 2) Plato is human. 3) In (1) and (2) 'human" has the same meaning. 4) Since (3) is true, 'human" stands for one and the same thing in both (1) and (2). 5) Since (4) is true, what human" stands for is not a mental figment but something that actually exists, a substance. 6) What "human" stands for is not any individual thing but a species (essence or nature) : rational animal. 7) If a species is a single substance then particular members are its accidents or modifications. Thus particular men differ only in their variable surface accidents. The species is a unitary substance of which they participate. Similarly for genera. Animal is the substance of which Man participates Plato was an extreme realist. But platonic realism was different from typical early medieval realism in that Plato took universals to exist separately from the particulars what exemplify them. The early medievals said that universals exist only in particulars as their essences or natures. One problem with extreme realism for orthodox christians is that it leads to Pantheism. It implies that everything is a manifestation of one all-inclusive Genus: Being. If one identifies Being with God, since it is the source of all things, then the world is a manifestation of God. One must then reject the Biblical idea that God radically transcends His creatures. However, many christian theologians and Philosophers have also argued that extreme realism is compatible with and even required by Christian doctrine. The doctrine of original sin, for example, seems to require that Adam's sin was inherited by his descendants. Extreme realism providees an answer: Adam's very nature was corrupted and the same nature exists in all of his descendants. Another doctrine apparently requiring extreme realism was the doctrine of the Trinity. God is one being in three persons. God's unity is due to each of the three persons having divine Personhood in common. The Nicene creed says "The Son is of one substance with the Father" .

STRANGENESS OBJECTION This is the intuition some philosophers have that universals are just too oddly natured to be accepted into our world view. These philosophers typically countenance only what is material, spatiotemporal, and nonrepeatable; and universals just dont fit the bill. The terms "instantiation" and "copy" are not further defined and that participation and inherence are similarly mysterious and unenlightening. They question what it means to say that the form of applehood inheres a particular apple or that the apple is a copy of the form of applehood. To the critic, it seems that the forms, not being spatial, cannot have a shape, so it cannot be that the apple is the same shape as the form. Likewise, the critic claims it is unclear what it means to say that an apple participates in applehood. Philosophers who believe in only individuals are known as Nominalists. Well return to them later. We should note, however, that there are other versions of Realism in addition to the two weve discussed. Medieval philosophers spent much time exploring these issues, and formulated many versions of Realism. This introduction to the Problem of Universals will not explore these other variants, though they too are vulnerable to the objection that closes this section.

REPLY Arguments refuting the inherence criticism, however, claim that a form of something spatial can lack a concrete (spatial) location and yet have in abstracto spatial qualities. An apple, then, can have the same shape as its form. Such arguments typically claim that the relationship between a particular and its form is very intelligible and easily grasped; that people unproblematically apply Platonic theory in everyday life; and that the inherence criticism is only created by the artificial demand to explain the normal understanding of inherence as if it were highly problematic. That is, the supporting argument claims that the criticism is with the mere illusion of a problem and thus could render suspect any philosophical concept. OBJECTION A criticism of forms relates to the origin of concepts without the benefit of senseperception. For example, to think of redness in general, according to Plato, is to think of the form of redness. Critics, however, question how one can have the concept of a form existing in a special realm of the universe, apart from space and time, since such a concept cannot come from sense-perception. Although one can see an apple and its redness, the critic argues, those things merely participate in, or are copies of, the forms. Thus, they claim, to conceive of a particular apple and its redness is not to conceive of applehood or redness-in-general, so they question the source of the concept. REPLY

Plato's doctrine of recollection, however, addresses such criticism by saying that souls are born with the concepts of the forms, and just have to be reminded of those concepts from back before birth, when the souls were in close contact with the forms in the Platonic heaven. Plato is thus known as one of the very first rationalists, believing as he did that humans are born with a fund of a priori knowledge, to which they have access through a process of reason or intellection a process that critics find to be rather mysterious. A more modern response to this criticism of concepts without sense-perception is the claim that the universality of its qualities is an unavoidable given because one only experiences an object by means of general concepts. So, since the critic already grasps the relation between the abstract and the concrete, he is invited to stop thinking that it implies a contradiction. The response reconciles Platonism with empiricism by contending that an abstract (i.e., not concrete) object is real and knowable by its instantiation. Since the critic has, after all, naturally understood the abstract, the response suggests merely to abandon prejudice and accept it OBJECTION: THIRD MAN ARGUMENT. Plato himself is it's original author. He gives a version of it in the the Parmenides. Plato's version in the Parmenides focuses on the form of the Large. So we could talk about the "Third Large Argument," but since scholars today usually speak of the "Third Man Argument" I'll use the form of man. Take two humans, e.g. Plato and Crito. They are different from each other in many ways. They differ in size, hair length, complexion, and their faces are quite distinctive. However, in one respect, they do share something important in common: they are both humans. Among their many properties, Plato and Crito are unified in that each one of them has the property of being human. We can speak of Plato's humanity and Crito's humanity. Plato's humanity is in Plato, and Crito's humanity is in Crito. This is the "genus that is in several things, and is therefore multiple." Plato's humanity and Crito's humanity are sometimes called "unit properties" or "immanent characters" by modern philosophers.
IC:

The properties of things are particulars ("immanent characters").

But this likeness is not one [in number], because it is in several things. Plato's humanity and Crito's humanity are not numerically one thing. They are not numerically identical, they are just qualitatively identical. Stop here and think about this. Perhaps the significance of this would be clearer if I didn't use Plato and Crito, but instead Plato and Evita. One was an ancient Greek male, the other was a modern Argentinian woman. But despite their very serious differences, they have identical properties: they were both human. That can't be an accident. The life Plato lived, and the life Evita lived, were extremely different, but they had remarkable similarities, e.g. they had to eat similar kinds of food, they had to maintain roughly the same body temperature, they had to avoid certain kinds of bodily injuries, and a thousand other similar things. Evita's humanity and Plato's humanity are qualitatively identical, even though Evita's humanity existed at a time when Plato's humanity had been dead and gone for over 2000 years. That can't be an accident, how do you explain it? For that reason, another genus of that genus is also to be searched for.

The realist in this argument explains the remarkable identity in the lives of Evita and Plato by looking for a "genus of that genus," or in other words, by looking for some one thing which is the cause of the similitude. To take a silly example, imagine coming across a pocket watch just lying on the ground. You pick it up and marvel at its craftsmanship. As you walk along, you soon find another pocket watch which looks and functions just exactly like the first one. That can't be a coincidence. They are so exactly similar that there has to be a cause for their similarity. In this case the similarity comes from the person who made them (or the machine that made them). They were made according to exactly the same design by exactly the same watchmaker, or exactly the same machine. That kind of similarity is no accident, this identity which is not numerical, must ultimately be explained by an identity which is similar: there was one single design which was implemented in both that watch and in this watch. Exactly the same thing is being said of Plato and Evita. What makes them both humans? There must be a single form of Humanity which is shared by both of them. If they were just different from each other, we wouldn't call them both "human." It's no accident that Plato's humanity and Evita's humanity are identical; this unity in diversity must be traced back to some true unity. Because we can lump the many individual humans into one group, there must be a form which unites them. This is the "One Over Many" (OM) assumption.
OM:

over a group of many F things, there is one form of F in virtue of which they are F.

