Hello everyone:

These are my rather terse study notes for topics on universals for the Metaphysics exam at UoL, which I took in 2012.

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Main points:

Arguments for an ontology with universals, Realism;
Arguments against, an ontology with particulars only, Nominalism.

Main texts for the above:

Loux, Metaphysics, 3rd ed., London: Routledge, 2006. Chapter 1 on realism and Chapter 2 on nominalism.

Kim and Sosa, A Companion to Metaphysics, ‘Universals,’ (by D.M. Armstrong). Basic, but a very good place to start.
 
Sider, Hawthorne, and Zimmerman, eds., Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics.

E.J. Lowe, The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Defense of realism within an overall defense of metaphysics as a whole. Good for seeing how modern realists put together a philosophical system.

Chihara, Ontology and the Vicious-Circle Principle, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973. Critique of ontological Platonism of Godel and Quine.

R. Bambrough, ‘Universals and family resemblances,’ in Proc. Aristotelian Society, vol. 61, pp. 207-222. Argues that Wittgenstein solved the problem of universals through his theory of family resemblance.

Exam questions

(2011 #2) ‘Universals are an ontological extravagance.’ Discuss.
(2010 #5) ‘Only particulars genuinely exist.’ Discuss.
(2009 #4) Are universals necessary elements in any adequate ontology?
(2008 #6) Is it coherent to suppose that the world could contain no particulars but only universals?
(2007 #6) ‘There are no universals, only particulars.’ Can this claim be successfully defended?

[There was a straightforward question about universals on the 2012 exam, no more devious than any of those above, but I didn't answer it. This topic was one of my "backup" questions.]

Concepts

Trope. Individual instance of a property, a concrete dependent particular. Example: Socrates’s paleness.

Substance. Independent concrete particular. Example: Socrates.

Three types of nominalism: (a) Bundle theory (Hume), any concrete particular is a bundle of tropes; (b) Substratum theory (Aristotle, Locke), any concrete particular contains nontrope elements; (c) Nuclear theory (atomists, Simons (Phil. & Phenom. Res., 1994)).

Universalists: Argue that universals genuinely exist.

Concretists: Argue that only concrete particulars exist.

Abstractionists accept that abstract objects, having neither spatial nor temporal location exist.

Ontologically extravagant

Define a universal.
Define ontology.
Decide what is meant by extravagant: dispensable, harmful?

A universal is something that can qualify objects anywhere or anytime. An example is color. Two billiard balls have the same color, say red, and it is red that makes the balls the same, so red must exist; it is what the two balls have in common.

Realists claim that one main strength of their theory is that it explains more than predication; it explains abstract reference, which the nominalist theories do not. For example: ‘Courage is a moral virtue.’ Only the metaphysical realist has the resources to explain how such propositions can be true [cf. Loux, pp. 26-7].

But Wittgenstein argued that word meaning reduced mainly to use in language, and that the phenomena of reference that the realists point to as a justification for why universals really exist are nothing more than family resemblances of usage within a linguistic community [cf. Bambrough]. But there is nothing really common to all these games, at least in the sense of being a necessary and sufficient condition, for example, for the meaning of ‘courage’.

Only particulars: Nominalism

The debate between metaphysical realists and nominalists arises because of the apparent agreement and disagreement between attributes and similarities between things:

For a realist:
  (i) When two objects agree in some way, there is a thing that they have in common;
  (ii) True subject-predicate statements can be accounted for by the realist;
  (iii) Abstract singular terms: Courage, justice, goodness; we can say things about them and attribute further properties to them, suggesting again that these actually refer to some entity;
  (iv) Predicates take universals as their referents, but this is via an argument that ‘A is P’ is really ‘A exemplifies P-ness’.

How general is metaphysical realism? Ancient viewpoints:
  (i) Plato’s metaphysical realism, using mathematics as its model, was based on ideal Forms which can be grasped by the intellect, are prior to ordinary sensory objects, transcendent, and are reflected imperfectly in the realm of appearances.
  (ii) Aristotle, using biology as the model for his metaphysics, held instead that the universals were instantiated in particular things, which were prior, such as the species Man or the genus Animal being dependent on instantiations within individual human beings, or goats, or spiders.

Logical problems for a generalized realism

Russell’s paradox: not every property can be exemplified by a thing.

The Third Man argument.
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So, those are the notes. You can see I just sketched the arguments and defined the basic terms. I knew Russell's paradox and the 3rd Man well enough to just list them. Also, there are standard realist replies to both of these, so, depending upon how the question is posed on the exam, I can work the answer as needed. Again, this was one of my backup topics, and I didn't answer on this in the 2012 exam. Thanks & hope this helps! Any comments or questions, let me know. --Ron

Hi Manuel:

I had a look at the Oxford Handbook of Phil of Maths, on that link you posted. Looks like an update to modern debates of the venerable Benacerraf and Putnam collection. I ordered a copy, just to be safe! Not sure that we'll be able to use these directly for UoL, but it looks like a very nice collection of papers nonetheless. Thanks for that link! --Ron

I hear you-I always felt like just going home and taking a nap after my exams this year. I guess we should all be about done by now, right? Congrats to everyone!
I am also a little concerned about the classes that have been cut out of the new program, Philosophy of Science was one I was especially interested in taking...

When I get some time, I'll publish some of my notes for these exams on the forum. If you need some relief, you might check out some of S. Peter Davis's 3 Minute Philosophy (rated R, for mature audiences only, by the way) tube videos:

Hello Ron,

Oh, yes, please do post some of your notes on Metaphysics. I'm taking it this coming year, and would help a lot if I knew how others work with their modules. I'll be posting some of my notes on Epistemology as soon as I can, but first I need to relax and enjoy a couple of days without thinking much about philosophy. I'm sure others feel like me too, that during exams your mind is saturated to the point that just the thought of going back and revisiting your notes makes you sick. Haha.

Oh, and, good to know you follow P. Davies' videos. Some of them are hilarious! I especially like that one about Aristotle... I **** up the first time, when he mentioned the essence of Adam Sandler. lol

Regards

No, I sat Logic, Plato and Epistemology this year, so I am all done, which was a huge relief...So, for better or worse, I am a quarter done with the degree, even under the new system.
Thanks for the advice.