Universals and particulars Universals and particulars

Universals and particulars. Objects around us share features with

other objects. It is in the nature of most such features that they can
characterize indenitely many objects. Because of this the features are
called universals and the main problem is to describe their status.
Exceptions, such as being the tallest of men, can be included for
convenience. The objects are called their instances. The problem is
often called, especially in Greek philosophy, the one-many or one-
over-many problem. Traditionally three kinds of answer have been
given: realism, conceptualism and nominalism. Realism in this sense is
primarily associated with Plato, who treated universals as objects (cf.
FORM, IDEA), separate from their instances, and faced great di-
culties over what they were like and how they related to these
instances. Platos Forms, in so far as they are treated rather as parti-
culars (see below), are often said not to be universals, though doing
duty for them. Platonism is nowadays any view which treats things
like universals, propositions, numbers, etc., as independent objects.
Frege is a noted modern Platonist. Another form of realism, often
attributed to Aristotle though the interpretation of Aristotle is very
controversial, denies that universals are objects or separate from their
instances, but nevertheless makes them real things which somehow
exist just by being instantiated. It is unclear how this view treats
things like unicornhood. The labels universalia ante rem or res: uni-
versals prior to the object(s), and universalia in re or rebus: universals
in the object(s), are often applied to Platos and Aristotles views
respectively. Universalia post rem or res: universals, after, or deriva-
tive from, the object(s), normally applies to nominalism, though it
could apply to conceptualism. The term substantial universals is
applied, like realism, primarily to Platos view, though sometimes
also to Aristotles. It could, but usually does not, denote universals
corresponding to substances, e.g. tablehood, as against qualitative
universals like hardness. Realists often limit universals to only some
general features.
For conceptualism, universals are thoughts or ideas in and con-
structed by the mind. This view, summarily rejected by Plato, is
largely associated with the British EMPIRICISTS. It may explain
human thinking and the MEANING of many words, but it can no
longer explain why the world itself is as it is (which Plato claimed his
Forms explained). The view thus avoids Platos dilemma that the
universal is either outside its instances and so irrelevant to them, or
inside them and so split up. But what sort of thing is this thought or
idea? Does it involve images, and if so, of what sort? Can the same
idea be shared by dierent people, which splits the universal up again,

428
Universals and particulars Universals and particulars

or have they similar but distinct ideas, which leads to the diculty
associated with PRIVATE LANGUAGES? Some writers include
conceptualism under nominalism, e.g. Armstrong, who talks of
conceptual nominalism.
For nominalism, represented especially by Ockham in the middle
ages and so by many recent writers, there are only general words like
dog, and no universals in the sense of entities like doghood. Cf.
MEANING, and also below on types and tokens. (For N. Good-
man nominalism means recognizing only INDIVIDUALS (second
sense), which for him may be abstract but cannot include classes.)
There are two ways of dening a class of objects. One can dene it
extensionally or in extension, by listing its members, or one can dene
it as containing all those things which have a certain property or set
of properties (called dening it intensionally or in intension; see
INTENSIONALITY). The former way makes it impossible for a
class, once it is dened, to acquire new members, and is of little use.
The latter way leaves open how many members, if any, a class has;
the class of dogs contains whatever things have the properties neces-
sary for being a dog. Nominalism now faces a diculty, for if there
are no universals, i.e. no properties, what determines whether some-
thing belongs to the class of dogs or not? This is another version of
Platos demand for Forms to account for the worlds being as it is.
The main nominalist answer to this diculty uses the notion of
resemblance. An object is a dog if it resembles some given dog which
is chosen as a standard or paradigm. Two disputed objections to this
are that resemblance itself seems to be an indispensable universal, and
that resemblance involves partial identity, for to resemble something
is to have something, though not necessarily everything, in common
with it; the common feature is then presumably a universal.
A variant on the use of resemblance is Wittgensteins notion of
family resemblance, whereby there need be nothing common to all the
members of a class, nor need any member be taken as the paradigm,
but the members form a complicated network of similarities over-
lapping and criss-crossing like the bres that make up a thread. An
example Wittgenstein takes is that of a game: have all games got
something in common? A somewhat related notion is that of clusters
(Gasking).
Particulars, which are not always the same as INDIVIDUALS,
cannot be instantiated, and cannot appear as a whole at separated
places simultaneously though their parts may be spatially separate. A
particular can perhaps appear as a whole at dierent moments of time
(though see GENIDENTITY), but these must normally be linked into

