Lecture III Universals: nominalism Dr. Donnchadh O’Conaill (Donnchadh.oconaill@Helsinki.fi) 31/1/2017 406772 metaphysics 2016-17 university of Helsinki

1. Introduction: nominalism Nominalism: denies that universals exist Issues: (1) why accept nominalism? Objections to the coherence of realism Appeal to theoretical parsimony (2) What does the nominalist think exists? Nominalists disagree on this point (3) How can nominalists explain attribute agreement or abstract singular terms? Different versions of nominalism will offer different answers

2. Why nominalism? First argument Realist: universals exhibit multiple exemplification Nominalist: this is incoherent - the universal has contradictory features E.g., two red particulars a foot apart: ‘The colour red is a foot apart from itself’ Realist: universals themselves may not be located, but their instances are ‘One instance of red is a foot apart from another instance of red’ Or if universals are located, why can’t they be multiply located

Second argument What are identity conditions of universals? i.e., conditions for when entity a of this kind is identical to entity b of that kind Can’t always identify a universal by its instances: e.g., featherless biped and human being pick out the same range of particulars but are different universals Realist: we don’t need noncircular identity conditions e.g., identity conditions of material objects depend on the identity of other material objects – same for universals?

Third argument Doing metaphysics involves offering conceptions of reality, including positing different kinds of entity (ontology) “What justifies the postulation of these theoretical posits is just their role in explaining the relevant phenomena” Loux (2006), 51 Theoretical parsimony: we evaluate metaphysical theories by how few entities they require to explain phenomena

Ockham’s Razor: if an entity or kind of entity not needed to explain phenomenon, shouldn’t be posited Nominalist: “all the theoretical work done by the two-category ontology of the realist can be done by an ontological theory that commits us to the existence of entities of just one category, particulars” Loux, 51 But can nominalist explain all the relevant phenomena?

3. Austere nominalism Only things that exist: concrete particulars How to explain attribute agreement? Austere nominalist: no need to explain it! “it is an irreducibly basic fact about the world that different objects agree in attribute by all being yellow”, etc. Loux 53 ‘Socrates is courageous’: this is true if ‘Socrates’ names a particular, which is among the particulars which satisfy the predicate ‘courageous’

Should we be satisfied with this? One issue: what are predicates? Certain type of word or phrase These not just marks or sounds - must be meaningful, but this requries that they be repeatable, i.e., universals Second issue: which facts can we take as basic, not admitting of explanation? E.g., ‘courage’ can be predicated truly of Socrates – can we ask, what is it about Socrates which explains this?

Sentences with abstract singular terms: (4) ‘Wisdom is a virtue’ Austere nominalist: these are disguised claims about particulars Can translate such sentences into ones with general terms, e.g., ‘is wise’ ‘is red’ – so can eliminate abstract singular terms Loux: not clear if this works for all cases, e.g., (4) would translate into (5) ‘Wise persons are virtuous persons’ But this is false in some cases (pp. 57-58)

4. Metalinguistic nominalism Agree with austere nominalists regarding ontology: only concrete particulars exist Disagree regarding the analysis of abstract singular terms: Such sentences are “disguised ways of making claims about the linguistic expressions we use to talk about nonlinguistic objects” (Loux 63) Object language: sentences about nonlinguistic entities Meta-language: sentences about the object language

Carnap on abstract singular terms These sentences translate into sentences about the corresponding general terms: (4) into (6) ‘‘wisdom’ is a virtue predicate’ Problem: is this predicate a universal? Type / token distinction: how many letters has the word letter? 6 tokens: ‘l’ ‘e’ ‘t’ ‘t’ ‘e’ ‘r’, but 4 types: l, e, t, r In (6), ‘wisdom’ is a singular term, but doesn’t pick out any specific token – picks out a word type (linguistic universal)

Sellars on abstract singular terms Distributive singular term: expression like ‘the K’ – appears to name a universal, but just indicates a general claim about various Ks ‘The average family has 2.4 children’ This not about a universal average family, but about a set of particular families Can formulate metalinguistic claims as concerning token predicates (4) into (7) ‘Tokens of ‘wise’ are virtue predicates’

5. Trope theory Accept attributes, deny they are universals “it is metaphysically impossible for numerically distinct things to have numerically one and the same attribute” (Loux 72) Tropes: attribute had by one particular only Not a kind of attribute, “but these particular cases, this reddening, this occurrence or occasion of roundness, each as uniquely itself as a man, an earthquake, or a yell” (Williams 1953, 5) Different particulars can be exactly similar, but cannot share numerically identical attributes

Why posit tropes? Tropes are immediate objects of perception: we see the roundness of this apple, not the universal roundness Difficult for other nominalists to explain our perception of attributes Explains attribute agreement: objects are similar in virtue of having similar tropes What explains the similarity of tropes? This is primitive: each roundness trope similar to the others by its nature

What about abstract singular terms? They name sets of resembling tropes: e.g., ‘red’ = {the colour trope of this apple, the colour trope of that apple, ...} ‘The apple is red’: apple has a trope which belongs in this set (4) explained as follows: each member of the set ‘wise tropes’ is a member of the set ‘virtuous tropes’ Sets are not mysterious like universals: just certain groups of tropes

Problems with trope theory Sets individuated by their members: therefore, impossible for a set to have members other than it has E.g., no courageous individual could have been cowardly, and no cowardly individual could have been courageous Possible reply: the term ‘courageous’ would have picked out a different set Compare with ‘the planets’: refers to different sets before and after reclassification of Pluto

Next lecture: bundle theory…

Works cited Williams, D. C. (1953) ‘The Elements of Being I’ Review of Metaphysics 7 (1): 3-18