The Problem of Universals
DOWNLOAD
FREE
|
Plato - forms, universals, ideas - the problem of universals
Equations are omitted for technical reasons - download the original pdf
Plato was primarily led to the belief that there exists a realm of Forms through his examination of abstract general terms. Bertrand Russell in The Problems of Philosophy explains this as follows. "The way the problem arose for Plato was more or less as follows. Let us consider, say, such a notion as justice. If we ask ourselves what justice is, it is natural to proceed by considering this, that, and the other just act, with a view to discovering what they have in common. They must all, in some sense, partake of a common nature, which will be found in whatever is just and in nothing else. This common nature, in virtue of which they are all just, will be justice itself, the pure essence the admixture of which with facts of ordinary life produces the multiplicity of just acts. Similarly with any other word which may be applicable to common facts, such as "whiteness" for example. The word will be applicable to a number of particular things because they all participate in a common nature or essence. This pure essence is what Plato calls an 'idea' or 'form'. (It must not be supposed that 'ideas', in his sense, exist in minds, though they may be apprehended by minds.) The 'idea' justice is not 'identical' with anything that is just: it is something other than particular things, which particular things partake of. Not being particular, it cannot itself exist in the world of sense. Moreover, it is not fleeting or changeable like the things of sense: it is eternally itself, immutable and indestructible." Russell rejects Plato's further arguments; he also rejects Plato's use of terms like "ideas" and "forms" and proposes the term "universal" instead. "We speak of whatever is given in sensation, or is of the same nature as things given in sensation, as a particular; by opposition to this, a universal will be anything which may be shared by many particulars, and has those characteristics which, as we saw, distinguish justice and whiteness from just acts and white things. It may also be helpful to think of universals as structures. We experience the world largely unconsciously. When, for instance, we look at red flowers, we may, but often do not, form conscious judgements about what we see. We may say to ourselves, or our friends, "What lovely red flowers!" but usually we don't. We just look at the flowers. Therefore, we are not generally conscious of anything other than the particular flowers. However, the argument that we are examining here asks us to consider that there are two components to the experience of particular flowers. These can only be separated in thought. The first component is the unique content of the experience – these flowers and no others. The second component is the element that they share with other experiences – the structure of the experience – that they are flowers and that they are red – properties that they share with other particulars. So what is being suggested is that the structure of experience is universal and cannot be derived form particular experience. Russell, who is very friendly to empiricism, nonetheless agrees. In this passage he is discussing the attempt of Berkeley and Hume to deny the existence of abstract properties. "But a difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we know that a thing is white or a triangle. If we wish to avoid the universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to a universal. Since there are many white things, the resemblance must hold between many pairs of particular white things; and this is the characteristic of a universal. It will be useless to say that there is a different resemblance for each pair, for then we shall have to say that these resemblances resemble each other, and thus at last we shall be forced to admit a resemblance as a universal. The relation of resemblance, therefore, must be a true universal. And having been forced to admit this universal, we find that it is no longer worth while to invent difficult and implausible theories to avoid the admission of such universals as whiteness and triangularity." This, then, is the problem of universals. The expression problem of universals also needs some consideration. The problem is a problem primarily for empiricism; for rationalists, universals are the cornerstone of their logical argument that there is knowledge not derivable from experience. However, once they acknowledge that universals do exist, there may be the problem of explaining how such knowledge is possible, and how such knowledge combines with particular experiences. If experience has two elements to it – the particular and the universal, how do the two elements combine?
|
Contents of
The Problem of Universals
1 Hume, Empiricism - that ideas are copies of impressions
2 Plato and his argument in The Meno: the doctrine of recollection and the idea of metempsychosis
3 Plato - forms, universals, ideas - the problem of universals
4 Universals and realism
5 Empiricism and nominalism - Hobbes
6 The problem of participation and the infiinte regress in the third man argument
7 Wittgenstein and his attack on universals
|