Plato's humanity and Evita's humanity are so similar because they got their humanity from one and the same thing: one and the same Form of Humanity. Whenever you have a single group of things which all share some common feature, quality or property, there must be a form of that feature, quality or property. OM is extremely important, but it is not enough to generate the "Third Man." The next step is in the next sentence. And when that has been found, then for the same reason as was said above, once more a third genus is tracked down. Where is this "third genus" coming from? He says it comes "for the same reason" as we just saw, so presumably he is referring to OM. To understand this, go back to a question I asked when I first introduced the problem of universals. I put 10 things on the table, and they all have some character in common: penny-ness. So there must be some one form in virtue of which they are all pennies: the Form of the Penny. Now how many entities do I have on the table? Do I have 10 tokens plus the type, making 11 entities all together? The realist appears to be committed to just this. But now what about the form of the Penny, what is it like? Could it look like a nickel? That's absurd. If it looked like a nickel, then how could it be that in virtue of which pennies are pennies? If it really is that in virtue of which pennies are pennies, then it would have to look like a penny, wouldn't it? In fact, wouldn't it have to be a penny itself? This is called "Self-Predication" (SP).
SP: the form of F is itself F.

The form of white-ness is itself white; the form of beauty is itself beautiful, in fact, it is the most perfectly beautiful thing there could possibly be.

This is a crucial step in the argument. Let's go back to the argument that led us to the Form of Humanity in the first place. We were led to this form because of OM: we had two individuals who both had the same character: humanity. We said that this couldn't be a coincidence, there must be some one form in virtue of which their humanity was identical. But now because of SP, the form of humanity is itself human. Just like Plato, Crito and Evita, the form of Humanity has the character of humanity. So now we have a new "many" over which there must be a new "one." This changes our diagram. But now that we have a this next form of humanity, SP is going to kick in to make this next for human also. So now we have yet another group of "many" humans requiring yet a further "one" over them, and we reach Humanity-4. Now you see why Boethius ends this argument by saying "the argument necessarily goes on to infinity, since this procedure has no end." Now we can put the whole argument together.
1. There are many men. 2. There are many immanent characters of the type "man." [IC] 3. There is a form of Man. [OM] 4. The form of Man has the immanent character of the type "man." [SP] 5. The form of Man plus the original many men forms a group of men. 6. There are many immanent characters of the type "man." [IC] 7. There is a form of Man over the many men plus the form of Man. [OM] 8. [Repeat steps 4-7 ad infinitum.] 9. There are an infinite number of forms of man.

So So So So So So

Recall the essentials of that position, in particular, what is said about the nature of the Forms. For any given quality had by an individual there is a Form of that quality, one that exists separately from individuals, and also from the quality found in each particular individual. There is the apple, the red of this apple (and the red of that apple), and the Form of Red. By participating in the Form of Red, the apple gets its particular bit of redness. And finally, as we saw, the Form Red must itself be red. Otherwise it couldnt provide for the redness of the apple. Suppose we now ask, What explains the red of the Form of Red, which itself, as we said, is red? Coming to believe in the existence of Forms begins with the urge to explain the redness of apples and other material individuals, but once this step is taken, the Extreme Realist is forced to explain the redness of the Form of Red itself. To explain the redness of the Form of Red, in Extreme Realist fashion, we will have to say that the Form of Red participates in a Form. After all, a fundamental tenet of Extreme Realism is that possession of a quality always results from participation in a Form. Presumably, a Form cannot participate in itself. Therefore, if the redness of the Form of Red is to be explained, well need to say that the Form of Red participates in a higher order Form, Red 2 . Moreover, participation in Red2 will explain the redness of Red1 only if the higher order Form, Red2, is itself red. Of course, now we will have to explain the redness of the Form of Red2, and that will require us to introduce yet another Form, in this case, the Form of Red3, which the Form of Red2 participates in to get its redness. It is clear that this will go on indefinitely. So it seems that we will never have an explanation of why or how the Form of Red is actually red. That means well never be able to explain why our original apple is red. That was what we wanted initially, and so it seems that Platos theory is unable to provide an answer. This has led many to reject

Platos theory. (There is, not surprisingly, a large body of secondary literature which explores whether Platos theory can survive this objection and what Plato himself thought about it, since, as weve seen, it was Plato himself who first raised the objection.) MODERATE REALISM Although the first position is credited to Plato, this next one is widely thought to be inspired by Aristotle. The key in this position is its rejection of independently existing Forms. As we noted before., Extreme Realists posit an explanatory triad involving an individual, the quality of this individual, and the Form that grounds the quality of this individual (and that one, and others). Moderate Realists, in contrast, resist this triad. When an individual has a quality, there is simply the individual and its quality. No third, independent thing is needed to ground possession of the quality. A universal, on this view, just is the quality that is in this individual and any other qualitatively identical individuals. The universal red, for example, is in this apple, that apple, and all apples that are similarly red. It is not distinct and independent from the individuals that have this color. Because it is a universal it can exist in many places at once. According to Moderate Realism, the universal red in my apple is numerically identical to the red in yours; one universal is in two individuals at once. It is wholly present in each place where it exists. As well see, Moderate Realism is immune to the Third Man Argument. It also reduces the strangeness of Realism. We need not have Forms that are abstract, in the sense of being outside of space and time, mysteriously grounding the qualities of material individuals. The Moderate Realists universals are in space and time, and are able to be in many places at once. Multiple exemplification may be considered strange, but it not as strange as existence outside space and time.

ARISTOTLE THEORY Aristotle's theory of universals' is one of the classic solutions to the problem of universals. Universals are simply types, properties, or relations that are common to their various instances. In Aristotle's view, universals exist only where they are instantiated; they exist only in things (he said they exist in re, which means simply "in things"), never apart from things. Beyond this Aristotle said that a universal is something identical in each of its instances. So all red things are similar in that there is the same universal, redness, in each thing. There is no Platonic form of redness, standing apart from all red things; instead, in each red thing there is the same universal, redness. First of all, on Aristotle's view, universals can be instantiated multiple times. Aristotle stresses, after all, the one and the same universal, applehood (say), that appears in each apple. OBJECTION Common sense might detect a problem here. (The problem can arise for other forms of realism about universals, however.) Namely, how can we make sense of exactly the same thing being in all of these different objects? That after all is what the theory says; to say

that different deserts, the Sahara, the Atacama, and the Gobi are all dry places, is just to say that exactly the same being, the universal dryness, occurs at each place. REPLY It seems troubling if we expect universals to be like physical objects, but remember, we are talking about a totally different category of being. So a common defense of realism (and hence of Aristotle's realism) is that we should not expect universals to behave as ordinary physical objects do. Maybe then it is not so strange, then, to say that exactly the same universal, dryness, occurs all over the earth at once; after all, there is nothing strange about saying that different deserts can be dry at the same time. Are Aristotelian universals abstract? And are they, then, what we conceive of when we conceive of abstract objects such as redness? Perhaps. It will help to explain something about how we form concepts, according to Aristotle. We might think of a little girl just forming the concept of human beings. How does she do it? When we form the concept of a universal on Aristotle's theory, we abstract from a lot of the instances we come across. We as it were mentally extract from each thing the quality that they all have in common. So how does the little girl get the concept of a human being? She learns to ignore the details, tall and short, black and white, long hair and short hair, male and female, etc.; and she pays attention to the thing that they all have in common, namely, humanity. On Aristotle's view, the universal humanity is the same in all humans (i.e., all humans have that exact same type in common); and this allows us to form a concept of humanity that applies to all humans. Are Aristotelian universals the sorts of things we refer to when we use general terms, like 'redness' and 'humanity'? Again, perhaps. The idea is that when we refer to humanity, we refer to the type, human being, that appears identically in each human. We do not refer simply to all the humans, but instead the type, human being, which is the same in each human. The dilemma of substance consists in two premisses: 1. the nature or substance must be what constitutes an individual 2. the nature is something universal (and shared by others). For example the nature of Socrates is, as commonly agreed, that he is a man. And yet his nature is supposed to constitute genuinely him and not what he shares with other men. Aristotle deals with this in the Categories. Here the dilemma occurs between what he calls first and second substances. First Substances are the individuals, the substrate, while second substances are the eidos, viz. the most specific species (the species specialissima). The problem is that a second substance is not sufficient to constitute the individual because it also applies to other substances of the same type. On the other hand first substance which is sufficient to constitute the individual, is not designate without any material characteristics. It is virtually a bare substrate. In the Metaphysics Aristotle has refined his theory in many respects, but the dilemma of substance remains. James Lesher has very well described it and reduces it to three statements, that we find all literally in Aristotle:

