universals ancient philosophy introduction

SEMINARI E CONVEGNI

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Universals in Ancient Philosophy

edited byRiccardo Chiaradonna Gabriele Galluzzo

Table of contents

Introduction Riccardo Chiaradonna, Gabriele Galluzzo 1

Universals before Universals: Some Remarks on Plato in His Context Mauro Bonazzi 23

Plato’s Conception of the Forms: Some Remarks Francesco Ademollo 41

Plato’s Five Worlds Hypothesis (Ti. 55cd), Mathematics and Universals Marwan Rashed 87

Plato and the One-over-Many Principle David Sedley 113

Universals, Particulars and Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Forms Laura M. Castelli 139

Universals in Aristotle’s Logical Works Mauro Mariani 185

Universals in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Gabriele Galluzzo 209

Epicureans and Stoics on Universals Ada Bronowski 255

Alexander, Boethus and the Other Peripatetics: The Theory of Universals in the Aristotelian Commentators Riccardo Chiaradonna 299

One of a Kind: Plotinus and Porphyry on Unique Instantiation Peter Adamson 329 Universals, Education, and Philosophical Methodology in Later Neoplatonism Michael Griffin 353

Universals in Ancient Medicine Riccardo Chiaradonna 381 Universals in the Greek Church Fathers Johannes Zachhuber 425

Bibliography 471

Index locorum 509

Index of names 537

Introduction

I. Although the so-called problem of universals may certainly be regarded as one of the most important and enduring in the whole history of philosophy, there is still no consensus as to what exactly the problem consists in and hence as to what form its solution should take. It is sometimes maintained, for instance, that there is no such a thing as the problem of universals: what we are used to calling «the problem of universals» is actually a bundle of different and yet re-lated issues, which are rather differently articulated and analysed in different historical contexts. This possibly mistaken impression stems from the undeniable fact that the problem embraces a large number of philosophical areas, ranging from metaphysics to semantics and epis-temology. According to one influential tradition, for instance, which reached its peak in early modern philosophy but may be traced back at least as far as Boethius and Porphyry, the question of universality concerns the nature of our general concepts. Agreed, we all possess general concepts, such as the concept of a human being or of a white thing, concepts, in other words, that indifferently represent a plurality of particular things. But do we also need to posit in reality univer-sal entities corresponding to our general concepts? Or is universality just the product of our conceptual apparatus, of our natural capac-ity to generalize over a plurality of particular things? Realists tend to take the first line, while nominalists deny that any special entities are needed to account for our cognition of particular things and insist that generality is just the product of our conceptual apparatus. It is certainly this epistemological debate that John Locke wished to close out by famously remarking: «General and universal are creatures of the understanding, and belong not to the real existence of things […] ideas are general when they are set up as the representatives of many particular things: but universality belongs not to things themselves»1.

1 Locke, EHU, III.2.2.

2 Riccardo Chiaradonna, Gabriele Galluzo

In the Middle Ages, when the problem of universals was prominent in the philosophical agenda, the epistemological side of the issue be-came inextricably linked with a series of subtle semantic questions. Many medieval realists, for instance, firmly believed that language is a safe road to reality. In order to make their point, they pointed to the phenomenon of general reference. On their view, general terms, such as «human being» or «white», primarily signify the common natures or universal properties that a certain class of particulars share, and can only derivatively be made to stand for the particulars that possess these natures and properties. Thus, it is language itself that shows the existence of universal entities in reality. Medieval nominalists fierce-ly reacted to this strategy by insisting that general terms always and invariably signify particular things and so that the phenomenon of general reference can be accounted for without positing any universal entities in reality, just as the phenomenon of general representation can be accounted for without positing special entities corresponding to our general concepts2.

On a widespread view, however, the problem of universals is first of all an ontological and metaphysical issue, even though it may have and in fact does have important connections with a series of crucial epistemological and semantic issues. According to this perspective, the problem of universals concerns how many categories of things we should introduce in our ontology: are there only particular things in the world? Or do we need to include in our ontology universal entities as well, i.e. entities that are shared or shareable by many particulars? Moreover, if universal entities exist, the question immediately arises as to their metaphysical status: do they belong to the same, concrete realm as particular things or are they rather abstract entities, that is entities existing outside the spatiotemporal boundaries we all live in? It is a distinctive feature of the contemporary debate on universals to put emphasis on the ontological and metaphysical side of the question3. Contemporary philosophers are not unaware of the far-reaching rami-fications of the controversy over universals. Arguments for the exis-tence of universals that centre on semantics or cognition are popular

2 For the connection between semantic debates in the Middle Ages and the problem of universals, see Klima 1993; Klima 1999.

3 For an introduction to the problem of universals in contemporary metaphysics, see Armstrong 1978a; Armstrong 1989; Loux 2006a; Loux 2007. See also Oliver 1996.

3 Introduction

in contemporary philosophy, as are nominalist accounts that explain the phenomena of general reference and general representation with-out introducing universal entities in the ontology. It may be argued, however, that, although epistemological and semantic considerations may certainly play a crucial role in solving the problem of universals, the problem itself remains, at the bottom, an ontological and meta-physical issue. The way language and cognition work may be taken as evidence in favour of or against the existence of universal entities, but what we are interested in is ultimately whether or not universals exist and, if they do, what they are like.