429
Universals and particulars Universals and particulars

a stream though an intermittent sound may constitute one and the

same particular, and see Burke. A particulars parts may be constantly
changing, as with a ame, and it need not be solid (shadows, rain-
bows, clouds, can all be particulars, and perhaps the sky). It must,
however, be identiable and distinguishable from other particulars, so
clouds, etc., are not always particulars. Particulars can be abstract,
provided the conditions about space and time are preserved (e.g. an
action or event, like the Renaissance. Rarely non-spatiotemporal
things like numbers are included.) Bare particulars are particulars
considered as independent of all their properties. It is therefore hard
to identify or refer to them.
Particulars are like SUBSTANCES in the rst Aristotelian sense of
that term though the emphasis is on being unique in space and time
rather than, as with Aristotle on existing in their own right as the
bearers of attributes and subjects of change. Therefore, shadows and
actions are more easily called particulars than substances, while Pla-
tonist universals are more naturally called substances than particulars,
especially since particulars cannot be instantiated.
As an adjective particular has its everyday sense, and also that
given under SENTENCE.
We have seen that universals are sometimes treated rather as par-
ticulars. Idealisms concrete universal is also a kind of particular. It is
a system of instances, treated as a developing individual, e.g. man in
Man has evolved slowly. Bradley treats ordinary particulars as con-
crete universals, since they are developing individuals, though really
the universe is the sole individual. He uses particular in a more
restricted sense than the present entry.
Universals, like particulars, are of many kinds. Some universals
(relations) can only be instantiated in ordered pairs or triplets, etc., of
objects. Others, like round square, cannot be instantiated at all, even
in thought. Some can be instantiated together with their opposites: an
object can be both beautiful and ugly, in dierent respects; or the
object may instantiate the universal only if described in a certain way:
something may be large if described as a mouse, but not if described
as an animal (see ATTRIBUTIVE); and the instances may themselves
be universals, for a universal may have universals as its instance: red
may have the property of being beautiful. Moreover, stus, like
water, are not particulars but presumably instantiate universals
(though wateriness rather characterizes other things resembling
water). Logically, then, it is the notion of an instance that is correla-
tive to that of a universal, though instances are no doubt usually
particulars.

430
Universals and particulars Universals and particulars

A distinction closely related to that between universals and parti-

culars, and revealing some of the complications in this eld, is that
between types and tokens, introduced by Peirce. The word in
appears twice in the present sentence, yet it is only one word. Peirce
would call these two appearances in any one copy of the present
book, two tokens of a single type. A word as found in the dictionary
is therefore a type with indenitely many tokens (written, spoken,
etc.). Only types can be derived from Latin. Only tokens can be ille-
gible. A token may be ambiguous, and then so must its type. A type
may be polysyllabic, and then so must all its tokens. The distinction is
signicant for nominalists, for when they say there are only words
and no universals, do they mean types or tokens? Also, the distinction
is not sucient by itself, for the words in a speech cannot be types,
for types are not limited to a single speech, nor yet tokens, since the
speech, and therefore the same words, can be recorded many times
(Cohen). It is disputed how closely this distinction resembles that
between universals and particulars. Word as a universal has instan-
ces (several hundred on this page); as a type it has tokens (each of just
four letters). Also to what spheres, apart from words, is it relevant? Is
the Union Jack, or the lion in The lion is carnivorous, a type or a
universal or what? Is the lion a concrete universal? Spheres where the
distinction has been used include aesthetics, in the analysis of works
of art, and in the IDENTITY THEORY OF MIND. See also
REALISM, CONCEPT, IDEA, SENTENCES, TROPE, THIRD
MAN ARGUMENT.

R. I. Aaron, The Theory of Universals, Clarendon, 1952, revised 1967.

(Universals as natural recurrences and principles of grouping. Some
history.)
E. B. Allaire, Bare particulars, Philosophical Studies, 1963, reprinted with
discussion in Loux (below).
Aristotle, Metaphysics, book 7 (or Z), chapters 1316, Posterior Analy-
tics, book 2, chapter 19. (Cf. also Aristotle references under
SUBSTANCE.)
D. M. Armstrong, Universals and Scientic Realism, vol. 1: Nominalism and
Realism, vol. 2: A Theory of Universals, Cambridge UP, 1978. (Important
modern work. See also his Universals: An Opinionated Introduction,
Westview Press, 1989, which is shorter than his earlier work but contains
important revisions.)
F. H. Bradley, The Principles of Logic. 1993, book 1, chapter 2, 4, chapter
6, 306. (Concrete universals. Cf. R. M. Eaton, General Logic, Scribners
Sons 1931, pp. 26972.)

431