>
Philosophy Dictionary of Arguments
Home
Universals: Universals are expressions for what objects can have in common, such as a particular color. Examples of universals are redness, roundness, value. The ontological status of universals as something independent of thought - that is, their existence - is controversial. What is undisputed is that we form terms to generalize and use them successfully. See also General terms, Generality, Generalization, Ontology, Existence, Conceptual realism, Realism, Ideas, Methexis, Sortals, Conceptualism, Nominalism._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.
Author
Concept
Summary/Quotes
Sources
St. Schiffer on Universals - Dictionary of Arguments
I 237
Properties/universals/reference/Schiffer: "modesty" and "red" refer to nothing.
>Reference, >Generality.
N.B.: therefore the grammatical singular terms need no reference.
>Singular terms.
Then no compositional semantics is needed.
>Compositionality.
Understanding of the sentence "Teresa is modest" needs no acquaintance with humility.
Logical form by E.g. "Modesty is a virtue": not more fine-grained than "P".
>Fine-grained/coarse-grained.
That -clause: has no referent.
>That-clauses.
A grammatical singular term does not have to be a logically a singular expression._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals
indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate
the page number. The corresponding books
are indicated on the right hand side.
((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Schi I
St. Schiffer
Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-25