It must be observed, for another thing, that language and cognition are not the only areas that are appealed to in the solution of the prob-lem of universals. The ontological and metaphysical side of the prob-lem, for instance, revolves around the issue of the so-called attribute agreement. We commonly observe that things resemble each other in many different ways and so agree in their attribute or properties: there are many red things around, as well as many human beings and many cows. Attribute agreement is an undeniable fact about the world. But how to interpret it? Realists insist that the phenomenon of attribute agreement is in need of an explanation and further maintain that such an explanation can be provided only if we introduce universal entities in our ontology. All red things are red, and all human beings are hu-man beings, because there is something, the property redness and the kind human being, respectively, that they literally have in common. The sense in which different particulars have some property in common or belong to the same natural kind may differ depending on the form of realism one chooses to endorse. All forms of realism, however, share a common strategy. The similarity among particular things is ultimately grounded in some form of identity: things resemble each other and so agree in their attributes because there is something they have in com-mon. It is precisely this assumption that nominalists call into question. For a nominalist, the phenomenon of attribute agreement calls for no explanation. It is simply a fact about the world that things resemble each other and there is not much more to say: similarity is primitive and not grounded in some form of identity. In the case of nominalists as well, philosophers may be at variance about how exactly the nomi-nalist intuition should be fleshed out. For some nominalists, there are no universal properties simply because there are no properties, but only particular objects. For others, by contrast, properties do exist, but they are as particular as the objects of which they are the properties. Both brands of nominalism, however, share the common view that the


phenomenon of attribute agreement can be accounted for by having recourse to a one-category ontology, in which only particulars exist.

Even though the multifaceted character of the problem of univer-sals should not be underestimated, there is something to be said in favour of the view that it is first of all an ontological and metaphysical issue, which has important consequences for our semantics and epis-temology as well. At the end of the day, what distinguishes realists and nominalists is that the former think there are more things in heaven and earth than we usually dream of, while the latter are irresistibly at-tracted by solitary and desert landscapes4.

II. The present volume collects thirteen papers on the problem of universals in ancient philosophy, from the Presocratics to Neopla-tonism. The volume has two main objectives. On the one hand, we wish to highlight the contribution of ancient thought to the philo-sophical problem of universals by reconstructing the different strate-gies endorsed in Antiquity to deal with the problem, both in the real-ist and in the nominalist camp. On the other hand, our objective is to reconstruct the specific conceptual and historical context in which the debate over the nature of universals unfolded in Antiquity. To this aim, we have aimed at some form of completeness by covering a large chronological span and dealing with figures and historical moments that are not sufficiently discussed in the contemporary literature on the problem of universals in ancient philosophy.

That there was a debate about universals in Antiquity is testified by several Neoplatonic attempts to put some order in the debate and sometimes to reconcile the different positions on the market. A rather cursory remark by Porphyry in his Introduction to Aristotle’s logic was destined to spark a debate that continued for over a thousand years:

For example, about genera and species – whether they subsist, whether they actually depend on bare thoughts alone, whether if they actually subsist they are bodies or incorporeal and whether they are separable or are in perceptible items and subsist about them – these matters I shall decline to discuss, such a subject being very deep and demanding another and a larger investigation (trans. Barnes 2003).

4 See Goodman, Quine 1947 for this general intuition.

5 Introduction

Rather surprisingly from our point of view, Porphyry declines to deal with the problem of universals on the grounds that it is somehow «very deep». In his chapter, however, Michael Griffin explains why Porphyry and other Neoplatonists following him (especially Iambli-chus and Simplicius) regarded the problem as too deep and techni-cally sophisticated for beginners. More particularly, Porphyry and his followers’ postponement of the problem of universals is rooted in a group of pedagogical and psychological doctrines that illuminate the Neoplatonist position on the role of universals in knowledge ac-quisition. Central in this context is the idea that ordinary language is tailored for sensible things and hence lacks the resources to refer to intelligible natures, which are the true referents of specific and ge-neric terms. Such intelligible natures will not be discovered through the study of Aristotle’s Categories and so it would be of no use for Neoplatonist philosophers to tackle the issue of the metaphysical sta-tus of universals when providing an introduction to Aristotle’s most celebrated writing.

Traditionally, Porphyry’s remark on universals has been studied in relation to its importance for the medieval discussion of universals. Medieval commentaries on Porphyry’s Introduction (which was made available to the Latin world thanks to Boethius’s neat translation) brim with extensive treatments of the metaphysical status of universals. It should not escape our notice, however, that Porphyry’s brief remark also provides an interesting picture of the ancient debate. Porphyry in fact seems to single out at least three different positions on universals: a nominalist or conceptualist position, according to which species and genera consist in our thoughts alone; a moderately realist position, ac-cording to which species and genera do exist extra-mentally, but only in their particular instances; a theory of transcendent universals, con-ceived of as separate from their instances. If the identification of the second and third views with, respectively, Aristotle’s and Plato’s po-sitions is sufficiently uncontroversial, Ada Bronowski’s contribution to this volume shows that Stoics and, possibly, Epicureans might be the philosophers lying behind the first of the positions singled out by Porphyry.

