Chapter 1 - “Real constituents of the world”

Summary

A BASIS FOR PREDICATION

Although the notion of particular is in need of some refinement, it can perhaps be accepted that the basic idea of a particular is familiar and not controversial. Certainly anyone today who wished to deny that there are particulars would have a lot of explaining to do. It is different with universals. The immanent realists' notion of universal is a metaphysician's idea, which not everyone regards as intuitively acceptable. But if, with Russell and Moore, we regard universals as “real constituents of the world”, along with particulars, we shall have to give an account of the notion of universal. It will have to be an account that brings out the way in which a universal is a real thing, something ontologically significant.

Frege notes that fundamental notions such as “concept”, and we may add “universal”, cannot have proper definitions. With such fundamental notions, “there is nothing for it but to lead the reader or hearer, by means of hints, to understand the words as intended”. What can be said about fundamental notions Frege calls an ‘explanation’; alternatively, it could be called a ‘characterization’. Our first aim, then, is to discuss a number of ways of characterizing the notion of universal that bring out the way in which a universal is a real constituent of the world.