The Problem of Universals

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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There’s a couple related questions having to do with the existence (or lack thereof) of concepts known in philosophy as Universals. A Universal can be thought of as a “multiply exemplifiable object,” or a concept which is thought to participate in all the particular instances of an idea. There’s a couple ways of phrasing the problem of universals:

(1) Ontological: Does anything in the real world conform to universal concepts, i.e., do universals exist?

(2) Epistemological: How can we Know anything about reality at all? Is knowledge based on knowledge of particulars or universals?

(3) Psychological: How is it that universal concepts arise in the mind? What is the mechanism whereby consciousness percieves universality from arrangments of particulars?

There’s also a couple of traditional ways of approaching these questions.

Firstly, there’s Realism: universals exist, and would continue to exist even if no minds existed to comprehend them. They are independent of human mental events. Things are called white because they are white.

Secondly, there’s Conceptualism. In this schema, universals exist because of and as long as minds exist to percieve and contemplate them. Universals are linked strongly to the patterns of human thought. A universal concept has relevance because it reflects the thinking entity which categorizes and extrapolates second-order qualities from the particular phenomena to which the mind is exposed. However, from this perspective, one has difficulty explaining whether universals exist if there is thought which is nonverbal or nonlinguistic.

Thirdly, there’s Nominalism. This is the Positivist take on universals. Universals in this scheme exist only as words; that is, universals exist as long as there are words. Without minds and without language, there would be no universals. This is a more modern approach, and runs into the absolute/relativism debate we’ve been having in other threads. In this scheme, things are white because they are called white.

Do you fall in one of these categories? Or is there a view I’m leaving out? What do you think of the problem of universals?

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JoeTheMan

Alot of your thoughts resemble mine and I have explained them all in my stay on ILP, just search my past posts if you are interested.

universals are best explained by an example of chairs. do chairs exist? when I see a group of chairs, some have 3 legs, some have 5 legs some have 1 legs, and different shape and sizes. how can I claim a chair exist? if I say because I can sit on it. then I bring what we call a bed. since you can sit on a bed, does a bed become a chair since it also serves the sitting function?

really, this is all a language game. a universal only exist if accepted universally by men. so if we all agree that there are cats, then cats exist.

all cats are different, so they are all particulars, but you mentioned correctly the psychological aspect of them. which I believe cognitive psychology lables as ‘schemas’ it would be interesting to do some research on it. we can recognise universals because of schemas, and because all humans have schemas, universals come into existence.

I hope that helps. if not, please criticise me as much as you want, I love a good bout.