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On Universals1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

W. V. Quine
W. V. Quine*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

The philosophical dispute over whether there are universale, or abstract entities, is not a dispute over the admissibility of general terms. Both sides will agree that general terms, e.g. ‘man,’ and perhaps even abstract singular terms such as ‘mankind’ and ‘7’, are meaningful, in the sense at least of participating in statements which as wholes are true or false. Where the platonists (as I shall call those who accept universale) differ from their opponents, the nominalists, is in positing a realm of entities, universals, corresponding to such general or abstract words.

The platonist is likely to regard the word ‘man’ as naming a universal, the class of men or the property of being a man, much as the word ‘Caesar’ names the concrete object Caesar. Actually, however, this is an extraneous detail. The platonist could equally well concur with the nominalist in the view that general terms, though meaningful in context, are not names at all.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Symbolic Logic , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1947 , pp. 74 - 84
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1947

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Footnotes

1

The first half of this paper corresponds closely to the first half of the paper On the problem of universals which I read before the Association for Symbolic Logic on February 8, 1947. The latter half of this paper, on the other hand, is new. Of the remaining half of the paper of February 8, a portion will appear in expanded form as part of a paper which I am preparing in collaboration with Professor Goodman. The stimulation of the present paper, also, came largely from discussions with him.

References

2 A contrary view was expressed by Lazerowitz, Morris, The existence of universals, Mind, n. s. vol. 40 (1946), pp. 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 I have argued this point at greater length in Notes on existence and necessity, The journal of philosophy, vol. 40 (1943), pp. 113–127.

4 Fitch, Frederic B., Modal functions in two-valued logic, this Journal, vol. 2 (1937), pp. 125–128.Google Scholar

5 Hahn, Hans, Ueberflüssige Wesenheiten (Vienna, 1930), p. 22.Google Scholar

6 Tarski, Alfred, Einige Betrachtungen über die Begriffe der ω-Widerspruchsfreiheit und der ω-Vollsländigkeit, Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, vol. 40 (1933), pp. 97–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 The nominalist of subjectivist bent will want to construe his individuals as sense data, perhaps, instead of material objects; but no doubt he will agree on the matter of finitude.

8 So also if he regards his zero-type entities as sense data; see preceding footnote.