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Forms, Qualities, Resemblance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
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Long after we have abandoned belief in a Cosmic Law Giver, still we cling to the word ‘law’ in science. It is in this same way that we cannot let go of the substantializing and pluralizing ‘universal’, even though its literal sense indicates a kind of turning, a ‘one-turning’, (uni-versal) rather than a kind of thing. Yet ‘the problem of Universals’ is supposed to have become, again, a ‘compulsory examination question’ for philosophers. Let us reveal how this tradition begins for us.
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References
1 ‘Any comprehensive philosophy must try to give some account of Moorean facts. (Armstrong had alleged that “different things may have something in common” is a Moorean fact.) They constitute the compulsory questions in the philosophical examination paper’. (In ‘Against “Ostrich” Nominalism’. Armstrong, D., Pacific Phil. Q. Vol 61. 1980 p. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Also, see his A Theory of Universals: Nominalism and Realism Vol I. (Cambridge U.P. 1978), p. 16.Google Scholar
2 The usual account of the development is from the search for definitions in the early eristic dialogues, via the theory of recollection in the Meno, the search for proofs of immortality in the Phaedo, through to the attempt to provide an ontological basis for political authority in the later books of the Republic. Works which develop themes about knowledge, logic and language (particularly the Theaetetus, Sophist and Parmenides) represent the critical displacement of the theory of forms.
3 Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Euthyphro.
4 Meno, 80d.Google Scholar
5 The Philosophical Imaginary, Doeuff, Michèle Le (Athlone 1989, Ch. 1, p. 8).Google Scholar
6 See any of the early dialogues listed above.
7 A term invented on an inspiration from Wilson, George's ‘Cheap Materialism’ in Midwest Studies in Philosophy IV (University of Wisconsin Press, 1979).Google Scholar
8 A short selection: Vlastos, G.' ‘The Third Man in the Parmenides’. Phil. Rev. LXIII 07 1954Google Scholar, Strang, Colin's ‘Plato and the Third Man’ (note also his bibliography) in Plato I ed. Vlastos, G., (University of Notre Dame Press 1978)Google Scholar; Armstrong, D.'s ‘Infinite regress Arguments and the problem of Universals’ in (A. J. P. 12 1974)Google Scholar, and Nerlich, G.'s ‘Universals: Escaping Armstrong's Regress’ (A. J. P. 05 1976).Google Scholar
9 Kant, 's Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Smith, Kemp (London: Macmillan 1970, Book II, Ch. III, p. 257)Google Scholar
10 Principia Ethica, Moore, G. E., Ch. I, Sections 7–15Google Scholar
11 The thought is inspired by a similar one Wittgenstein presented for a different reason—to expose a source of the feeling that ‘blue’ simply means my sensation of blue—in Philosophical Investigations paras. 275–277. See also paras 73–74.
12 A short list: Lewis, D.' On the Plurality of WorldsGoogle Scholar. Armstrong, D.'s A Theory of UniversalsGoogle Scholar, Tooley, M.'s A Realist Theory of CausationGoogle Scholar. But worse than these full-frontal adoptions of gross metaphysical categories, is the repetitive and thoughtless employment of them in contexts where the problem being considered could not even be stated without them. See ‘Mind, Brain and Causation’ by Mackie, J.Google Scholar, ‘Causality, Identity and Supervenience’ by Kim, J.Google Scholar, and ‘Identity, Properties and Causality’ by Shoemaker, S., in Midwest Studies (op. cit.)Google Scholar
13 One could develop the idea of working more with the notion of ‘about’ rather than developing ontologies of properties, universals, etc.
14 Locke, 's Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II, Ch. XVIII, §2.Google Scholar
15 Martin, C. B., in ‘Substance Substantiated’, (A. J. P. 03 1980)Google Scholar, develops a promising line of thought on the interdependence of ‘substance’ and ‘quality’, but, as I see it, still stays too much in the material mode of speech.
16 See any of those works listed under 12 above. Armstrong, in A Theory of Universals is particularly insistent on proceeding without reflecting on meaning. He alludes, without defence, to his practice in the introduction to the later Universals—an Opinionated View. (Westview 1989), pp. xii, 1, 85–87Google Scholar. He seems to think that the need to understand the meaning of what one says can be dismissed as some quirk of the ‘later Wittgenstein’.
17 Armstrong, in A Theory of Universals, Vol I again, Chapter 5.Google Scholar
18 For a brief and relatively perspicuous example of the recent attempts still to pit ‘nominalism’ against ‘realism’ see the interchange between Armstrong, and Devitt, in the Pacific Phil. Quarterly, Vol. 61, 1980, pp. 433–449.Google Scholar
19 See, for example, Baudrillard, Jean's Simulacres et Simulation Éditions Galilée, 1981.Google Scholar
20 A particularly significant turning point was, I think, Analytical Philosophy (Second Series) ed. Butler, R.Google Scholar. See his introduction. A reaction against some of what was going on can be found in my review in Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXVII, No. 4, 10 1968, pp. 500–508.Google Scholar
21 An allusion to a collection of Derrida's papers published under that title.