Abstract
I provide an argument against the Aristotelian view of universals, according to which universals depend for their existence on their exemplifiers. The argument consists in a set of five jointly inconsistent assumptions. As such, the argument can be used to argue in favour of other conclusions, such as that exemplification is no relation or that plausible principles concerning ontological dependence or grounding do not hold.
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Notes
For recent discussion about the relationship between grounding and dependence, see Schnieder (2017).
The principle that relations are grounded in their relata should be clearly distinguished from the principle that relations are existence entailing: if aRb, then both a and b exist.
Brackets are here introduced for ease of reading.
For example, Mulligan (2006) holds that (This chair exemplifies redness) is grounded in (This chair is red).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for making this point.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Franz Berto, Fabrice Correia, Anna Marmodoro, Kevin Mulligan, Paolo Natali, Francesco Orilia, Jan Plate, Thomas Sattig, Jonathan Schaffer, Benjamin Schnieder, Alex Skiles, Alberto Tassoni, and three anonymous referees for helpful comments.
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Costa, D. An argument against Aristotelian universals. Synthese 198, 4331–4338 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02345-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02345-z