Universals In metaphysics, the term universals is applied to things of two sorts: properties (such as redness or roundness), and relations

(such as kinship relations like sisterhood, or the causal relation, or spatial and temporal relations). Universals are to be understood by contrast with particulars. Few universals, if any, are truly universal in the sense that they are shared by all individuals - a universal is characteristically the sort of thing which some individuals may have in common, and others may lack. Universals have been conceived to be things which enable us intellectually to grasp a permanent, underlying order behind the changing flux of experience. Some of the gods of ancient mythologies correspond roughly to various important underlying universals - social relations for instance, as for example if Hera is said to be the goddess of Marriage and Ares (or Mars) is said to be the god of War. Many traditions, East and West, have dealt with the underlying problem which generates theories of universals; nevertheless the term universals is closely tied to the Western tradition, and the agenda has been set largely by the work of Plato and Aristotle. The term often used in connection with Plato is not universals but Forms (or Ideas, used in the sense of ideals rather than of thoughts), the term universals echoing Aristotle more than Plato. Other terms cognate with universals include not only properties and relations, but also qualities, attributes, characteristics, essences and accidents (in the sense of qualities which a thing has not of necessity but only by accident), species and genus, and natural kinds. Various arguments have been advanced to establish the existence of universals, the most memorable of which is the one over many argument. There are also various arguments against the existence of universals. There are, for instance, various vicious regress arguments which derive from Aristotles so-called third man argument against Plato. Another family of arguments trades on what is called Ockhams razor: it is argued that we can say anything we need to say, and explain everything we need to explain, without appeal to universals; and if we can, and if we are rational, then we should. Those who believe in universals are called Realists, those who do not are called Nominalists. 1 Sources in ancient mathematics and biology Plato looked to mathematics as a model to find ideal forms which can be grasped by the intellect and which we find to be imperfectly reflected in the world of the senses. Moral and political ideals too, Plato thought, are reflected only very imperfectly in the world of appearances. Aristotles conception of universals was tailored to fit not mathematics but biology. Individual animals and plants fall into natural kinds, or species, such as pigs or cabbages. Various different species, in turn, fall under a genus. Universals impose a taxonomy on the plurality of different individuals in the world. Regularities in the world can then be understood by appeal to the universals, or species, under which individuals fall, explaining why pigs never give birth to kittens, for instance, and in general why each living thing generates others of its kind. Plato conceived of universals as transcendent beings, ante rem in Latin (before things): the existence of universals does not depend on the existence of individuals which instantiated them. This is a natural thought if your model of universals lies in mathematics: geometrical truths about circles, for instance, do not depend on the

existence of any individuals which really are perfectly circular. Aristotle, in contrast, held a theory of universals as immanent beings, in rebus (in things): there can be no universals unless there are individuals in which those universals are instantiated. This is a natural thought if your model of universals lies in biology: a species cannot exist, for instance, if there are no animals of that species. Thus, one of the key distinctions between Platos transcendent and Aristotles immanent realism is that the Platonist allows, and Aristotle does not allow, the existence of uninstantiated universals (see Aristotle 15; Plato). 2 Samenesses and differences When a property is shared by two individuals, there is something which is in or is had by both. But it is in a quite distinctive sense that one universal can be in two distinct individuals. An individual person may be in two places at once if, for instance, their hand is in the cookie jar and their foot is in the bath. But a universal is in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998) Universals distinct individuals in a way which does not mean that there is one part of the universal in one thing and a distinct part of it in another. Thus, a universal is said to be the sort of thing which can be wholly present in distinct individuals at the same time: a person cannot be wholly present in two places at once, but justice can. Some draw a distinction between certain special properties and relations which qualify for the label universals, and other properties and relations which do not. It is suggested that, whenever something is true of an individual (whenever a description can truly be predicated of an individual), then there is always a property which that individual may be said to have. On this view, a property is just a shadow of a predicate, whereas a genuine universal is something more. A genuine universal has to be something which is literally identical in each of its instances. Alternatively, the sorts of properties which are just shadows of predicates are sometimes construed as set-theoretical constructions of various sorts, as for instance if we say that the property of redness is the set of actual red things, or of actual and possible red things. In this spirit it is now standard practice in mathematics to use the term relations to refer just to any set of ordered pairs. Set-theoretical constructions are not, however, universals - or at least they are not to be confused with the universals which are the subject matter of traditional debates. 3 Arguments for and against Various arguments have been advanced to establish the existence of universals, the most memorable of which is the one over many argument. Although it is memorable, there is little consensus on just how this argument works. Very roughly, it begins with an appeal to the manifest fact of recurrence, the fact that, as it says in the biblical text of Ecclesiastes (1: 9), What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. There are many things, and yet they are all in some sense just the very same things over and over again. From this manifest fact of recurrence, the argument purports to derive the conclusion that there are universals as well as particulars. There are also various arguments against the existence of universals. One family of such arguments derives from Aristotles so-called third man argument and is designed to demonstrate that Platos Theory of Forms entails an unacceptable infinite regress. Roughly, Platos problem is that he needs some relation to hold between the

