A reductive analysis of statements about universals

Synthese 200 (1):1-21 (2022)
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Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of statements about universals according to which such statements assert nothing more than that the evidence we’d take to confirm them obtains, where this evidence is understood to consist solely of patterns in the behavior of particulars that cannot be explained by other regularities in the way things behave. On this analysis, to say that a universal exists is simply to say that there is such a pattern in the behavior of certain particulars, and for any predicate F that is presumed to correspond to a universal, to say that a particular is F is simply to say that its behavior exhibits a pattern of this sort. I argue that there is no theoretical work that we want postulations and ascriptions of universals to do that they’d be unfit for if analyzed in this way, and consequently that there is no reason to treat such statements as asserting anything more than what the proposed analysis suggests.

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Ben White
Oakland University

References found in this work

New work for a theory of universals.David K. Lewis - 1983 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (4):343-377.
Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Scientific Essentialism.Brian Ellis - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
What is a Law of Nature?David Malet Armstrong - 1983 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Sydney Shoemaker.

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