1. The substance of an individual thing lies in its form. 2. Form is universal. 3. No universal is a substance This dilemma, in either of the two forms, is part of the Aristotelian heritage of the Middle Ages. And indeed the premiss that an individual is fully constituted by a universal is the reason for the false analogies that I have described. The idea of a full constitution makes universals congruent with a particular individual (abstract from its accidents) and make the universal an entity in individuals. The universal seems to be out there as the individual is out there, because it constitutes it. And here the peculiar but simple relationship of instantiation/being in common becomes distorted by quasi-individual ideas: universals become substrates, or start to be discussed in mereological way, that does not adequately express instantiation. Subsequently it seems difficult to explain how the quasi-individual achieves the function an instantiating universal has and as a reaction to the distortion new entities and relationships must be invented, which gives rise to third and fourth men and a whole caleidoscope of distinctions, like the infamous formal distinction by which individuals differ from their natura communis. His attempt is arguably one of the best to ease the dilemmatic premisses of Aristotelian Metaphysics. But it is nevertheless a path that could have been avoided, if we would demand less from universals. BOETHIUS ARGUMENT A universal has to be common to several particulars 1. in its entirety, and not only in part 2. simultaneously, and not in a temporal succession, and 3. it should constitute the substance of its particulars. First, we notice qualitative similarity among numerical diversity, and second, we abstract the qualitative similarity out of the qualitative and numerical diversity, and that is how we isolate universals. The universals cannot exist separately from the things that have them, but we can understand them separately from the things that have them. In other words, the universals are not transcendent, they don't subsist, they are immanent. If all lips vanish from the face of the earth, then all grins vanish from the face of the earth. Boethius is here accepting that universals really exist; he is just denying that they subsist. In other words, humanity really does exist, and it really does unite us. We all participate in the form of humanity in the sense that we are all human beings, and the fact that we are all humans is a real fact about us. This is not an arbitrary grouping, it is not a subjective way of organizing information; we really are truly and objectively human beings. Just as surely as the Pythagorean Theorem applies to all triangles, whether they be obtuse, right or acute, and regardless of their size, so also the basic principles of human medicine apply to absolutely every human being regardless of race, color, creed, sex, or anything else. Humanity is a repeated, real feature of the world. According to Boethius, we can notice similarity before knowing the form in virtue of which similar things are similar. Little children can spot that the triangles are all similar, and the pentagon is dissimilar, even before knowing the definition of a triangle. Similarity

is similarity in some respect, and the realist's quest is to discover the respect of similarity, i.e. the universal which is shared by the many particulars, and which makes them all similar, i.e. of the same species.However, as Boethius argues, nothing in real existence can satisfy these conditions. The main points of his argument can be reconstructed as follows. Anything that is common to many things in the required manner has to be simultaneously, and as a whole, in the substance of these many things. But these many things are several beings precisely because they are distinct from one another in their being, that is to say, the act of being of the one is distinct from the act of being of the other. However, if the universal constitutes the substance of a particular, then it has to have the same act of being as the particular, because constituting the substance of something means precisely this, namely, sharing the act of being of the thing in question, as the thing's substantial part. But the universal is supposed to constitute the substance of all of its distinct particulars, as a whole, at the same time. Therefore, the one act of being of the universal entity would have to be identical with all the distinct acts of being of its several particulars at the same time, which is impossible.This argument, therefore, establishes that no one thing can be a universal in its being, that is to say, nothing can be both one being and common to many beings in such a manner that it shares its act of being with those many beings, constituting their substance. But then, Boethius goes on, we should perhaps say that the universal is not one being, but rather many beings, that is, [the collection of] those constituents of the individual essences of its particulars on account of which they all fall under the same universal predicable. For example, on this conception, the genus animal would not be some one entity, a universal animality over and above the individual animals, yet somehow sharing its being with them all (since, as we have just seen, that is impossible), but rather [the collection of] the individual animalities of all animals. Boethius rejects this suggestion on the ground that whenever there are several generically similar entities, they have to have a genus; therefore, just as the individual animals had to have a genus, so too, their individual animalities would have to have another one. However, since the genus of animalities cannot be one entity, some super-animality (for the same reason that the genus of animals could not be one entity, on the basis of the previous argument), it seems that the genus of animalities would have to be a number of further super-animalities. But then again, the same line of reasoning should apply to these super-animalities, giving rise to a number of super-super-animalities, and so on to infinity, which is absurd. Therefore, we cannot regard the genus as some real being even in the form of [a collection of] several distinct entities. Since similar reasonings would apply to the other Porphyrian predicables as well, no universal can exist in this way. Now, a universal either exists in reality independently of a mind conceiving of it, or it only exists in the mind. If it exists in reality, then it either has to be one being or several beings. But since it cannot exist in reality in either of these two ways, Boethius concludes that it can only exist in the mind. However, to complicate matters, it appears that a universal cannot exist in the mind either. For, as Boethius says, the universal existing in the mind is some universal understanding of some thing outside the mind. But then this universal understanding is either disposed in

the same way as the thing is, or differently. If it is disposed in the same way, then the thing also has to be universal, and then we end up with the previous problem of a really existing universal. On the other hand, if it is disposed differently, then it is false, for what is understood otherwise than the thing is is false. But then, all universals in the understanding would have to be false representations of their objects; therefore, no universal knowledge would be possible, whereas our considerations started out precisely from the existence of such knowledge, as seems to be clear, e.g., in the case of geometrical knowledge.

BOETHIUS ARGUMENT Historians of philosophy describe the theory of universals Boethius presents here as "moderate realism". Plato's theory they call "realism", meaning not that the sensible world is real (which is what "realism" means in modern philosophy), but that the ideas or forms are real, each of them being numerically one real entity existing in separation from the many sensible things that participate in it. Most medieval philosophers were moderate realists, some were realists or Platonists. A universal is said to be one, and yet is in many things which is contradictory. Universals cannot exist because everything that exists is one and a universal is in many things. It cannot be one and many at the same time The "moderate realist" view does not dispute that the forms or natures of things are real, but rejects the doctrine that each form is one and exists separately from the things which have it. Rather, each form exists multiplied in sensible things, but it can be "abstracted" or "drawn out" of sensation by the mind as a single concept predicable of many, a universal. The one form (not numerically one, but in some other way the same form) exists in many things and also as a concept in the mind: but it does not exist separately from things and minds. Boethius view is a conceptualist variant of moderate realism. Universals exist, in a sense in both, in things and in minds though in different ways. The mind possesses universal representations of particular things, isolating in thought what cannot exist in isolation, yet such as to cognize true properties of particular things. Insofar as some such property is regarded universally, it only exist in as a representation in the mind, as an abstraction the active intellect. But insofar as some such property is true of individual things, it exists in those particular instances. Some insist that Plato was of this opinion too, namely that he called those common ideas which he places in nous, genera and species. Boethius records that he dissented from Aristotle when he says that Plato wanted genera and species and the others not only to be understood universals, but also to be and to subsist without bodies, as if to say that he understood as universals those common conceptions which he set up separated from bodies in nous, not perhaps taking the universal as the common predication, as Aristotle does, but rather as common likeness of many things. For that latter conception seems in no wise to be predicated of many as a noun is which is adapted singly to many.

