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Full Idea
Mereological Nominalism views a property as the omnitemporal whole or aggregate of all the things said to have the property, so whiteness is a huge white object whose parts are all the white things.
Clarification
'Mereological' means explaining relationships between parts and whotes
Gist of Idea
'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things
Source
David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503)
Book Ref
'A Companion to Metaphysics', ed/tr. Kim,Jaegwon/Sosa,Ernest [Blackwell 1995], p.503
A Reaction
A charming proposal, in which bizarre and beautiful unities thread themselves across the universe, but white objects may also be soft and warm.
| 4440 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' finds that in practice the construction of resemblance classes is hard [Armstrong] |
| 4439 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' says properties are resemblances between classes of particulars [Armstrong] |
| 4432 | 'Concept Nominalism' says a 'universal' property is just a mental concept applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 4431 | 'Predicate Nominalism' says that a 'universal' property is just a predicate applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
| 4433 | Concept and predicate nominalism miss out some predicates, and may be viciously regressive [Armstrong] |
| 4436 | 'Class Nominalism' may explain properties if we stick to 'natural' sets, and ignore random ones [Armstrong] |
| 4434 | 'Class Nominalism' says that properties or kinds are merely membership of a set (e.g. of white things) [Armstrong] |
| 4435 | 'Class Nominalism' cannot explain co-extensive properties, or sets with random members [Armstrong] |
| 4437 | 'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things [Armstrong] |
| 4438 | 'Mereological Nominalism' may work for whiteness, but it doesn't seem to work for squareness [Armstrong] |
| 4444 | One moderate nominalist view says that properties and relations exist, but they are particulars [Armstrong] |
| 4445 | If properties and relations are particulars, there is still the problem of how to classify and group them [Armstrong] |
| 4446 | It is claimed that some universals are not exemplified by any particular, so must exist separately [Armstrong] |
| 4448 | Should we decide which universals exist a priori (through words), or a posteriori (through science)? [Armstrong] |