[Home]Aristotles theory of universals

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Aristotle's theory of universals is one of the classic solutions to the problem of universals. Aristotle thought--to put it in a not-very-enlightening way--that universals are simply types, properties?, or relations? that are common to their various instances. On Aristotle's view, universals exist only where they are instantiated; they exist only in things (he said they exist in re, which means simply "in things"), never apart from things. Beyond this Aristotle said that a universal is something identical in each of its instances. So all red things are similar in that there is the same universal, redness, in each red thing. There is no Platonic form of redness, standing apart from all red things; instead, in each red thing there is the same universal, redness.

Hence, Aristotle disagreed with Plato's brand of realism by saying that universals do exist in space and time. They exist all around us, rather than in some Platonic heaven.

To further flesh out Aristotle's theory of universals, it is useful to consider how the theory might satisfy the constraints on theories of universals listed in the problem of universals article.

This obviously needs expansion--even just to become an adequate minimal presentation of Aristotle's theory.


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Last edited November 3, 2001 5:47 am by Larry Sanger (diff)
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