That he says Plato thinks universals subsist without sensibles, can be resolved in another manner so that there is no disagreement in the opinions of the philosophers. For what Aristotle says to the effect that universals always subsist in sensibles, he said only in regard to actuality, because obviously the nature which is animal which is designated by universal name and which according to this is called universal by a certain transference, is never found in actuality except in a sensible thing, but Plato thinks that it so subsists in itself naturally that it would retain its being when not subjected to sense, and according to this the natural being is called by the universal name. That, consequently, which Aristotle denies with respect to actuality, Plato, the investigator of physics, assigns to natural aptitude, and thus there is no disagreement between them Boethius' solution to the problem of universals is considered to be an aristotelian one rather a conceptualist than realist one. Boethius' answer is Two-fold, however: incorporeal things, he claims, can be directly be understood by the human mind as what they are. As for corporeal things however, Universals are an incorporeal part of them separated from them by the human mind. The ontological status of universals is analogous to that of a line, Boethius explains: A line only subsists in some body and no line can exist separated from body. Yet when the mind cognizes the image of a complex perception, and since the mind possesses a capacity to divide and isolate the elements of complex perceptions (as well as synthesizing them), it can perceive within itself the image of- and form concepts of such elements individually. Among the elements perceived in complex perceptions are lines, and hence the mind may perceive within itself the image of- and form the concept of a line. In that case, the mind cognizes an incorporeal item of such a nature as to never be able to exist without a body, yet the mind would, according to this argument, cognize that item with respect to its true properties in fact, the argument claims that the only way to cognize the true properties of lines (or any universal) is to cognize them in abstraction from any other thing. So though the mind cognizes in isolation something which can never exist in isolation, it nevertheless cognizes that something with respect to its true properties. This is how the mind cognizes genera, species, differentiae, and all other universals, according to this argument. AUGUSTINE ARGUMENT: DOCTRINE OF DIVINE ILLUMINATION St. Augustines mature philosophical ideas are primarily stemming from the Neo-Platonic tradition Platos original theory is demonstrably inconsistent, as Plato himself realized in his Parmenides As a result, in the Neo-Platonic tradition, Platos universal exemplars for each distinct perfection became concentrated in the absolutely simple perfection of the One, whose perfection unfolds in a hierarchy of emanations of ever decreasing perfection, through the World Soul, to human souls, and to the forms of material beings imposing some partial order on chaotic formless matter. It is this idea of an ontological hierarchy that is the most appealing to Augustines Christian thought, identifying Plotinus One with the Supreme Being and Goodness, the Christian God, whose eternal ideas will take on the function of Platos Forms, as the universal archetypes of Gods creation.

Placing universal ideas in the divine mind as the archetypes of creation, this conception can still do justice to the Platonic intuition that what accounts for the necessary, universal features of the ephemeral particulars of the visible world is the presence of some universal exemplars in the source of their being. It is precisely in virtue of having some insight into these exemplars themselves that we can have the basis of universal knowledge Plato was looking for. Augustine's conception, then, saves Plato's original intuitions, yet without their inconsistencies, while it also combines his philosophical insights with Christianity. The Augustinian Argument for Illumination. 1. I can come to know from experience only something that can be found in experience [self-evident] 2. Absolute unity cannot be found in experience [assumed] 3. Therefore, I cannot come to know absolute unity from experience. [1,2] 4. Whatever I know, but I cannot come to know from experience, I came to know from a source that is not in this world of experiences. [selfevident] 5. I know absolute unity. [assumed] 6. Therefore, I came to know absolute unity from a source that is not in this world of experiences. Proof of 2. Whatever can be found in experience is some material being, extended in space, and so it has to have a multitude of spatially distinct parts. Therefore, it is many in respect of those parts. But what is many in some respect is not one in that respect, and what is not one in some respect is not absolutely one. Therefore, nothing can be found in experience that is absolutely one, that is, nothing in experience is an absolute unity. Proof of 5. I know that whatever is given in experience has many parts (even if I may not be able to discern those parts by my senses), and so I know that it is not an absolute unity. But I can have this knowledge only if I know absolute unity, namely, something that is not many in any respect, not even in respect of its parts, for, in general, I can know that something is F in a certain respect, and not an F in some other respect, only if I know what it is for something to be an F without any qualification. (For example, I know that the two halves of a body, taken together, are not absolutely two, for taken one by one, they are not absolutely one, since they are also divisible into two halves, etc. But I can know this only because I know that for obtaining absolutely two things [and not just two multitudes of further things], I would have to have two things that in themselves are absolutely one.) Therefore, I know absolute unity. It is important to notice here that this argument (crucially) assumes that the intellect is passive in acquiring its concepts. According to this assumption, the intellect merely receives the cognition of its objects as it finds them. By contrast, on the Aristotelian conception, the human mind actively processes the information it receives from experience through the senses. OBJECTIONS

As we could see, Augustine makes recognition of truth dependent on divine illumination, a sort of irradiation of the intelligible light of divine ideas, which is accessible only to the few who are holy and pure. But this seems to go against at least 1. the experience that there are knowledgeable non-believers or pagans 2. the Aristotelian insight that we can have infallible comprehension of the first principles of scientific demonstrations for which we only need the intellectual concepts that we can acquire naturally, from experience by abstraction, and 3. the philosophical-theological consideration that if human reason, man's natural faculty for acquiring truth were not sufficient for performing its natural function, then human nature would be naturally defective in its noblest part, precisely in which it was created after the image of God. In fact, these are only some of the problems explicitly raised and considered by medieval Augustinians, which prompted their ever more refined accounts of the role of illumination in human cognition. First of all, it generates a particular ontological/theological problem concerning the relationship between God and His Ideas. For according to the traditional philosophical conception of divine perfection, God's perfection demands that He is absolutely simple, without any composition of any sort of parts. So, God and the divine mind are not related to one another as a man and his mind, namely as a substance to one of its several powers, but whatever powers God has He is. Furthermore, the Divine Ideas themselves cannot be regarded as being somehow the eternal products of the divine mind distinct from the divine mind, and thus from God Himself, for the only eternal being is God, and everything else is His creature. Now, since the Ideas are not creatures, but the archetypes of creatures in God's mind, they cannot be distinct from God. However, as is clear from the passage above, there are several Ideas, and there is only one God. So how can these several Ideas possibly be one and the same God? AQUINAS REPLY Augustine never explicitly raised the problem, but for example Aquinas, who (among others) did, provided the following rather intuitive solution for it.The Divine Ideas are in the Divine Mind as its objects, i.e., as the things understood. But the diversity of the objects of an act of understanding need not diversify the act itself (as when nderstanding the Pythagorean theorem we understand both squares and triangles). Therefore, it is possible for the self-thinking divine essence to understand itself in a single act of understanding so perfectly that this act of understanding not only understands the divine essence as it is in itself, but also in respect of all possible ways in which it can be imperfectly participated by any finite creature. The cognition of the diversity of these diverse ways of participation accounts for the plurality of divine ideas. But since all these diverse ways are understood in a single eternal act of understanding, which is nothing but the act of divine being, and which in turn is again the divine essence itself, the

