more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
Abelard argued from the commonly accepted definition of a universal as 'what can be predicated of man', that no external thing can ever be predicated of anything.
Gist of Idea
Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object
Source
report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter'
Book Ref
'Routledge Companion to Metaphysics', ed/tr. Le Poidevin/Simons etc [Routledge 2012], p.50
A Reaction
It sounds to me as if Abelard is confusing predicates with properties! Maybe no external can be a property of anything, but I take predicates to just be part of what you can say about anything, and that had better included external facts.
| 10397 | Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 10396 | If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 10395 | Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P] |
| 15384 | Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| 8481 | The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein] |
| 15385 | Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard] |
| 15383 | Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| 10398 | Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P] |