1. Lecture III Universals: nominalism
Dr. Donnchadh O’Conaill
31/1/2017
metaphysics university of Helsinki

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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?

5. 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

6. 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?

7. 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’

8. 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?

9. 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 )

10. 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

11. 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)

12. 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’

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. Next lecture: bundle theory…

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