An analogous threefold classification somehow emerges if we look at a rather interesting piece of Neoplatonist doctrine, namely the so-called doctrine of the three states of a universal. According to this doctrine, which finds a standard formulation in Ammonius, there are different kinds of universal: the universal before the thing (ante rem), the universal in the thing (in re), and the universal after the thing


(post rem)5. Universals before the thing are transcendent universals and hence roughly correspond to Platonist Forms; universals in the thing are Aristotle-style immanent universals; finally, universals after the thing are concepts obtained through abstraction or otherwise from particulars and hence meet the demands of more deflationary views. Clearly, Neoplatonists did not think that the three kinds of universal were on a par. Transcendent universals, for instance, may be taken to be the causes of immanent universals, which may in turn be thought of as the ground for mental concepts. Alternatively, one could insist that transcendent universals are the causes of both immanent univer-sals and concepts. Be that as it may, it is significant that the doctrine of the three states of a universal originated in the Porphyrian milieu, which was particularly sensitive to the harmonizing of the philosophi-cal tenets of the various ancient Schools (with particular reference to Plato and Aristotle). It is not surprising, therefore, that the doctrine comfortably accommodates the different tendencies about universals that emerge from Antiquity. It is no chance, finally, that no trace of such a doctrine can be found in Plotinus, who shows no inclination for the harmonizing tendency so typical of Porphyry and his followers. As Peter Adamson shows, however, Plotinus’ unease runs very deep and concerns the very notions of universal and particular. For Plotinus, universality and particularity can be found in both the sensible and the intelligible world. As a result, the opposition between particular and universal turns out to be inadequate to characterize the relation between the sensible and the intelligible world. This original view puts Plotinus in strong opposition to the Platonism of his time as well as to the subsequent history of Platonism with regard to universals.

III. According to a well-established classification, contemporary re-alists about universals are divided between Aristotelians and Platon-ists6. As Porphyry’s remarks already show, the source of disagreement between these two brands of realism is intuitively clear enough. Both schools maintain that universals exist, but while Aristotelians believe that universals exist in some sense in their instances, Platonists contend that they exist separate from their instances. There are many different

5 Ammon., In Isag., 41, 10-42, 26 and 68, 25-69, 2 Busse.6 For the standard Aristotelian position see Armstrong 1978b. For Platonism see

Russell 1912 and the more recent defence in van Inwagen 2004. See also Arm-strong 1978a, pp. 64-77; Hoffman, Rosenkrantz 2005.

7 Introduction

ways, however, in which this general intuition may be fleshed out. One common idea is that Aristotelian universals are concrete, while Platon-ist universals are abstract. As is often observed, it may be difficult to draw a clear contrast along the lines of the concrete-abstract distinc-tion, since the terms «abstract» and «concrete» have been understood in so many different ways in the history of philosophy7. But certainly many contemporary philosophers believe that concrete entities exist in space and time, while abstract entities exist neither in space nor in time. This general idea can be given some more content if we turn to the relationships of dependence obtaining between universals and their particular instances. According to Aristotelians, universals depend for their existence on the existence of their particular instances: the uni-versal redness, for instance, exist only if there are particular red things. Aristotelians, in other words, accept the so-called Principle of Instan-tiation: there are no uninstantiated universals. On this view, it seems fairly reasonable to conclude that universals exist in space and time be-cause they exist wherever and whenever their instances, which are spa-tiotemporal entities, do. For Platonists, by contrast, universals do not depend for their existence on the existence of their particular instanc-es: the universal redness exists whether or not there are particular red things around. Platonists, in other words, reject the Principle of Instan-tiation: there can be, and there actually are, uninstantiated universals8. On this conception, universals are better thought of as existing, at least primarily, outside space and time. For some universals, i.e. uninstanti-ated universals, clearly do not exist in space and time, since they do not have any spatiotemporal instances. But if some universals exist outside space and time, there seem to be good reasons to think that all do, and hence also instantiated universals exist outside space and time. Indeed, for Platonists the relation of instantiation should not be cashed out in terms of parts or constituents: there is no sense in which universals that are instantiated are parts or constituents of their instances; there is no sense, in other words, in which the redness of red things is a part or a constituent of them or even exists in them. For Platonists, par-ticular things acquire their properties and characteristics by entering into some special relation, by somehow participating in, entities en-tirely distinct from them and belonging to an entirely different realm.

7 See Lewis D. 1986, pp. 81-6. See also Szabó 2005.8 On the Principle of Instantiation see Armstrong 1989, pp. 75-82; Loux 2007,

pp. 609-15.


There are two other sources of disagreement between contemporary Aristotelians and Platonists that are worth mentioning in this context. Both concern in some sense the question of how many universals there are. Platonists tend to read off universals from descriptive language. Of course, not all meaningful predicates introduce universals, and Platon-ists may be willing to put some restrictions on the number of univer-sals that there are. But in general they are inclined to think that non-synonymous predicates introduce distinct universals. Aristotelians, by contrast, tend to posit as many universals as are required to account for the characteristics of particular sensible objects. Thus, they tend to eliminate all universals that make no contribution towards explaining the sensible objects’ fundamental traits and typical behaviour, even in cases in which we do have general terms corresponding to such puta-tive universals. As a result, Platonist theories of universals tend to be more abundant, while Aristotelian ones are generally more parsimoni-ous or economical concerning the number of universals that there are. On another matter, at least some Aristotelians distinguish between two different categories of universals, which may be called, in homage to a millenarian tradition, substantial and accidental universals9. We should distinguish, in other words, between universals that tell us what things are, i.e. that express the essence or nature of particular things, and universals that tells us only how things are, i.e. that express the inessential properties of particular things. The former universals are often called «kinds», while the latter are often described as «proper-ties» in the strict sense of the term. Although there is nothing in Pla-tonism as such that prevents one from drawing a distinction between kinds and properties, Platonists have historically been less inclined to do so. One reason might be the following. If particular things acquire their characteristics by participating in some sort of abstract entities, then there is a sense in which all the features of particular things are possessed by them derivatively and contingently, and so the essential-accidental distinction loses part of its meaning.

