Universals

Essentialism can be defined as a metaphysical theory according to which things have essential and accidental properties. In this paper, I will address Avicennian essentialism, that is, essentialism as we find it in Avicenna’s own writings and the writings of the immediate post-Avicennian philosophical tradition of the Islamic world. I will consider a number of primary sources, summarize the state of recent scholarship regarding Avicennian metaphysics of attributes, and I will draw comparisons between Avicennian essentialism and modern essentialism. As a result, I will show that Avicennians endorse two different types of essentialism: conceptualist essentialism and de re essentialism. Avicennian conceptualist essentialism only applies to kinds, while Avicennian de re essentialism only applies to particular individuals.

Functional verification mainly based on coverage driven constraint. The universal memory controller is aiming
to advance the performance of the prevailing memory controllers through a complete integration of the all memory in
addition of providing novel features. It mainly serves as one amongst the basic important feature that’s lagging in most of
memory controller that is power being consumed. The aim of the paper is to validate the design and to generate regression
test cases in the test-bench in order to obtain 100% functional coverage using System Verilog (SV) and a typical code
coverage

This work discusses the relevance of transcendent universals for different non-Humean theories on natural laws. These theories are: (i) theories that consider natural laws to be either ontologically dependent on primitive counterfactual facts, or theories that consider natural laws as themselves ontologically primitive; and (ii) theories that consider natural laws to be dependent on universals. In both cases (i) and (ii), laws are supposed to have a specific modal character. It is contended that in case (i) this modal character requires a connection with complexions of universals, as modal facts require universals (or so it is maintained). Thus it is more plausible to think of laws as dependent on universals, as in theories of type (ii). In theories of type (ii), furthermore, modal facts seem to require the acceptance of non-instantiated universals. In effect, the existence of a law implies the existence of the universals that are connected within it. As laws seem to exist in possible worlds where the universals that appear therein are not instantiated, non-instantiated universals seem to exist.

The focus of the present paper is the spatial organisation of daily life in dwellings related by their occupying households, or to sub-groups of these. Experimental social psychology and ethnoarchaeological data provide a basic syntax for human spatial behaviour in dwellings. The present paper makes use of this in outlining and discussing a framework for the interpretation of the
spatial organisation of archaeological dwellings, on the basis of repeated organisational patterns observed in excavated dwellings, drawing further on the analysis of recent ethnographic contexts
and existing experimental social-psychological data about humans’ non-verbal interaction in space. This paper deliberately engages with a very broad chronological and cultural range of
domestic buildings, in order to make the best use of the detailed recording of prehistoric, as well as historic material.

This dissertation concerns two controversial aspects of Descartes’ philosophy. The first is the meaning of the distinction between the material and objective senses of the word “idea.” The second is an alleged tension between the Fifth Meditation’s claim that the real natures are mind-independent and the claim of the Principles that universals are mind-dependent.

In the first chapter, I take up the material sense, and argue against those interpretations which see it as a category for the contentless ontology of ideas. I argue that the textual evidence points to the material sense being Descartes’ category for phenomenological description of how things seem to be to a given mind when it has a given idea. In particular, I argue that he deploys the material sense in his discussions of abstractions and that this points to the material sense being a category for content that lacks existential implication for the extramental world.

In the second chapter, I take up the ontology of the real natures, and suggest that there is no tension between the Fifth Meditation and the Principles because Descartes accepts two things under the term “nature,” namely, universals and individual essences. I suggest Descartes is committed to Platonism about individual essences in the Fifth Meditation, and that in the Principles he is concerned only with universals, about which he is a conceptualist. I further suggest that individual essences play key roles in both singular and universal thought.

In the third chapter, I take up the objective sense, and the widespread interpretation of this sense of ideas as concerning current presentational or phenomenological content. I suggest that this account struggles with cases where there is stability in the object of thought paired with changes in the associated phenomenology. I propose that we ought to reject a straightforward equation of the objective sense with current presentational content, and instead adopt a scheme according to which what has objective being in an idea is the sum total of thinkable, essential features of the object, and that when an idea is clear and distinct, what we perceive has objective being in the idea.

Resumen. Los procesos cognitivos involucrados en la conceptualización, la categorización, y sus implicaciones para áreas como la lingüística y la lógica, son un tema recurrente en la filosofía contemporánea de la mente y del lenguaje, como en las ciencias del conocimiento. El presente artículo es un estudio exploratorio y preliminar sobre la categorización en el contexto del corpus aristotelicum, y a partir del libro inicial del Órganon: Categorías y sus referentes en otras obras como: Primeros y Segundos Analíticos, Tópicos, Del Alma, Física y Metafísica. El eje articulador es el análisis del triple estatus de las categorías aristotélicas: ontológico, lógico y lingüístico, que permite a su vez explorar el concepto sobre los universales y sus implicaciones para la lógica y la matemática contemporáneas.
Abstract. The cognitive processes involved in conceptualization, categorization, and their implications for areas such as linguistics and logic, are a recurring theme in the contemporary philosophy of mind and language, as in the sciences of knowledge. The present article is an exploratory and preliminary study on the categorization in the context of the corpus aristotelicum, and from the initial book of the Organon: "Categories" and their referents in other works as Analytica Priora and Posteriora, Topics, De Anima, Physics and Metaphysics. The articulating axis is the analysis of the triple status of the Aristotelian categories: ontological, logical and linguistic, which allows in turn to explore the concept of universals and their implications for contemporary logic and mathematics

