Editing Problem of universals (section)

==Modern and contemporary philosophy==

===Hegel===
The 19th-century German philosopher [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] discussed the relation of universals and particulars throughout his works. Hegel posited that both exist in a dialectical relationship to one another; that is, one exists only in relation and in reference to the other.

He stated the following on the issue:

{{Blockquote |The parts are diverse and independent of each other. They are, however, only parts in their identical relation to each other, or insofar as they, taken together, constitute the whole. But this togetherness is the opposite of the part.|G.W.F. Hegel|''[[Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences]]'' (1830)|}}

===Mill===
{{See also|Psychologism}}
The 19th-century British philosopher [[John Stuart Mill]] discussed the problem of universals in the course of a book that eviscerated the philosophy of Sir [[Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet|William Hamilton]]. Mill wrote, "The formation of a concept does not consist in separating the attributes which are said to compose it from all other attributes of the same object and enabling us to conceive those attributes, disjoined from any others. We neither conceive them, nor think them, nor cognize them in any way, as a thing apart, but solely as forming, in combination with numerous other attributes, the idea of an individual object".

However, he then proceeds to state that Berkeley's position is factually wrong by stating the following:

{{Blockquote |But, though meaning them only as part of a larger agglomeration, we have the power of fixing our attention on them, to the neglect of the other attributes with which we think them combined. While the concentration of attention lasts, if it is sufficiently intense, we may be temporarily unconscious of any of the other attributes and may really, for a brief interval, have nothing present to our mind but the attributes constituent of the concept.|as quoted in William James|''[[The Principles of Psychology]]'' (1890)|}}

In other words, we may be "temporarily unconscious" of whether an image is white, black, yellow or purple and concentrate our attention on the fact that it is a man and on just those attributes necessary to identify it as a man (but not as any particular one). It may then have the significance of a universal of manhood.

===Peirce===
The 19th-century American logician [[Charles Sanders Peirce]], known as the father of [[pragmatism]], developed his own views on the problem of universals in the course of a review of an edition of the writings of George Berkeley. Peirce begins with the [[observation]] that "Berkeley's [[metaphysics|metaphysical]] theories have at first sight an air of paradox and levity very unbecoming to a bishop".<ref>Peirce, C.S. (1871), Review: Fraser's Edition of the ''Works of George Berkeley'' in ''North American Review'' 113(October):449-72, reprinted in ''[[Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography#CP|Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce]]'' v. 8, paragraphs 7-38 and in ''[[Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography#W|Writings of Charles S. Peirce]]'' v. 2, pp. 462-486. ''Peirce Edition Project'' [http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/writings/v2/w2/w2_48/v2_48.htm Eprint].</ref> He includes among these paradoxical doctrines Berkeley's denial of "the possibility of forming the simplest general conception". He wrote that if there is some mental fact that works ''in practice'' the way that a universal would, that fact is a universal. "If I have learned a formula in gibberish which in any way jogs my memory so as to enable me in each single case to act as though I had a general idea, what possible utility is there in distinguishing between such a gibberish... and an idea?" Peirce also held as a matter of [[ontology]] that what he called "thirdness", the more general facts about the world, are extra-mental realities.

===James===
[[William James]] [[Pragmaticism#Pragmatism's origin|learned about pragmatism]]<!--, this way of understanding an idea by its practical effects, from his friend Peirce, but he gave it new significance – which was not to Peirce's taste: he came to complain that James had "kidnapped" the term and eventually to call himself a "pragmaticist" instead-->. Though James certainly agreed with Peirce and against Berkeley that general ideas exist as a psychological fact, he was a nominalist in his ontology:

{{Blockquote | From every point of view, the overwhelming and portentous character ascribed to universal conceptions is surprising. Why, from Plato and Aristotle, philosophers should have vied with each other in scorn of the knowledge of the particular and in adoration of that of the general, is hard to understand, seeing that the more adorable knowledge ought to be that of the more adorable things and that the things of worth are all concretes and singulars. The only value of universal characters is that they help us, by reasoning, to know new [[truth]]s about individual things.|William James|''[[The Principles of Psychology]]'' (1890)|}}

There are at least three ways in which a realist might try to answer James' challenge of explaining the reason why universal conceptions are more lofty than those of particulars: the moral–political answer, the mathematical–scientific answer, and the anti-paradoxical answer. Each has contemporary or near-contemporary advocates.

===Weaver===
The moral or political response is given by the conservative philosopher [[Richard M. Weaver]] in ''[[Ideas Have Consequences]]'' (1948), where he describes how the acceptance of "the fateful doctrine of nominalism" was "the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence".<ref name="Hoeveler1991">{{cite book|author=J. David Hoeveler|title=Watch on the right: conservative intellectuals in the Reagan era|url=https://archive.org/details/watchonrightcons00hoev|url-access=registration|access-date=3 January 2011|date=15 February 1991|publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press|isbn=978-0-299-12810-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/watchonrightcons00hoev/page/16 16]}}</ref><ref name="Scotchie1995">{{cite book|author=Joseph Scotchie|title=The vision of Richard Weaver|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eHUZ7Mjv4WMC&pg=PA112|access-date=3 January 2011|date=1 January 1995|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-56000-212-3|pages=112}}</ref>

===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>

===Cocchiarella===
[[Nino Cocchiarella]] put forward the idea that realism is the best response to certain logical paradoxes to which nominalism leads ("Nominalism and Conceptualism as Predicative Second Order Theories of Predication", ''[[Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic]]'', vol. 21 (1980)). It is noted that in a sense Cocchiarella has adopted Platonism for anti-Platonic reasons. Plato, as seen in the dialogue ''[[Parmenides (dialogue)|Parmenides]]'', was willing to accept a certain amount of paradox with his forms. Cocchiarella adopts the forms to avoid paradox.

===Armstrong===
The Australian philosopher [[David Malet Armstrong]] has been one of the leading realists in the twentieth century, and has used a concept of universals to build a naturalistic and scientifically realist ontology. In both ''Universals and Scientific Realism'' (1978) and ''Universals: An Opinionated Introduction'' (1989), Armstrong describes the relative merits of a number of nominalist theories which appeal either to "natural classes" (a view he ascribes to [[Anthony Quinton, Baron Quinton|Anthony Quinton]]), concepts, resemblance relations or predicates, and also discusses non-realist "trope" accounts (which he describes in the ''Universals and Scientific Realism'' volumes as "particularism"). He gives a number of reasons to reject all of these, but also dismisses a number of realist accounts.

===Penrose===
[[Roger Penrose]] contends that the [[philosophy of mathematics|foundations of mathematics]] can't be understood without the Platonic view that "mathematical truth is absolute, external and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria ... mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own..."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Penrose|first1=Roger|title=The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics|url=https://archive.org/details/emperorsnewmindc00penr|url-access=registration|date=1989|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780198519737|page=[https://archive.org/details/emperorsnewmindc00penr/page/151 151]}}</ref>