multiplicity of ideas does not entail any corresponding multiplicity of the divine essence. To be sure, this solution may still give rise to the further questions as to what these diverse ways are, exactly how they are related to the divine essence, and how their diversity is compatible with the unity and simplicity of the ultimate object of divine thought, namely, divine essence itself. In fact, these are questions that were raised and discussed in detail by authors such as Henry of Ghent (c. 1217-1293), Thomas of Sutton (ca. 1250-1315), Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) and others In his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima Aquinas insightfully remarks: The reason why Aristotle came to postulate an active intellect was his rejection of Plato's theory that the essences of sensible things existed apart from matter, in a state of actual intelligibility. For Plato there was clearly no need to posit an active intellect. But Aristotle, who regarded the essences of sensible things as existing in matter with only a potential intelligibility, had to invoke some abstractive principle in the mind itself to render these essences actually intelligible. On the basis of these and similar considerations, therefore, one may construct a rather plausible Aristotelian counterargument, which is designed to show that we need not necessarily gain our concept of absolute unity from a supernatural source, for it is possible for us to obtain it from experience by means of the active intellect. Of course, similar considerations should apply to other concepts as well. An Aristotelian-Thomistic counterargument from abstraction. 1. I know from experience everything whose concept my active intellect is able to abstract from experience. [self-evident] 2. But my active intellect is able to abstract from experience the concept of unity, since we all experience each singular thing as being one, distinct from another. [self-evident, common experience] 3. Therefore, I know unity from experience by abstraction. [1,2] 4. Whenever I know something from experience by abstraction, I know both the thing whose concept is abstracted and its limiting conditions from which its concept is abstracted. [self-evident] 5. Therefore, I know both unity and its limiting conditions from which its concept is abstracted. [3,4] 6. But whenever I know something and its limiting conditions, and I can conceive of it without its limiting conditions (and this is precisely what happens in abstraction), I can conceive of its absolute, unlimited realization. [self-evident] 7. Therefore, I can conceive of the absolute, unlimited realization of unity, based on the concept of unity I acquired from experience by abstraction. [5,6] 8. Therefore, it is not necessary for me to have a preliminary knowledge of absolute unity before all experience, from a source other than this world of experiences. [7] To be sure, we should notice here that this argument does not falsify the doctrine of illumination. Provided it works, it only invalidates the Augustinian-Platonic argument for illumination. Furthermore, this is obviously not a sweeping, knock-down refutation of the

idea that at least some of our concepts perhaps could not so simply be derived from experience by abstraction; in fact, in the particular case of unity, and in general, in connection with our transcendental notions (i.e., notions that apply in each Aristotelian category, so they transcend the limits of each one of them, such as the notions of being, unity, goodness, truth, etc.), even the otherwise consistently Aristotelian Aquinas would have a more complicated story to tell. Nevertheless, although Aquinas would still leave some room for illumination in his epistemology, he would provide for illumination an entirely naturalistic interpretation, as far as the acquisition of our intellectual concepts of material things is concerned, by simply identifying it with the intellectual light in us, that is, the active intellect, which enables us to acquire these concepts from experience by abstraction. Duns Scotus, who opposed Aquinas on so many other points, takes basically the same stance on this issue. Other medieval theologians, especially such prominent Augustinians as Bonaventure, Matthew of Aquasparta, or Henry of Ghent, would provide greater room for illumination in the form of a direct, specific, supernatural influence needed for human intellectual cognition in this life besides the general divine cooperation needed for the workings of our natural powers, in particular, the abstractive function of the active intellect. But they would not regard illumination as supplanting, but rather as supplementing intellectual abstraction. ABELARD'S ARISTOTELIAN CONCEPTION Abelard is guided by Aristotle's definition of "universal" as " that which is of such a nature as to be predicated of many" He undertook a critique of extreme realism (in particular that of William of Champeaux, his contemporary), arguing that extreme realism treats universals as things or substances, which they could not be, since, as Aristotle also says, substance cannot be predicated of anything. Hence, Abelard says, the only alternative is that it is a certain class of words which are universals. Words are obviously predicable of things in some sense. ("predicate" is from prae-dicere, "to say of") But Abelard's position is not extreme nominalism (like that of Roscelin, who said that universals are mere vocal sounds). Does the extreme nominalist maintain that Socrates is a vocal utterance "human", in saying that Socrates is human? A mere sound in the air as such cannot be predicated of anything. Abelard's position is that what is predicable is a universal word's significance or meaning, we may call this a universal idea or conception. Such universal mental conceptions are obtained, according to Abelard, by abstracting from particular things a "general and indiscriminate image" of some characteristics in which all the particulars in a group are alike. It is general or indiscriminate in that it contains nothing that discriminates or distinguishes between the things having the characteristic. A universal mental conception is unitary and distinct from particulars but it is made by us and is not an independent thing. There is not a numerically identical essence in things corresponding to this universal conception. Each man, e.g., has fused with the matter of his body, his own particular form of rational animality. The humanity of Plato is not the humanity of Socrates. Yet Plato and Socrates are alike in virtue of their distinct

humanities. It is tht was Abelard who first dealt with the problem of universals explicitly in this form. But are not such universal conceptions false and empty? Abelard considers this objection. There is nothing in Socrates which is general and indiscriminate. Yet Abelard's theory asserts that Socrates is represented by the universal mental conception which is general and indiscriminate. And the universal is something separate and apart from individuals. Yet there is nothing in those individuals which can exist separate or apart from them. What then is it that the universal represents? Indeed, does it not mis- represent them? Abelard answers that there is an important difference between considering something separately and considering it as separated. Our universal conceptions must correspond to objective realities if they are not be false and empty. But these objective realities need not be distinct from individuals. It is only the likenesses of individuals insofar as they have various characteristics that must correspond to our universal conceptions. But is there not some reason why individuals exhibit objective similarities? In virtue of what are Socrates and Plato similar? Abelard's answer to this question is similar to that of Augustine. God created the world according to patterns of species and genera which are ideas in his mind. Unlike us, God does not rely upon experience to have ideas. God's way of knowing is not bound by any bodily condition or limitation. Hence, God's ideas contain far more than what can be abstracted from sense-perception of individuals. They are ideas of a kind superior to the abstracted images in human minds. Yet, since it is God's ideas which serve as the prototypes of the things he creates, there is a true and universal reason for the objective similarities of the characteristics in his creatures. For Abelard, then, the solution to the problem of universals is that universals do not have just one status or nature but three. 1) "before things" (ante rem) - as patterns in God's Mind 2) "in things" (in re) - as characteristics in which things are alike 3) "after things" (post rem) - as universal conceptions in our minds. Abelard was most likely familiar with a similar solution to the problem given by Avicenna.

Having relatively easily disposed of putative universal forms as real entities corresponding to Boethius' definition, in his Logica Ingredientibus he concludes that given Aristotle's definition of universals in his On Interpretation as those things that can be predicated of several things, it is only universal words that can be regarded as really

existing universals. However, since according to Aristotle's account in the same work, words are meaningful in virtue of signifying concepts in the mind, Abelard soon arrives at the following questions: 1. What is the common cause in accordance with which a common name is imposed? 2. What is the understanding's common conception of the likeness of things? 3. Is a word called common on account of the common cause things agree in, or on account of the common conception, or on account of both together?[42] These questions open up a new chapter in the history of the problem of universals. For these questions add a new aspect to the bundle of the originally primarily ontological, epistemological, and theological questions constituting the problem, namely, they add a semantic aspect. On the Aristotelian conception of universals as universal predicables, there obviously are universals, namely, our universal words. But the universality of our words is clearly not dependent on the physical qualities of our articulate sounds, or of the various written marks indicating them, but on their representative function. So, to give an account of the universality of our universal words, we have to be able to tell in virtue of what they have this universal representative function, that is to say, we have to be able to assign a common cause by the recognition of which in terms of a common concept we can give a common name to a potential infinity of individuals belonging to the same kind. But this common cause certainly cannot be a common thing in the way Boethius described universal things, for, as we have seen, the assumption of the existence of such a common thing leads to contradictions. To be sure, Abelard also provides a number of further arguments, dealing with several refinements of Boethius' characterization of universals proposed by his contemporaries, such as William of Champeaux, Bernard of Chartres, Clarembald of Arras, Jocelin of Soissons, and Walter of Mortagne but I cannot go into those details here.[43] The point is that he refutes and rejects all these suggestions to save real universals either as common things, having their own real unity, or as collections of several things, having a merely collective unity. The gist of his arguments against the former view is that the universal thing on that view would have to have its own numerical unity, and therefore, since it constitutes the substance of all its singulars, all these singulars would have to be substantially one and the same thing which would have to have all their contrary properties at the same time, which is impossible. The main thrust of his arguments against the collection-theory is that collections are arbitrary integral wholes of the individuals that make them up, so they simply do not fill the bill of the Porphyrian characterizations of the essential predicables such as genera and species.[44] So, the common cause of the imposition of universal words cannot be any one thing, or a multitude of things; yet, being a common cause, it cannot be nothing. Therefore, this common cause, which Abelard calls the status[45] of those things to which it is common, is a cause, but it is a cause which is a non-thing. However strange this may sound, Abelard observes that sometimes we do assign causes which are not things. For example, when we say The ship was wrecked because the pilot was absent, the cause that we assign, namely, that the pilot was absent is not some thing, it is rather how things were, i.e., the way things were, which in this case we signify by the whole proposition The pilot was absent.[46] From the point of view of understanding what Abelard's status are, it is significant that he assimilates the causal role of status as the common cause of imposition to causes that are signified by whole propositions. These significata of whole