The group of papers dealing with Plato and Aristotle touch upon many of the issues that are at the centre of the debate between Platon-ists and Aristotelians. Laura Castelli’s chapter deals with a somewhat preliminary issue. The way contemporary philosophers standardly frame the contrast between Aristotelian and Platonic realism essen-

9 For an Aristotelian who accepts only properties and does away with kinds, see Armstrong 1997.

9 Introduction

tially derives from Aristotle’s account, in the Metaphysics, of the differ-ence between Plato’s conception of universals and his own. It is Aristo-tle who claims, in a critical vein, that Plato conceived Forms as univer-sals, but made universals separate from their particular instances. In the same critical vein, Aristotle sometimes attributes to Forms a some-what ambiguous metaphysical status, presenting them as both univer-sals and particulars. Castelli reviews the complex issue of Aristotle’s reconstruction and critique of Plato’s doctrine of Forms. Instead of solving the problem in terms of the correctness or incorrectness of Ar-istotle’s report, she tries to lead the controversy between Aristotle and Plato back to their fundamental disagreement about what it means for something to be one, as well as to their radically different conceptions of the notions involved in the dispute, such as universality and par-ticularity. In doing so, she also touches upon the question of whether the separation of Forms from particulars can or cannot be understood in terms of the Principle of Instantiation, i.e. in terms of the existen-tial independence of Forms from their sensible instances. Francesco Ademollo’s paper is entirely devoted to a textual and philosophical re-construction of Plato’s theory of Forms. For one thing, he argues that Plato’s Forms are universals and so explains away those passages in the Dialogues that have led some scholars to conclude that Forms are (or are also) perfect particulars. One line of argument to this effect is particularly worth mentioning in this context. There is a typical claim of Plato’s that seems to commit him to a paradoxical endorsement of the Principle of Instantiation10. On the face of it, Plato maintains that Forms are self-predicated: the Form of large, for instance, is large and the Form of animal is animal. Now, if this claim is taken in the sense that Forms are instances of themselves (e.g. the Form of large is a large thing and the Form of animal is an animal), then for Plato there are actually no uninstantiated universals simply because there is always at least one instance of the relevant universal, i.e. the Form itself. Ad-emollo argues against the view that Forms are instances of themselves and contends that there are good reasons to think that self-predication does not imply that predicates apply to Forms and to their instances in the same sense. Furthermore, the paper deals with the issue of the metaphysical status of Forms as universals, i.e. with the problem as to what kind of universals they are. Ademollo lends further support to the view that Platonist universals are in fact non-spatiotemporal enti-

10 See on this Loux 2007, p. 613 f.


ties. He qualifies, by contrast, the sense in which Plato rejects the Prin-ciple of Instantiation. Plato’s opinion is not that there are uninstanti-ated universals but rather that there can be such universals – both in the sense that Forms existed uninstantiated before the creation of the world and in sense that they are only contingently instantiated and so could exist without having any actual instance.

As said, contemporary Platonists often go for an abundant theory of universals. This is due to their endorsement of a language-based ver-sion of the so called one-over-many principle: there is a universal cor-responding to every, or at least to a high number of, non-synonymous predicates. In his chapter, David Sedley calls into question the wide-spread assumption that Plato subscribed to the claim that there is a form corresponding to every general term. Sedley does not deny that Forms are universals, i.e. entities capable of being multiply instantiated, but challenges the view that Forms were postulated as the ontological characterization of general terms or predicates. For one thing, the texts that have traditionally been taken as evidence of Plato’s endorsement of the one-over-many principle should be construed as making the more familiar and less uncontroversial assumption that there is one and only one Form for every plurality of things for which we have reasons to postulate a Form. For another thing, the Plato of the middle dialogues does not endorse an unrestricted version of the theory of Forms: there are pluralities to which no Forms correspond. In particular, there seem to be no Forms of natural kinds. On the basis of some passages from Republic V and X, Sedley argues that, in the canonical version of the theory of Forms, Plato seems to introduce Forms only for pairs of op-posite properties and for artefacts. It is only in the later dialogues that Plato broadens the range of Forms and hence comes close to endorsing the one-over-many principle. But in these contexts, Sedley argues, it is less clear that Plato is still talking about Forms conceived of as tran-scendent entities that are ontologically prior to their sensible instances.

Another common assumption of the contemporary debate about universals is that Aristotle was a realist about universals. This view, however, has been questioned both in Antiquity (see Riccardo Chi-aradonna’s chapter on ancient commentators) and in contemporary scholarship. Mauro Mariani and Gabriele Galluzzo try to give further strength to the realist interpretation of Aristotle by analysing in some detail Aristotle’s views on universals in the Organon and the Meta-physics. More particularly, Mariani rejects the irrealist understandings of Aristotle’s theory of predication in the Organon. According to one view, for instance, Aristotle’s talk of universals should be understood