Form of Man and individual men before this Form can help to explain what it is that individual men have in common. So the theory would seem to call into being another Form, a third man, which is what the Form of Man has in common with individual men. This leads to an infinite regress, hence Platos Theory of Forms is unacceptable. Of course, Aristotle had only intended to demonstrate the nonexistence of Platos Forms, not of universals in general; but enemies of universals frequently advance related infinite-regress arguments against the existence of universals of any kind. Whatever you call the instantiation relation between particulars and universals, if you think of it as another universal then you are off on a regress, and this seems to count against any theory of universals. Another argument against the existence of universals trades on what is called Ockhams razor - the principle that you should not postulate more entities when everything you want to explain can be explained with fewer (see William of Ockham 2). It is sometimes argued that everything you can explain with universals can be explained just as well without them. Things which superficially seem to refer to universals can, it is maintained, generally be rephrased in ways which make no apparent reference to universals - reference to universals can be paraphrased away. If we can do without universals, then obviously we should; when you supplement this Ockhamist argument with allusions to the interminable and unresolvable internecine conflicts among Realists over numerous details, you have an even stronger case against the existence of universals. 4 Nominalism and Realism During the Middle Ages in Europe, universals played a focal role in the intellectual economy: many issues revolved around what became known as the problem of universals. Famously, a commentary by Boethius on Porphyrys Isagoge, which in turn was intended as an introduction to Aristotles Categories, set very crisply but vividly and tantalizingly what came to be taken as a compulsory question in the Medieval pursuit of learning: whether genera and species are substances or are set in the mind alone; whether they are corporeal or incorporeal substances; and whether they are separate from the things perceived by the senses or set in them (Boethius c.510; Spade 1994). The initial problem for many was not one of deciding whether there are any universals, but of choosing between Plato and Aristotle and then fine-tuning further details. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998) Universals Later in the Middle Ages, however, a growing number of philosophers and theologians became more and more impressed by arguments against the existence of universals. They began to adopt the position called Nominalism which was opposed to all the various forms of Platonic or Aristotelian Realism. According to Nominalists like Abelard and Ockham, the only thing which distinct individuals share in common is a common name, a label which we choose to apply to each of those individuals and not to others. Nominalistic claims were echoed by many of the champions of the modern sciences as they emerged at the end of the Middle Ages. It was standardly said to be granted on all hands that all existing things are merely particular.

