Blackwell Reference Online

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Theories of universals, the supposed referents of general terms, fall into three basic classes, which I shall call P-theories, A-theories, and T-theories. The theory featured in Plato's Republic is an example of a P-theory; the theory commonly ascribed to Aristotle is an A-theory; and the “trope” theories expounded by Donald Williams and Keith Campbell are T-theories. (If the reader associates “P” with Plato, “A” with Aristotle, and “T” with trope, my exposition will be easier to follow.) T-theories and A-theories are more commonly held today than P-theories, but they involve a serious error about predication, which P-theories easily avoid. In this essay I shall support the claim that T-and A-theories involve this error, and I shall develop and defend a P-theory that avoids it. Although I introduced the expression “A-theory” by reference to Aristotle, I could just as well have referred to D. M. Armstrong, for his theory is a striking contemporary instance of the sort of theory I have in mind. According to him, a universal is an absolutely determinate feature (a quality or relation) that may exist at many different places at the same time; it is a “repeatable” entity. The basic reason he gives for thinking that such repeatables exist is that different particulars have what appears to be the same nature and that this sameness of nature cannot be explained away. There is such a ... log in or subscribe to read full text