propositions, which in English we may refer to by using the corresponding that-clauses (as I did above, referring to the cause of the ship's wreck by the phrase that the pilot was absent), and in Latin by an accusative-with-infinitive construction, are what Abelard calls the dicta of propositions. These dicta, not being identifiable with any single thing, yet, not being nothing, constitute an ontological realm that is completely different from that of ordinary things. But it is also in this realm that Abelard's common causes of imposition may find their place. Abelard says that the common cause of imposition of a universal name has to be something in which things falling under that name agree. For example, the name man (in the sense of human being, and not in the sense of male human being) is imposed on all humans on account of something in which all humans, as such, agree. But that in which all humans as such agree is that each one of them is a man, that is, each one agrees with all others in their being a man. So it is their being human [esse hominem] that is the common cause Abelard was looking for, and this is what he calls the status of man. The status of man is not a thing; it is not any singular man, for obviously no singular man is common to all men, and it is not a universal man, for there is no such a thing. But being a man is common in the required manner (i.e., it is something in which all humans agree), yet it is clearly not a thing. For let us consider the singular propositions Socrates is a man [Socrates est homo], Plato is a man [Plato est homo], etc. These signify their dicta, namely, Socrates's being a man [Socratem esse hominem], and Plato's being a man [Platonem esse hominem], etc. But then it is clear that if we abstract from the singular subjects and retain what is common to them all, we can get precisely the status in which all these subjects agree, namely, being a man [esse hominem]. So the status, just like the dicta from which they can be obtained, constitute an ontological realm that is entirely different from that of ordinary things. Still, despite the fact that it clearly has to do something with abstraction, an activity of the mind, Abelard insists that a status is not a concept of our mind. The reason for his insistence is that the status, being the common cause of imposition of a common name, has to be something real, the existence of which is not dependent on the activity of our minds. A status is there in the nature of things, regardless of whether we form a mental act whereby we recognize it or not. In fact, for Abelard, a status is an object of the divine mind, whereby God preconceives the state of his creation from eternity. [47] A concept, or mental image of our mind, however, exists as the object of our mind only insofar as our mind performs the mental act whereby it forms this object. But this object, again, is not a thing, indeed, not any more than any other fictitious object of our minds. However, what distinguishes the universal concept from a merely fictitious object of our mind is that the former corresponds to a status of really existing singular things, whereas the latter does not have anything corresponding to it. To be sure, there are a number of points left in obscurity by Abelard's discussion concerning the relationships of the items distinguished here. For example, Abelard says that we cannot conceive of the status. However, it seems that we can only signify by our words whatever we can conceive. Yet, Abelard insists that besides our concepts, our words must signify the status themselves.[48] A solution to the problem is only hinted at in Abelard's remark that the names can signify status, because their inventor meant to impose them in accordance with certain natures or characteristics of things, even if he did not know how to think out the nature or characteristic of the thing.[49] So, we may assume that although the inventor of the name does not know the status, his vague, senses-

bound conception, from which he takes his word's signification, is directed at the status, as to that which he intends to signify.[50] However, Abelard does not work out this suggestion in any further detail. Again, it is unclear how the status is related to the individualized natures of the things that agree in the status. If the status is what the divine mind conceives of the singulars in abstraction from them, why couldn't the nature itself be conceived in the same way? after all, the abstract nature would not have to be a thing any more than a status is, for its existence would not be real being, but merely its being conceived. Furthermore, it seems quite plausible that Abelard's status could be derived by abstraction from singular dicta with the same predicate, as suggested above. But dicta are the quite ordinary significata of our propositions, which Abelard never treats as epistemologically problematic, so why would the status, which we could apparently abstract from them, be accessible only to the divine mind? I'm not suggesting that Abelard could not provide acceptable and coherent answers to these and similar questions and problems. But perhaps these problems also contributed to the fact that by the 13th century his doctrine of status was no longer in currency. Another historical factor that may have contributed to the waning of Abelard's theory was probably the influence of the newly translated Aristotelian writings along with the Arabic commentaries that flooded the Latin West in the second half of the 12th century.

OBJECTION Realism is intrinsically flawed, but rather that Realism is unnecessary. A general principle governing many metaphysical debates is that, all things being equal, the fewer types or kinds of entities in ones ontology, the better. Those opposed to Realism argue that they can meet the explanatory demands weve discussed without relying on universals. If qualitative resemblance and identity can be accounted for without universals, and if any other work done with universals can be done as well without them, then, the opponents of Realism argue, we should do without them. We will then have fewer categories in our ontology, which, all things being equal, is to be preferred. For this reason, opponents of Realism try to solve the Problem of Universals without universals. The question we will track is whether such solutions are in fact adequate. If not, perhaps commitment to universals, however unpalatable, is necessary.

NOMINALISM
Near the end of the eleventh century, there was a reaction against extreme realism. The instigator of this reaction was probably Roscelin ( 1050 - 1120) . He was probably one of Abelard's teachers. Roscelin rejected the view that species and genera are substances, perhaps because he emphasized Aristotle's rule that substances cannot be predicated of anything and species and genera a re predicable of many things. Substances can only be subjects of which something may be predicated. What one atributes to Socrates is not a substance but a complex characteristic - humanity. Roscelin was convinced that only concrete individuals exist independently. Unlike Aristotle, he

may also have denied that characteristics are common to different individuals. He is reported to have said that universals are merely "flatus vocis". Nothing is really common to different individuals called by a general name except that the same name is uttered in reference to all of them. If this was Roscelin's view, it may be called Extreme Nominalism.. Actual existence belongs only to concrete individuals. There are no nonindividual common entities. A problem with extreme nominalism is that it seems to make it impossible to give any reason for calling different individuals the same name, i.e. for calling a group of individuals "human". Why should any group of individuals be viewed as belonging together prior to their being called by the same name? If the Father son and Holy ghost have nothing in common are they not three separate individuals? Must it not follow then that Christians worship three Gods? Abelard objected to Williams version of Realism on the grounds that nothing can have contrary characteristics at the same time..

PREDICATE NOMINALISM
All that exist are individuals and words for talking about those individuals. What makes a single individual, which we will call Tom, red is that the predicate is red can be truly said of Tom. As for the predicate is red itself, it is just a particular string of words on a page (or this screen), or else a string of spoken sounds. Two individuals, say Tom and Bob, are red simply because the linguistic expression, the predicate is red, is truly said of both. We account for commonality in nature by reference to individualsin this case the individuals Bob and Tom, and also linguistic expressions such as the predicate is red.

