Editing Problem of universals (section)

=== Boethius ===
The problem was introduced to the medieval world by [[Boethius]] (c. 480–524 AD), by his translation of [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]]'s ''[[Isagoge]]''. It begins:

"I shall omit to speak about genera and species, as to whether they subsist (in the nature of things) or in mere conceptions only; whether also if subsistent, they are bodies or incorporeal, and whether they are separate from, or in, sensibles, and subsist about these, for such a treatise is most profound, and requires another more extensive investigation".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_isagogue_02_translation.htm|title=Porphyry, Introduction (or Isagoge) to the logical Categories of Aristotle (1853) vol. 2. pp.609-633.|last=Porphyry|website=www.tertullian.org}}</ref>

Boethius, in his commentaries on the aforementioned translation, says that a universal, if it were to exist, has to apply to several particulars entirely. He also specifies that they apply simultaneously at once and not in a temporal succession. He reasons that they cannot be mind-independent, i.e. they do not have a real existence, because a quality cannot be both one thing and common to many particulars in such a way that it forms part of a particular's substance, as it would then be partaking of [[Universality (philosophy)|universality]] and particularity. However, he also says that universals can't also be of the mind since a mental construct of a quality is an abstraction and understanding of something outside of the mind. He concludes that either this representation is a true understanding of the quality, in which case we revert to the earlier problem faced by those who believe universals are real; or, if the mental abstractions were not a true understanding, then 'what is understood otherwise than the thing is false'.<ref name="Stanford Universals" />

His solution to this problem was to state that the mind is able to separate in thought what is not necessarily separable in reality. He cites the human mind's ability to abstract from concrete particulars as an instance of this. This, according to Boethius, avoids the problem of Platonic universals being out there in the real world, but also the problem of them being purely constructs of the mind in that universals are simply the mind thinking of particulars in an abstract, universal way.<ref name="Stanford Universals" /> His assumption focuses on the problems that language create. Boethius maintained that the structure of language corresponds to the structure of things and that language creates what he regarded as philosophical babble of confused and contradictory accounts of the nature of things.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sweeney|first=Eileen|title=Logic, Theology and Poetry in Boethius, Anselm, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Absence of Things|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2016|isbn=978-1-349-73540-2|location=New York|pages=9–10}}</ref> To illustrate his view, suppose that although the mind cannot think of 2 or 4 as an odd number, as this would be a false representation, it can think of an even number that is neither 2 nor 4.{{huh|date=March 2025}}{{or|date=March 2025}}