The Problem of Universals

[W]e in no wise hold that universal nouns are, when, their things having been destroyed, they are~not predicable of many things inasmuch as they are not common to my things, as for example the name of the rose when there are no longer roses, but it would still, nevertheless, be significative by the understanding, although it would lack nomination; otherwise there would not be the proposition, There is no rose.
- Peter Abelard, Glosses on Porphyry (Translation by Richard McKeon, 1929. in Hyman and Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 1973.

Do universals exist?

The problem of universals is a tricky little logical problem that most medieval philosophers worried over. It actually harks back to Plato's Ideas (Forms), which were universals, and back even further to the oldest philosophical issue, the problem of the One and the Many. Tom, Dick and Harry are particulars, individuals. Man is a universal. We know that Tom, Dick and Harry are real; they actually exist. But does man exist?

The realists (for examples Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine) believed that universals are real and that they exist independently of the mind. You could destroy all the minds there are and these universals would still exist.

The nominalists (for examples Roscelin of Compiegne, William of Ockham, and Thomas Hobbes) believed that all that is real is particular, and that therefore universals are just words, just noises, which at best apply only to resemblances among real things.

The conceptualists (for examples , Peter Abelard and St. Thomas Aquinas) believed that universals exist in the mind as concepts. If there were no minds there would be no universals. But there are real likenesses among things that lead us to think of them in concepts. Why was this problem interesting to the medievals? Because of two doctrines of Christianitys: original sin and the Trinity. The doctrine of originial sin holds that "In Adam's fall we sinned all"-that, because of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, human nature itself--mankind (a universal property in all individual people)--was corrupted. We all are sinners in need of salvation, on this view. But of course this seems to make sense only from a realist point of view. The universal mankind, or humanity , which is found in all us individuals, was corrupted by Adam. But if universals are just words, as the nominalist believes, then this doctrine makes no sense.

And if the conceptualist is right, all people share a likeness. But that likeness could hardly be the basis for the doctrine of original sin. The doctrine of the Trinity likewise depends upon the universal Godhood in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share. A realist could make perfect sense of this : one Godhood in three Godheads. But the nominalist would have to believe there were three Gods-a heresy in medieval times. And a conceptualist would have to say that the universal Godhood exists in the mind, but that there is only a likeness among three Gods--again,heresy. So, important Christian doctrines hung on the solution of this problem. And the problem comes up again in modern and contemporary philosophy. For example, we might ask: Is there such a thing as justice, over and above the particular goings-on in courts of law? Or is justice just a word?

Bibliography

Loux, Michael J. (editor): Universals and Particulars, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1970.

Mead, Marions Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard, Avon Books, New York, 1980.