more on this theme     |     more from this thinker


Single Idea 10395

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals ]

Full Idea

Abelard was an irrealist about universals, but also about propositions, events, times other than the present, natural kinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, and the like. The concrete individual is enough to populate the world.

Gist of Idea

Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals

Source

report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2

Book Ref

'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.6


A Reaction

If a Nominalist claims that 'only particulars exist', this makes him an extreme nominalist, and remarkably materialistic for his time (though he accepted the soul, as well as God).


The 8 ideas from 'works'

Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P]
If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P]
Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P]
Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio]
The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein]
Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard]
Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio]
Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P]