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8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 5. Universals as Concepts

[universals taken to exist just as mental features]

7 ideas
If universals are not separate, we can isolate them by abstraction [Boethius, by Panaccio]
     Full Idea: Boethius argued that universals can be successfully isolated by abstraction, even if they do not exist as separate entities in the world.
     From: report of Boethius (Second Commentary on 'Isagoge' [c.517]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Sources'
     A reaction: Personally I rather like this unfashionable view. I can't think of any other plausible explanation, unless it is a less conscious psychological process of labelling. Boethius's idea led to medieval 'immanent realism'.
Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056
     A reaction: 'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist.
Universals are not objects of sense and cannot be imagined - but can be conceived [Reid]
     Full Idea: A universal is not an object of any sense, and therefore cannot be imagined; but it may be distinctly conceived.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 5: Abstraction [1785], 6)
     A reaction: If you try to imagine whiteness, what size is it, and what substance embodies it? Neither are needed to think of whiteness, so Reid is right. A nice observation.
If we identify whiteness with a thought, we can never think of it twice; whiteness is the object of a thought [Russell]
     Full Idea: If whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. What many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 9)
     A reaction: This seems to me a powerful argument in favour of thinking of universals as in some sense real - but in what sense? The crux is that Russell shows that we must find a place in our ontology for the content of thoughts, as well as of thoughts.
Using 'green' is a commitment to future usage of 'green' [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: If I say this is green, I must say that other things are green too. I am committed to a future usage.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VI.2)
     A reaction: This seems to suggest that the eternal verity of a universal concept is just a convention of stability in a language.
A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO]
     Full Idea: From a single-minded effort to move objects a child's activity grows into a detached reflection on the movements themselves. The objects are first perceived as distinct entities, and then as members of groups to be classified.
     From: Edmund O. Wilson (On Human Nature [1978], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This does not, of course, prove anything about the philosophical problems of universals, but it does seem to pinpoint the stage in human development when 'universals' are perceived. The basis seems to be groups or sets, but how do we spot those?
Prior to language, concepts are universals created by self-mapping of brain activity [Edelman/Tononi]
     Full Idea: Before language is present, concepts depend on the brain's ability to construct 'universals' through higher-order mapping of the activity of the brain's own perceptual and motor maps.
     From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.15)
     A reaction: It should be of great interest to philosophers that one can begin to give a neuro-physiological account of universals. A physical system can be ordered as a database, and universals are the higher branches of a tree-structure of information.