11 Introduction

without committing ourselves to entities other than the particulars of which universals are predicated. Against this view, Mariani argues that Aristotelian universals are distinct in terms of being and unity from the particulars of which they are predicated. On another view, the uni-versals of which Aristotle speaks in the Organon should be taken not as extra-mental entities, but rather as concepts, i.e. conceptual contents. This interpretation, however, finds no support in Aristotle’s texts. In so far as the Metaphysics is concerned, Galluzzo denies that Aristotelian forms should be construed as particulars, and gathers arguments in favour of the view that they are rather common or universal entities which are identical in all the things they exist in and are made particu-lar by the different chunks of matter they happen to be combined with. Jointly, however, the two papers also show that Aristotle’s realism is much more complex than it is often thought to be and undergoes considerable transformation from the Organon to the Metaphysics. As Mariani shows, for instance, one difficulty in providing a unified ac-count of Aristotle’s theory of universals in the Organon is that along-side substantial universals Aristotle introduces accidental universals, i.e. universals belonging to categories other than substance. Now, acci-dental universals complicate the picture because, even though at times Aristotle expresses himself as if accidental universals were instantiated by pluralities of individual substances, he also seems to believe that they are at the same time instantiated by particular and unrepeatable property instances, something analogous to the contemporary notion of a trope. In the Metaphysics, by contrast, accidental universals seem to leave the scene and Aristotle’s interest chiefly, if not exclusively, focuses on substantial universals. The Organon and the Metaphysics differ, however, in a more radical sense. While the Organon displays a logical approach to universals, according to which universals are the ontological counterparts of the predicates that can truly be applied to sensible objects, the Metaphysics tends to take a more physical and biological approach, according to which the entities that are universal are rather constituents or principles of sensible objects11. As a result, in the Metaphysics Aristotle comes to endorse the radical view that some of the entities that he regarded as universals in the logical works, i.e. species and genera, either do not exist at all or are radically derivative entities. In the new picture, the only universals that are admissible are the forms of particular sensible objects.

11 For a contemporary revival of Aristotle’s constituent approach, see Loux 2006b.


IV. Just like realism, nominalism too comes in different forms12. As we have seen, all forms of nominalism share the common assump-tion that there are no universal entities and hence that all things are particular. Nominalists also share a common strategy against real-ists. Universals, realists maintain, need to be postulated to explain a vast range of metaphysical, epistemological, and semantic phenom-ena. Things agree in their attributes because there are properties that they all instantiate. Predicates apply to a plurality of things because all members of the plurality will instantiate the properties corresponding to the given predicates. Finally, things will fall under the same concept because they all instantiate the properties which that concept repre-sents. The nominalists’ challenge is to show that we do not need to postulate universals to explain these phenomena and so that particu-lars can play the theoretical roles that universals are commonly taken to play. And – nominalists insist – ontological economy tells us that we should not postulate entities that are unnecessary and, consequently, that we should do away with universals altogether. Attribute agree-ment, for instance, can be explained without postulating that similar things instantiate the same property. Likewise, general reference and conceptual representation can be accounted for without introducing universal entities in the world, for instance by providing a good theory of conceptual and semantic generalization.

Their common strategy aside, nominalists are at variance about how exactly nominalism should be construed. One important pole of con-troversy is worth mentioning in this context. A particularly austere form of nominalism maintains that there are no properties, but only particular objects13. It is certainly true that concepts represent and pred-icates apply to pluralities of objects: many things fall under the concept red and as many are rightly associated with the predicate «red». This, however, obtains not in virtue of some properties, be they universal or particular, that objects possess, but rather in virtue of features of our conceptual and linguistic apparatus. Admittedly, to explain how con-cepts represent things and how predicates apply to them may turn out to be a rather difficult task. This task, however, has nothing to do with ontology, but rather with epistemology and semantics: once concept-formation and predicate-application are clarified, the problem of uni-versals is simply dissolved. Other, less radical nominalists maintain, by

12 For a survey see Armstrong 1978a, pp. 11-57; Loux 2006a, pp. 46-83.13 See Quine 1948.

13 Introduction

contrast, that there are properties, but also insist that they are as par-ticular as the objects of which they are the properties: thus the red of a particular pen is itself particular and numerically distinct from the red of all the other objects in that it is the red of one particular object and not of another. Thus, there are no universal entities, but things are pro-vided with an array of unrepeatable and unsharable property instanc-es, which are often labelled by contemporary philosophers «tropes»14. It may be useful to see how the two varieties of nominalism differ in terms of metaphysical explanation. Take the phenomenon of attribute agreement: why are all red things red? Generally, nominalists appeal to resemblance or similarity: it is simply a fact about the world – a primi-tive fact that cannot further be explained – that things resemble each other and so can be grouped together in accordance with their resem-blance relationships. It is important to realize, however, that different things enter into resemblance relationships depending on the form of nominalism one chooses to endorse. For austere nominalists, it is the objects themselves that resemble each other. The world is populated by collections (or classes, if one believes in them) of similar objects. The property red, therefore, either does not exist at all or is just a collection of similar things. For trope-theorists, by contrast, resemblance rela-tions obtain, strictly speaking and primarily, among tropes, i.e. among particular properties. Thus, on this view, the property red is a collec-tion of similar tropes, i.e. a collection of all the tropes of red. Certainly, objects too are similar in virtue of possessing similar tropes, but it is primarily among tropes that the similarity relationship obtains.