OBJECTION
Predicate Nominalism ignores the Problem of Universals, and does not solve it. Why is it true to say that both Bob and Tom are red, for instance, and not green or blue? What is it about the world, the individuals, that explains why they are that way and not some other way? What explains their similarity? Predicate Nominalists just leave it as a brute fact that some things are red (or blue, or green). More precisely, what they leave brute is the fact that, for any given individual, some predicates correctly apply and others dont. But when it comes to explaining these facts, Predicate Nominalism will go no further. This refusal to take the Problem of Universals seriously has even landed Predicate Nominalism the label Ostrich Nominalism.

RESEMBLANCE NOMINALISM
Another Nominalist strategy is to collect individuals into sets based on resemblance relations, and then account for qualitative identity and resemblance by appeal to commonalities of set membership. An individuals redness, for example, is explained by the fact that it belongs to the set of red things. The fact that two individuals are both red is explained by their both belonging to the same set of red things. A given set, such as the set of red things, is constructed by adding to it individuals that resemble each other more closely than they resemble any nonmembers, that is, the individuals that arent red. In this way, Resemblance Nominalists explain individuals supposed shared qualities by talking only about resemblance relations. Things that resemble each other belong to a common set. Membership in a certain set defines what it is to have a certain property, and two

members of a set can be said to share a property, or be qualitatively identical, in virtue of simply belonging to the same set of resembling individuals.

OBJECTION
In the course of trying to account for two distinct properties, however, Resemblance Nominalists can end up constructing the same set twice. If two distinct properties were to pick out the same set, however, this would cause a serious problem. For instance, it is thought that everything that has a heart also has a kidney. If so, the set of individuals constructed for the property has a heart will have the same members as the set constructed for the property has a kidney. Two sets with the same members are really just one set, not two, by the very definition of set, so Resemblance Nominalists are forced to say that having a heart is one and the same property as having a kidney. But that is clearly false.

OBJECTION
A second problem for the Resemblance Nominalist arises when we wonder about the method of set construction. Accounting for an individuals redness requires building a set with that individual and other resembling individuals as members. But, unfortunately for Resemblance Nominalism, some members of the red set actually turn out to not be red at all. To explain, remember that the construction of the set proceeds by grouping particulars that resemble each other, and, importantly, things can resemble each other in various respects. Our red apple resembles other red apples, red stop signs, and red books, and all those things would thus get into the set. But our red apple also resembles a green apple, of the same type, which isnt ripe yet. So that green apple would go in the set. Other things, too, will resemble our apple, but not by being red. As such, it seems that Resemblance Nominalism explains our individuals being red by reference to a set containing nonred things, which is just to say it doesnt explain it at all. REPLY Sure, the green apple does resemble our red apple, but not in the right way. If you stop building sets with the wrong kinds of resemblance, you wont let non-red members into the set. REJOIN The problem with this reply is that the only way to stop these bad resemblances is to include in the set only things that are red. being red is what the Nominalist is trying to explain in the first place, and so we cant use being red to guide set construction. To do so would be circular.

OBJECTION
Resemblance Nominalism cannot succeed without this relation; it bears most of the explanatory load. Arguably, then, the position is committed to the existence of

resemblance relations. This seems to generate a serious problem. Individuals resemble one another, of course, but resemblance itself is not an individual. So, if the position is committed to resemblance relations, and if resemblance relations are not individuals, then it seems that Resemblance Nominalism is a misnomer. Upon close inspection, the position looks to be a kind of Realism. Suppose three things (a, b, and c) resemble one another, and belong in the same set. We have three individuals in this case, but what about the instances of resemblance that hold among those individuals? Are they the same kind of resemblance? They had better be, if the previous objection is to be avoided! Resemblance Nominalists, then, need to posit instances of, and kinds of, resemblance, all of which suggests we actually have a universal herenamely, the resemblance relation that holds between a and b, between b and c, and between a and c. If resemblance itself is a universal, Resemblance Nominalists are committed to at least one universal. Perhaps they should make life easier (if not simpler) and let them all in! TROPE NOMINALISM The above objections have moved some Nominalists to develop alternative accounts. Many have turned to Trope Nominalism, which we will discuss next. Trope Nominalism is committed a new kind of entity, tropes. This may seem surprising, since Nominalists insist on ontological simplicity. But while Nominalists allow only individuals into their ontology, this doesnt preclude explanatory appeals to tropes. For tropes, as we will see, are a class of individuals. Perhaps with this innovation Nominalists will fare better. Though they were known to Medieval philosophers, tropes are relatively new to contemporary metaphysics, and have been called on to address a number of very different philosophical issues, including the Problem of Universals. Trope theory can be understood, somewhat paradoxically, as making properties into particulars. Tropes are a type of individual. While ordinary individuals are qualitatively complex, a trope is qualitatively simple, and is, in fact, a particular property instance. The blue of the sky is a particular trope numerically distinct from the blue trope of your T-shirt, even if the two tropes are qualitatively identical. For the tropist, ordinary individual objects can be conceived as bundles or collections of tropes; and an ordinary object, which is a complex particular, has a certain quality in virtue of having, as a member of the complex, a particular trope, which is that particular character. An apple thus is a complex of tropesa red trope plus an apple-shape trope, plus a sweet trope, plus a crisp trope, and so forth. If the apple is red, that is because there is a red trope, a red individual, that is a member of that bundle or complex. Red is not a property the trope has; rather, the red trope is the red itself. (Instead of treating an ordinary object as nothing more than a bundle of tropes, another option is to treat an individual as a substance that possesses a bundle of tropes. For simplicity, we will set that option aside. Whether an object is, or instead has, a bundle of tropes, the coming points hold.) Trope Nominalism explains qualitative identity between two distinct, ordinary individuals by saying that the first individual has a constituent trope that is qualitatively identical to, but numerically distinct from, a trope had as constituent by the second individual. Two apples are red, for instance, because each has a red trope in them, and these tropes themselves are individuals that exactly resemble each other. Importantly, because this is a

version of Nominalism, we dont say the tropes resemble each other because they share a universal. Instead, they simply resemble each other. If we like, we can expand on the claim that red tropes resemble each other by constructing sets of resembling individuals. In this case, we would have a set of red tropes, the members of which resemble each other more closely than they resemble any other tropes. In summary, then, by appeal to qualitatively identical, but numerically distinct tropes, we can explain qualitative similarities among ordinary objects, all without reliance on universals. How is this better than Resemblance Nominalism? Remember that Resemblance Nominalism was vulnerable because it explained qualitative identity of individuals by reference to sets of resembling individuals. The trouble was that the individuals collected into sets are ordinary objects, ones that have many properties, so they can resemble each other in many ways. For this reason, no noncircular criterion of set construction could exclude members with the wrong property. Tropes, however, have only one property, so if individual tropes are collected into sets, there wont be members that dont belong. The set of red tropes will have only red tropes in it. Trope Nominalists can now make unproblematic appeal to resemblance among individuals. This has convinced many that Trope Nominalism is a serious contender against Realism. As well, recall that Resemblance Nominalism faced the charge that only a resemblance universal could account for resemblance relations among individuals. Trope Nominalism has a reply here too. (As always, in any complex philosophical discussion, there are various ways to reply to objections, just as there are many objections. We outline here just one of the ways Trope theories have responded to this objection.) Whereas Resemblance Nominalists seemed forced to countenance a resemblance universal, Trope Nominalists can appeal to resemblance tropes! Should we have, for example, three identical red tropes, then there will be a resemblance relation between a and b, a similar relation between b and c, and a similar relation between a and c. Trope Nominalism can treat each of these resemblances as distinct tropes. When three red tropes are mutually resembling, then, in addition to the red tropes themselves, there are three resemblance tropes. And just as the resemblances among the three red individuals is a basic fact, so too is the resemblance among these resemblance relations. Not all resemblances are alike, of course, but in this case they are. All properties are tropes, and properties include not just ones like red, but also ones like resembles.

