| Metaphysics Essays |

Metaphyics: Question I

The Forms, according to Plato, are primary, unchanging, pure qualities of things, the first example given being "abstract Equality." All material objects "strive" to reach these Forms but fall short. In recognizing their exemplification- in recognizing their attempts at abstract Equality- Plato claims that they must merely remind us of that which we learned before this life.

A beautiful thing comes to be beautiful and remains that way only because it participates in the Form of Beauty. This concept of Beauty, and the other Forms, is unchanging and eternal. The characteristics of ordinary reality are merely inferior imitations to these eternal "Forms."

The universals, according to Russell, exist as qualities and relationships between things. Three reasons which prove their existence are 1) A thing could not possess a quality unless there was such a thing as this quality; 2) We could not know a thing possessed a quality unless we were familiar with this quality; 3) A quality could not possess meaning unless there were something for which it stood.

These qualities and relationships between things are universals, and this is the concept Russell uses to replace Plato’s concept of Forms. Further, one problem with Plato’s Forms is the paradox of self-prediction. Russell’s universals do not have this problem, indeed they do not exist at all- they "subsist."

I think that Russell’s theory is indeed an improvement over Plato’s, as it does not contain the paradox of predicting one’s own existence as the Forms do; Russell’s argument appears much more feasible. The definition of universals as qualities and relationships is a more logical choice than the presupposition of the Forms.

Question II

Quine (in "On What There Is") takes the position that universals do not exist. He aims to use the simplest theory necessary to distill our perceptions into a way of viewing things. In examining the relationship between schools of thought, he concludes that there is continuity independent of any system, hence a "holism." In this view, all sciences including philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, biology, physics, and chemistry are interrelated and can be tied together into an integrated perspective.

In his breakdown of universals, he denies their existence.

Universals do not exist in and of themselves. Further, they can be broken down into a simpler description of "predicates" and this can be further broken down into "concrete utterances (p. 326). Since this is a simpler way of viewing things, and we should avoid more complex ways of interpreting ideas, we reach a conclusion that universals do not exist (perhaps this principle has similarities to Occam’s Razor).

Russell takes a contradictory stance on the existence of universals. His conclusion is that they do exist, in fact the genesis of the concept evolved from his writings. Russell claims that an object could not possess a characteristic unless there was such a thing as the objective reality of that characteristic. In addition, we could not recognize that a thing possessed such a quality unless we were previously acquainted with this quality.

Further, Russell claims that the words used to describe things could not possess meaning unless there were a specific thing for which they stood. This reason and the metaphysical and epistemological ones previously examined are sufficient to prove the existence of universals to Russell.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, as recounted by Renford Bambrough takes A third perspective on universals. Wittgenstein claims that universals are actually an attempt to describe "family resemblance" which illustrate relations between things which are said to be the in the same family. This relationship, while obvious to us, may not be a distinguishing feature possessed by each member of the family.

For example, the set of all things we call "games" are called games not because of any one characteristic they possess which makes them a "game," but that they bear a family resemblance which we choose to call "games." This distinction drawn between those things called "games" and those things that are not games is arbitrary and self-defined. In effect, Wittgenstein takes the idea of universals and redefines it in a context with deeper introspection.

This restructuring of Russell’s contemporary paradigm allows for a position that is neither nominalist nor realist, but is determined by the objective value of our definitions. The fate of universals then rests upon this contrast between objective and subjective differentiation.