Universals

raah!

These seem a very interesting topic, but when I first came across them I dismissed them offhand as nonsense....but according to bertrand russell it is a problem which is still a big part of modern philosophers. Any philosophy students care to give me their take on this?

Also, aristotle blabs on about "forms" and all these different things, what is the difference between a "form" and a regular plato universal?

Joe1919

http://www.iep.utm.edu/u/universa.htm has useful summary .

Plato believes that there exists an 'ideal form' of every object (e.g. man, dog). One of the side effects of this is that it leads to his absolutism. Dogs and men that exist in this life are mere shadows or poor copies of the eternal form of dogs or men. This can lead to the idea that there is a perfect form of man or dog or beauty or whatever and we should strive for same. Plato loves uniformity and order (his favourite animals are bees and ants).

Aristotle rejects all of this and states that the universal exists in the particular. This shapes his ethics. The 'good' does not exist in another world but in the particular mind of the individual.

Ockham and other nominalists rejected all this and considered universals as mere convenient names that we label particulars with similar properties or as concepts (conceptualism) in our minds. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/universals-medieval/ i.e. Universals do not really exist at all (anti-realism)

This later idea (nominalism) seems to deny any objectivity in terms of universals yet universals are not entirely subjective. A dog for example can only reproduce with another dog and so there must exist some element of realism in our naming of universals.....................?