OBJECTION
We began by wondering how distinct, ordinary things could be said to be qualitatively identical without introducing a universal common to both. Tropists instruct us to view ordinary particulars as complexes of tropes, and allow that there can be qualitatively similar but numerically distinct tropes present in different complexes. Qualitative similarity among ordinary objects is explained by the qualitative similarities of their constituent tropes. Finally, the qualitative similarity among distinct tropes is explained by the fact that some (for example, red) tropes resemble each other more closely than other

(for example, non-red) tropes. The last point is the crucial one. We are told that it is simply a brute fact that some tropes resemble each other, and that others dont. That is just the way things are, and there is no further explanation to be given. But tropes were meant to do explanatory work; so, at the level of tropes, we want and expect an account of generality. If trope theories are presented as a solution to the Problem of Universals, they should explain how there can be truths to explain the appearance of generality in reality. What we end up with, though, is brute and ungrounded qualitative identity among distinct tropes. In essence then, the tropist dismisses, but does not solve, a question about the nature of generality, by making generality a brute fact. Unlike Predicate Nominalism, the tropist goes to great lengths to develop a theory, but in the end seems to offer no more explanation of generality. We know that our original objects resemble each other. Why? Because they have tropes that resemble each other. But the latter resemblance is not explained. And so it seems weve not gone very far in explaining our original resemblance. What we want is an explanation of qualitative similarity. Accounting for it in terms of qualitative similaritynow at the level of tropesdoes no more than relocate the question. The very relation we sought to understand reappears as our answer. Again, qualitative similarity across ordinary particulars is explained by the relation of qualitative similarity holding among the tropes that constitute those particulars. But that seems either to postpone answering the question, or to answer it by appealing to the very fact we wanted explained. At best, this explanation is unsatisfying; at worst, it is circular. We are left with qualitative identity as a brute, unexplained phenomenon, triggering the reasonable question: What then have we really gained with trope theories?

CONCEPTUALISM
Generality is not a feature of reality, but instead a feature of our minds and the concepts or ideas in minds. Conceptualism thus seeks a third way, as they see it, between the excesses of Realism, and the unilluminating resemblance relations of Nominalism. Because many individuals can fall under the same concept, Conceptualism hopes to accommodate the intuition that qualitative identity and resemblance are grounded in the sharing of something, but in a way that doesnt appeal to dubious items such as universals. According to this view, individuals a and b are red because the concept of redness applies to both. The concept red is general, not because it denotes a real nonindividual, but only because many diverse particulars fall under, or conform to, that concept. Abelard begins by accepting the ontological claim made in nominalism -- that no universal entities exist (and thus he avoids a central problem in realism -- i.e., how would such universal entities exist "in" particular things?) Instead, he argues that there are universal words -- words which are legitimately predicable (= they can be said) of many things. But if such universal words are to have meaning by way of reference -- what do they refer to? By definition, they cannot refer to particulars given in sense-experience. They refer instead, according to Abelard, to what he calls an "abstract concept" (which, as it turns out, is also very much like Aristotle's notion of the form which "in-forms" matter).

The abstract concept is formed as the mind is capable first of "abstracting" (= abstrahere, Latin for "to draw from, separate) the particulars given through sense-experience, in order to separate out from an image or impression especially those characteristics which a given entity shares in common with another entity. For example, using the diagram of the form of humanity (above), Abelard argues that the mind is the creator of "humanity" as an abstract concept, one made up of the likenesses shared by individual human beings. The mind creates this form as it is capable, through the process of abstraction, of separating out those likenesses from the distinguishing characteristics which mark each human being as different from others. The universal term hence has meaning as it refers to this abstract concept -- a concept clearly grounded in the sense-experience of particular entities. Notice, however, that this abstract concept requires that Abelard expand nominalism both in terms of

1) how words can have meaning, and 2) the available flavors or levels of reality (metaphysics/ontology).

1) He argues, in effect, that the nominalist model of meaning is too narrow: in addition to particular words which derive meaning through reference to particular entities -- there are also universal words which have meaning in a different (but related) way. That is, they have meaning as they refer not to particular entities given in sense-experience, but as they refer to the abstract concepts "built out of" the particulars of sense-experience, where these concepts exist only in the mind (not as entities existing independently of particular entities given in sense-experience). This retains the basic model that meaning = reference -2) but it expands the available referents by arguing for two "flavors" or levels of reality, namely,

a) the level of sense-experience and its particular objects, and b) the level of abstract concepts, constructed in and known by the mind.

OBJECTION
Concepts can be misapplied in some cases, such as when we say of a cat that it is a dog. And misapplied concepts explain nothing deep about generality. Conceptualisms appeal to concept application must concern only correct concept application. As such, it is fair to ask, What makes it the case that the concept red is rightly applied to both a and b, but not of some third individual, c? To treat this fact as brute and inexplicable is to revert to problematic Predicate Nominalism. So it seems the Conceptualist must say that the concept red applies to a and b, but not c, because a and b share a common feature, a feature c lacks. Otherwise, the application of red is unconstrained by the individuals to which it applies. But simply noting that a and b resemble each other isnt going to help, because that just is the fact we originally sought to explain, put differently.

REPLY
The Conceptualist might now say that a and b share a property. But if this isnt to amount to a restatement of the original datum, it must now be interpreted as the claim that some

entity is in both a and b. That, of course, turns our supposed Conceptualist strategy back into Realism. To say that the mind creates the abstract concepts as it "focuses its attention on common likenesses" is to beg the question. This is to assume that the mind has the ability to create the entities to which universal terms refer -- and that these exist as based on "likenesses" further assumed to exist in particulars, and further assumed to be obvious to the mind when it chooses to focus its attention on them. But this is just the original philosophical question at stake in the debate: are there universal entities apart from the particulars of sense-experience, and if so, in what sense do they exist, how do they relate to the particulars, etc. So, while conceptualism is to be admired as an elegant resolution between the nominalist and realist camps -- and one that "works," perhaps, if our doctrinal focus in this period concerns us more than philosophical soundness -- conceptualism remains philosophically problematic. 2) And not surprisingly so, if we keep in mind that this debate still goes on today. For example, if I use the term "society" in a sociological account, so as to say something like

SOCIETY causes BEHAVIORS

-- a nominalist will ask, "What can 'SOCIETY' mean here?" In the face of the question, it becomes hard to find what 'SOCIETY' may mean "above and beyond" just the set of behaviors which we claim it causes. Is there "anything left over" to which 'SOCIETY' refers, apart from just the set of behaviors and individuals which make up the members of a society? In sociological theory, this is called the problem of the emergent phenomenon -- and it is directly the issue we have seen confronted in the nominalism/realism debate, i.e., what, if any, meaning do universal terms have, above and beyond the individual, particular instances to which they apply? In the above example, if the nominalists are correct, and the only terms which have meaning are terms refering to particulars -- then 'SOCIETY' means only just the set of behaviors belonging to a set of individuals who make up a given society. But this means:

SOCIETY causes BEHAVIORS == (BEHAVIORS) cause BEHAVIORS

That is, if the nominalists are right, and there is no "emergent phenomnon" ('SOCIETY') apart from a set of behaviors, then our "explanation" is simply an empty circle. On the other hand, for the explanation to avoid becoming circular -- what does the term 'SOCIETY' refer to, above and beyond a set of behaviors? Is there some sort of universal to which it refers -- and if so, is it an abstract concept, as Abelard would have it?

REJOIN
Critics say Conceptualism solves no problems on its own. In trying to ground our right to predicate the concept red of a and b, we are driven back to facts about a and b themselves and that leaves Conceptualism as an unstable position. It teeters back and forth between Realism, on the one hand, and Nominalism, on the other.