What is ancient nominalism like? Generally speaking, the view that there are simply no properties is not a particularly appealing one for many ancient philosophers. But there are some interesting excep-tions or partial exceptions. Mauro Bonazzi, for instance, presents an extreme form of nominalism, which can be aptly labelled «particular-ism» and is characteristic of the Sophists. Although the Sophists do not represent a sufficiently homogeneous movement and differ from one another on a number of crucial issues, they all seem to share a cer-tain view about reality: the world in itself is a cluster of unconnected and ever-changing particulars and so there is no structure of reality or intrinsic unity independently of the perceiving subject. Protagoras seems to have interpreted this general assumption in a rather relativ-

14 For the notion of a trope see the classical Williams 1953. See also Campbell 1990; Simons 1994.


istic way. Since reality is never objective or absolute, but is always the result of the interaction between objects and individual subjects, each individual subject ends up inhabiting a world of her own, distinct in principle from that of all the other perceiving subjects. Similar claims were defended by Gorgias: reality is just an unconnected multiplicity of particulars, bereft of any intrinsic unity or structure; it is only lan-guage that imposes unity and structure on reality. Through language, in other words, we try to carve reality at its joints, but the carving is not the result of some structural isomorphism between predicates and reality. On this perspective, language has no descriptive function, but rather serves pragmatic purposes in orienting and facilitating the in-dividual and social life of human beings. Bonazzi’s reconstruction also has interesting consequences from a historical point of view: rather than a development of Socrates’ thoughts about universals, Plato’s theory of Forms would thus be a conscious response to the views held by the Sophists.

Another interesting example is best understood if we make use, once again, of Aristotle’s distinction between substantial universals (or kinds) and accidental universals (or properties in the strict sense). Chiaradonna reconstructs the debate between two Aristotelian com-mentators, Boethus of Sidon and Alexander of Aphrodisias, on the status of substantial universals, i.e. species and genera. For Alexander, cospecific and cogeneric particulars are grouped together on the basis of a common essence, that is an immanent universal that is common to all individuals of the same species or genus. Boethus, by contrast, denies that there are any common essences or natures, and maintains that species and genera are just collections of individuals. It is Boethus’ view that is of interest to us. From what we know, it is unlikely that Boethus extended his irrealist position to accidental properties as well. Thus, Socrates’ particular paleness or particular height should be as real as Socrates himself. But certainly Boethus believed that there are no natural kinds in reality and provided an extensional and reductive account of kinds in terms of collections of particulars. Presumably, Boethus’ collections are nothing over above their members and so can hardly be understood as classes in the modern sense. What matters, however, is that on Boethus’ view the fact that a certain group of par-ticulars belong to a natural kind is grounded on primitive facts of simi-larity among the particulars in the group and not on some universals the particulars in question somehow share.

Unlike austere nominalists, many ancient philosophers believe that there are particular properties and it is on the basis of particular prop-

15 Introduction

erties that they account for general concepts and terms. Does this im-ply that a good number of ancient nominalists were trope-theorists ante litteram? Not quite. In order to clarify matters it may be useful to distinguish between the belief in trope-like entities such as particu-lar properties and the endorsement of a full-fledged trope-theory. The reason for the distinction is that most, albeit not all, trope-theorists combine a nominalist stance on the traditional problem of univer-sals with a certain view about the metaphysical structure of material objects, according to which these are nothing but bundles of tropes. Thus, for many trope-theorists, particular properties hang together without inhering in any particular substance or even any material substratum. Now, this view on the structure of material objects is not popular among ancient philosophers who believe in particular prop-erties. Aristotle, for instance, is a good example of the distinction we are trying to make. According to the traditional interpretation (see Mariani’s paper), Aristotle admits, at least in the Categories, particu-lar and unsharable property instances: Socrates’ paleness is peculiar to Socrates and is numerically distinct from, say, Plato’s. But Aristotle hardly counts as a trope-theorist. For one thing, he also accepts uni-versal properties alongside property instances: so there is a universal paleness of which both the particular paleness of Socrates and the par-ticular paleness of Plato are instances. For another, property instances for Aristotle clearly need a substratum to inhere in; what is more, they need an independently identifiable substance to inhere in.

This being said, the bundle theory is not uninstantiated, as it were, in ancient thought. Bronowski’s contribution shows that Epicurus, be-sides endorsing a nominalist position on the problem of universals, al-so provided an account of the structure of material objects that closely resembles a bundle theory. Indeed, Epicurus advances two distinct yet compatible accounts of material objects, a physical account in terms of material constitution and a metaphysical account in terms of par-ticular properties. On the physical account, objects, i.e. bodies, are just aggregates of atoms or aggregates of aggregates of atoms. The physical perspective, however, does not tell the whole story. For a material ob-ject can also be regarded, from a metaphysical perspective, as a whole made up of its properties or at least of all properties that accompany a particular object as long as it exists. Epicurus’ insistence that proper-ties do not need a substratum to hold together, as well as his use of mereological terminology («whole») to characterize bodies in general make his intuition very close to the claim that material objects are bun-dles of their particular properties.