Being assumed as granted on all hands, it was not up for debate, and so the problem of universals, explicitly so described, settled into the shadowy background of scientific and philosophical discussion. For example, an archaeologist of ideas might argue that, in Kant, the problem of universals is really alive and working very hard in the background, playing a role in discussions on almost every topic that arises. Nonetheless the problem of universals, under that name or any clear equivalent, is not featured on Kants explicit agenda. Kant speaks of intuitions and concepts in ways which have some relation to the old problem of particulars and universals, but more has shifted than just the labels. Hence the problem of universals has received little attention across a great span of philosophical history, right through to twentiethcentury philosophy in France and Germany (see Nominalism 2; Realism and antirealism). 5 Frege exhumes universals In the twentieth century, the problem of universals has re-emerged under its familiar name, accompanied by more or less the same guiding illustrations used by Plato and Aristotle. This rebirth has occurred in the tradition of analytic philosophy, notably in the work of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine and Armstrong. A new twist to the theory of universals can be traced to groundbreaking work by Frege on the nature of natural numbers in his Grundlagen der Arithmetik (The Foundations of Arithmetic) (1884). As for Plato, so too for Frege, Russell and others in recent times, advances in mathematics have been the source of a philosophical focus on the problem of universals. Freges analysis of natural numbers (1, 2, 3,) proceeded in three very different stages (see Frege, G. 9). In the first stage of his analysis of numbers, Frege introduced the idea that numbering individuals essentially involves not the attribution of properties to individuals but, rather, the attribution of properties to properties. To illustrate: when asked How many are on the table?, Frege notes that there will be many different possible answers, as for instance (1) Two packs of playing cards or (2) 104 playing cards. The metaphysical truth-makers identified by Frege for these two sample answers are (1) that the property of being a pack of playing cards on the table is a property which has the property of having two instances, and (2) that the property of being a playing card on the table is a property which has the property of having one hundred and four instances. In general, natural numbers number individuals only via the intermediary of contributing to second-order properties, or properties of properties, namely properties of the form having n instances. Like Kant, Frege speaks of concepts (Begriffe) rather than of universals. Yet Freges concepts are definitively not private mental episodes, but are thoroughly mind-independent, more like Platos Forms than Aristotelian universals. In the second stage of his analysis of numbers, Frege gives a very new twist to the theory of universals. He argues that the nature of universals, or concepts, is such as to make it impossible in principle ever to refer to a universal by any name or description. Thus for instance, in saying Socrates is wise, the universal which is instantiated by Socrates is something which is expressed by the whole arrangement of symbols into which the name Socrates is embedded to yield the sentence Socrates is wise. Suppose you were to try to name this universal by the name wisdom. Then, compare Socrates is wise with the concatenation of names - Socrates wisdom. The mere name

wisdom clearly leaves out something which was present in the attribution of wisdom to Socrates. Hence a universal cannot be referred to by a name. Thus, a property can only be expressed by a predicate, never by a name or by any logical device which refers to individuals. Indeed, if we wish to attribute existence to universals, we cannot do so by the use of the same sort of device (the first-order quantifier) which is used to attribute existence to individuals. Thus, for instance, from Socrates is wise we may infer There exists something which is wise, and There exists something which is Socrates: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998) Universals (9x)(wise(x)), and (9x)(x = Socrates): Yet we may not infer that There exists something which Socrates possesses, or that There exists something which is wisdom: (9x)(has(Socrates; x)), or (9x)(x = wisdom): Frege does, however, allow us to attribute existence to universals, using logical devices called higher-order quantifiers, which he introduced in his Begriffsschrift (1879). That is, we can infer from Socrates is wise to There is somehow such that: Socrates is that-how: (Ef)(f(Socrates)). But although there is somehow that Socrates is, this does not entail that there is anything which is the somehow that Socrates is: universals (concepts) can only have second-order existence, not first-order existence. For Frege, numbering things essentially involved attribution of properties to properties. So the sorts of things being attributed are not the sorts of things which can be named. Yet, Frege argued, numbers can be named - numbers are abstract individuals, he says, objects not concepts. Hence the third stage of Freges analysis of numbers consists in the attempt to find individuals - objects - which could be identified with the numbers. It was this stage of the analysis which resulted in the emergence of modern set theory. For every property, Frege argued, there is a corresponding individual: the extension of that universal, the set of all the things (or all the actual and possible things) which instantiate that universal. Thus, for instance, corresponding to the property of being a property which has two instances, there will be a set of sets which have two members. Modern mathematics has selected different candidates for identification with the natural numbers, but it has followed Frege hook, line and sinker with respect to the broad strategy of identifying numbers, and functions and relations, with sets. Freges legacy has significantly changed the agenda for any theory of universals which, like Platos, aspires to do justice to mathematics. It leaves three courses open for exploration. One course is that charted by Quine (1953, 1960), of allowing the existence of sets but not of any other nameable things which might be called universals, nor of any of Freges higher-order, unnameable universals. Another course is that of allowing the existence of nameable things other than sets: this is a course charted, for example, by Armstrong (1978). A third course allows

also the irreducible significance of higher-order quantification (Boolos 1975; Bigelow and Pargetter 1990).