Editing Problem of universals (section)

===Quine===

The noted American philosopher, [[W. V. O. Quine]] addressed the problem of universals throughout his career. In his paper, 'On Universals', from [[1947]], he states the problem of universals is chiefly understood as being concerned with entities and not the linguistic aspect of naming a universal. He says that Platonists believe that our ability to form general conceptions of things is incomprehensible unless universals exist outside of the mind, whereas nominalists believe that such ideas are 'empty verbalism'. Quine himself does not propose to resolve this particular debate. What he does say however is that certain types of 'discourse' presuppose universals: nominalists therefore must give these up. Quine's approach is therefore more an epistemological one, i.e. what can be known, rather than a metaphysical one, i.e. what is real.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Quine |first1=W. V. |title=On Universals |journal=The Journal of Symbolic Logic |date=September 1947 |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=74–84 |jstor=2267212|doi=10.2307/2267212 |s2cid=23766882 }}</ref>