As said, Epicurus took a nominalist position on the problem of universals, which is best understood as a variety of conceptualism or concept nominalism. Conceptualism seems to have been the favourite view among ancient nominalists. For the Stoics too defend a form of conceptualism about universals. On this view, everything in the world is particular and generality is just a product of our conceptual appa-ratus, i.e. of the capacity of our mind to generalize over a plurality of particular objects or property instances. Epicurus, for example, pro-vides us with a detailed and naturalistic account of how our percep-tions of particular objects progressively give rise to general concepts. There is a crucial difference, however, between the Epicurean and the Stoic forms of conceptualism, which Bronoswki illustrates in her con-tribution. Epicurus does not distinguish between the concept taken as a mental act and a property of the (material) mind and the concept in the sense of the content of a mental act. The distinction, by contrast, is explicitly introduced by the Stoics, who identified universals with the contents of mental acts. The motivation behind the distinction is that for the Stoics mental acts are as real as any other corporeal en-tity: since concepts are modifications of the mind, which is corporeal, they must be corporeal just like all other individual properties. The contents of mental acts, by contrast, are radically mind-dependent entities, products of the mind devoid of any significant ontological status. The Stoics did not go as far as to say that conceptual contents are absolutely nothing. After all, we have a plurality of conceptu-al contents and there is no plurality of things that are nothing. But their characterization of conceptual contents as ‘non-somethings’ is intended to mark their status as radically dependent and derivative entities. Interestingly, as Adamson shows, a mild form of conceptual-ism looked attractive to some Neoplatonists as well, at least in so far as the sensible world is concerned. Porphyry, for instance, seems to have flirted with the view that, since true natures are intelligible natures and hence sensible objects possess no natures of their own, there is no need to posit Aristotle-style immanent universals. The characteristics of sensible objects can be explained by having exclusive recourse to the relationship between material substrata and intelligible natures. Why not conclude, therefore, that in the sensible world universals are just concepts in the mind?

V. Traditional disputes about the status of universals are not the only areas where the question of generality is crucial for the development of ancient thought. It is one of the objectives of the present volume to

17 Introduction

show that the significance of the problem of universals extends much beyond the boundaries of standard ontological controversies.

We have seen that Platonist universals are usually thought of as ab-stract entities and that we have good reasons to believe that this was actually the view held by the historical Plato. There is however another sense in which Platonism is involved with abstract entities. Contem-porary philosophers often use the expression «abstract entities» to re-fer to a broad class of things which are usually taken to exist outside space and time, if they indeed do exist: numbers, geometrical entities, sets and propositions are standard examples of things belonging to the class of abstract entities. The issue of abstract entities is so prominent in contemporary metaphysics that one influential tradition (wrongly) equates the problem of universals and the issue of abstract entities15. In his paper, Marwan Rashed provides a detailed analysis of Plato’s math-ematical ontology in the Timaeus. He shows that Plato actually intro-duced mathematical and geometrical entities as intermediate between sensible objects and Forms – a view Aristotle repeatedly credits Plato with. What is more, Plato posited different classes of intermediate and hierarchically ordered entities, from the objects of pure arithmetic (mathematical ratios) to those of stereometry (mathematical solids). On Rashed’s view, the metaphysical function of intermediate objects is that of solving a crucial problem left open by Plato’s Parmenides: how can Forms, which are unique and undivided, be participated in by a plurality of particular objects, which are many and divided one from another? Mathematical entities solve the problem of participation in that they share in the nature of both Forms and sensible objects and so literally mediate between them: like Forms, mathematical entities are intelligible, eternal and stable; like sensible objects, they are non-unique and multiplied. On this view, therefore, participation consists in some sort of mathematical and geometrical ordering of the sensi-ble world. Plato’s solution is made easier by his late view that Forms themselves should be conceived as numbers, i.e. ideal Numbers that, unlike mathematical entities, are unique and unmultiplied. Thus, in being mathematically ordered the sensible world actually becomes just like the Forms.

Peter Adamson and Riccardo Chiaradonna show how considerations about the relationship between universals and particulars play a cru-cial role in two areas that seem, at a first glance, rather unrelated to the

15 See the entry Class vs. Property in Quine 1987.


problem of universals, i.e. metaphysical cosmology and medicine. Ad-amson takes up a particularly difficult problem for ancient metaphys-ics, i.e. unique instantiations: cases, in other words, in which a univer-sal has only one instance. The trouble with unique instantiation is that universals are often postulated to explain how it is possible for many things to agree in their fundamental attributes. This general principle may make it look otiose or useless to postulate universals in the case of particulars that are literally one of a kind. The problem is made even more acute by the fact that, for ancient philosophers, the only genuine examples of unique instantiations – the sun, the moon, the heavenly bodies in general, and the universe as a whole – are things that are necessarily unique: for ancient philosophers, in other words, it is im-possible, both physically and metaphysically, that there be more than one sun or moon etc. Adamson highlights two different approaches to unique instantiation. Aristotle and Alexander take multiple instantia-tion to be the normative case and hence are mainly concerned with preserving the distinction between universal and particular even in the case of unique instances. Aristotle, for example, argues that a defini-tion is always in principle applicable to a plurality of objects, even if it should be applied in fact to just one. Thus, we can distinguish between the kind sun, which is captured by the definition, and the individual sun, which is the unique instance of the kind sun. Plotinus and Por-phyry, by contrast, somehow reverse the picture and go out of their way to prove that it is unique instantiation that represents the norma-tive case. They both argue, on different grounds and with different nu-ances, that, since heavenly bodies as well as the universe that contains them are divine particulars and thus the best possible sensible objects, there is no need for their species to be multiplied into a plurality of in-stances. On this view, therefore, the multiple instantiation that is char-acteristic of the species of sublunary objects is a mark of imperfection: ideally, universals should not be instantiated more than once.

