Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:51:01.494Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Universals and Particulars an a Phenomenalist Ontology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

E. D. Klemke*
Affiliation:
De Pauw University

Abstract

A phenomenalist philosophy which employs the Principle of Acquaintance (PA) plus the Principle that what exists are the referents of certain meaningful terms, defined by PA, cannot include either universals or particulars in its ontology, but is limited to instances of universals as constituting the range of ontological existents. Universals must be omitted since they are repeatable and, hence, never wholly presented or contained, whereas the objects of direct acquaintance are wholly and exhaustively presented. Furthermore, no entities beyond characters (qualities and relations) are given in direct acquaintance; hence, particulars, too, must be omitted for the phenomenalist who relies on PA.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 E.g., G. Bergmann, The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Longmans, Green and Co., 1954.

2 I hardly know what notation to use here.

3 The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford, 1912; reset, 1946), p. 96.

4 I.e., with universal, not this instance of it. (This is a meaningful question for this position.)

5 In the latter case, the question is even more inappropriate. Or, if not, then it could perhaps be dealt with by the use of paradigms.