Ancient medicine is another battlefield where the question of gen-erality becomes pivotal. The theoretical problem with understanding the status of medicine can be phrased in the following terms. Medical practice deals with individuals: it is individual patients that a doctor tries to heal. But is there any knowledge of individuals? And if not, i.e. if knowledge is always of universals and kinds, what is the use of medical knowledge in medical practice? Famously, Aristotle maintains that individuals as such are unknowable: we always know the kinds to which individuals belong and not individuals as such. Medical knowl-edge too, therefore, is about general and universal features and not

19 Introduction

about individuals: at best, a doctor will be able to know certain kinds of disease and certain kinds of bodily constitution, and to provide reme-dies on the basis of the regular connection between them. Admittedly, Aristotle also believes that experience and medical practice can help doctors to apply universal knowledge to individual cases. The fact re-mains, however, that Aristotle’s view threatens to split medicine into a body of knowledge devoid of applicability and a medical practice without any theoretical status. Against the background of Aristotle’s position, Chiaradonna reconstructs the Hellenistic and post-Hellen-istic debate over the status of medicine. There are basically three solu-tions to Aristotle’s dilemma: (i) to marginalize the role of experience at the expenses of medical theorizing and conjecturing (the Rational-ist School); (ii) to abandon all talk of hidden causes and general con-nections in favour of an entirely experiential approach (the Empiricist School); (iii) to break the traditional connection between knowledge and universality and argue that individuals are knowable, after all (Galen). Position (iii), i.e. Galen’s position, is particularly noteworthy from a theoretical point of view. Galen holds that, through the use of the method of division and definition, a doctor could at least in prin-ciple know the individual nature of the patient and put such a knowl-edge to full use in her medical practice. Galen, therefore, bridges the gap between medical knowledge and medical practice by insisting that, at least in ideal conditions, medical practice should be guided by the knowledge of individual features and not only of universal ones. For another thing, Galen’s talk of individual natures as well as his assimi-lation of an individual’s properties to specific differentiae prefigure a quasi-Leibnizian view of individuals, according to which concepts are able, at least in principle, to grasp not only the kind an individual be-longs to, but also the individual as such.

As Joahnnes Zachhuber’s chapter plainly shows, the problem of uni-versals plays a major role in the theological thinking of the Church Fathers. Even though Church Fathers did not intend to expressly deal with the problem of universals, various accounts of the relationship between universals and particulars were advanced in an attempt to defend and elucidate both Trinitarian and Christological issues. Za-chhuber presents an unprecedented survey of the Christian Fathers’ views on universals, from the beginnings of Christian theology to John of Damascus (eighth century). One particular incident in Zachuber’s narrative is particularly worth recalling in this context. In his attempt to explain and defend the consubstantiality between the Father and the Son established in the Nicene Creed (325 CE), Gregory of Nyssa


elaborated a robustly realist theory of universals, which progressively became the standard view among Church Fathers. According to this theory, the nature corresponding to a certain species is numerically one in all the individuals of the species: all human beings for instance share literally one human nature and are distinct from one another on account of accidental properties that fall outside their common nature. Moreover, although it is true that a nature needs individuals to exist, it remains undivided in the individuals. The result is that individuals are not particular substances in addition to their common nature, since the latter expresses their whole substance. This model can easily be ap-plied to the case of the Trinity. The divine nature is literally one in all the three persons or hypostases, which are distinct on the basis of their personal properties. Moreover, although the divine nature only exists in the hypostases, it remains undivided with the result that the Fa-ther, the Son and the Holy Spirit are just one God and not three Gods, since the divine nature expresses the whole substance of the individual hypostases. Zachhuber shows how this standard view on universals, which was devised to account for the issue of consubstantiality, proved to be less adequate to explain the Chalcedonian dogma (451 CE) ac-cording to which in Christ there are two natures in one hypostasis. As the opponents of the Chalcedonian dogma immediately pointed out, the standard doctrine seemed to have two unwelcome consequences: that Incarnation concerns the whole Trinity and not only the Son; that the Son assumed the entire human nature. The debate between op-ponents and advocates of Chalcedonian Christology led to a substan-tial revision and adaptation of the Christian Fathers’ standard view on universals.

***

This volume is part of a large scholarly and editorial project on the problem of universals in the history of philosophy, conceived and coordinated by Francesco Del Punta. First of all, we wish to warmly thank Francesco for his constant and unceasing support in all phases of the project. Without him, the volume could not have been brought to completion.

Although this book has been thought of right from the start as an independent study of the problem of universals in ancient philosophy, provisional versions of the chapters were discussed in Pisa in Septem-ber 2010 on the occasion of a workshop jointly organized by the Scuola Normale Superiore and the University of Roma 3. We are very grate-

21 Introduction

ful to both institutions for their financial support, which has made it possible to substantially improve early versions of the contributions. In particular, this volume has been prepared within the framework of the PRIN MIUR Projects La costruzione delle tradizioni filosofiche. Platonismo e Aristotelismo in età post-ellenistica (2007) and Le filosofie post-ellenistiche da Antioco a Plotino (2009).

The volume was submitted to the Edizioni della Scuola Normale in June 2012 and subsequently peer-reviewed. We wish to thank the Edizioni for their interest in our project as well as for their help and assistance. Finally, our gratefulness also goes to Sergio Knipe, who has revised the English of non-native speakers and given precious advice on the editorial aspects of the volume.

Riccardo Chiaradonna, Gabriele Galluzzo

universals ancient philosophy introduction

Documents

theory of universals

universals ada bronowski

universals marwan rashed

general concepts

plurality of particular

cognition of particular

platos conception

conceptual apparatus