Giudizio relativo al Premio "Opera prima della Consulta nazionale di Filosofia“ 2013: "Il volume colma con autorevolezza una lacuna assai rilevante nella letteratura filosofica italiana. Con notevole competenza e accuratezza argomentativa, discute infatti di una delle questioni centrali del dibattito metafisico contemporaneo di matrice analitica, ovvero quella riguardante lo statuto ontologico degli universali, con tutte le complesse questioni epistemologiche che ne discendono.
Le discussioni su tale questione risalgono ovviamente dalla grande tradizione classica, a cominciare da Platone e Aristotele, attraverso il pensiero medioevale e della prima modernità, sino alla renaissance contemporanea che ha avuto in autori come David Armstrong e David Lewis i massimi esponenti. Una presentazione di questa discussione richiede evidentemente all'autore una solida, duplice competenza: sia rispetto agli strumenti logici che permettano di dominare il dibattito contemporaneo in campi multiformi come l'ontologia, la filosofia della matematica, la filosofia della logica e quella del linguaggio, sia rispetto alla conoscenza storica, necessaria per riconnettere i molti fili della discussione odierna alla tradizione classica in modo non superficiale (come invece accade talora nella discussione anglosassone)".

ABSTRACT By offering a historical overview of the problem of universals and by focusing in the contributions of the medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus and the founder of American Pragmatism, Charles Peirce, the article introduces Peirce's insight on the problem. Such insight is tracked by explaining the connections between Aristotle, Duns Scotus, and Peirce. Peirce's account was named by himself 'Scholastic Realism' , and such Realism of universals aims to provide a feasible account for contemporary Scientific Realism. The problem of universals, after such a reading, appears as a continuous and vibrant issue that defines both traditional and contemporary philosophical problems.

In recent years, the biographical novel has supplanted the classical historical novel and become a dominant literary form.  But why?  And what exactly is the biographical novel?  How does it picture history differently from the classical historical novel?  How does it uniquely engage and critique the political?  In this book, I answer these and many other questions.  This is the first chapter from the book.  In the other chapters, I examine biographical novels about figures such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Moses, Herod, Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, Sally Hemings, Alfred Rosenberg, and Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe.

A modal logic with non-traditional predication theory is laid out that allows one to talk in a meaningful way about nonexistent objects and partially specified fictional objects. Description theory with an existence predicate is used for giving examples.

The logic uses an extension and an anti-extension for predicates; it remains bivalent and is not paraconsistent. It less expressive than, similar, and closely related to Priest's account and other uses of partial logics in the tradition of Belnap.

In this paper, I consider John of Damascus’ understanding of universals and particulars. I argue that the Damascene’s philosophical views can be explained by inscribing his reflections into a trajectory emerging from the Christological controversies of the fifth century. Specifically, I contend that the apologetic need to justify the Chalcedonian tenet that the Incarnate existed as one hypostasis in two natures, divine and human, can be shown to stand behind some of John’s most distinctive philosophical ideas. In this sense, I reconstruct the Damascene’s ideas on universals and particulars as a paradigmatic case of Patristic philosophy.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

The question whether God knows particular individuals has traditionally attracted the attention of Islamic scholars: Does the perishability of worldly individuals entail problems about the perishability of God's corresponding knowledge? Can one eternally know that Zayd will arrive tomorrow to the city? In this paper, I systemically and historically analyze (1) how post-Avicennian philosophers distinguished between two pre-Avicennian kalām views on whether such knowledge is eternal or perishable; (2) how they regarded Avicenna's famous theory that God knows particulars qua universals as connected to the pre-Avicennian kalām debate; (3) and how the authors such as Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) and Šihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191) attempted to synthesize Avicenna and kalām epis-temology in their account of God's knowledge as relation or as presence.

World society has been formed as a single interactive network in our time. Universal means of communication are now available to give expression to universal ideas. This essay explores the role of markets and money in the human economy. They are intrinsic to the extension of society from the local to a global level. By calling the economy human we put people first, making their thoughts, actions and lives our main concern. 'Humanity' is a moral quality of kindness and, since theoretical abstraction is impersonal, economic anthropology should pay attention to the personal realm of experience. But 'humanity' is also a collective noun, meaning all the people who have existed or ever will. So the human economy is inclusive in that sense too, requiring us to engage with society in its impersonal dimensions. Money mediates the personal and impersonal extremes of social existence. These reflections lead us to Kant's Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. 'Anthropology' is indispensable to the making of world society. It would then mean whatever we need to know about humanity as a whole if we want to build a more equal world. This usage could be embraced by students of history, sociology, political economy, philosophy and literature, as well as by some anthropologists.

Determining the character of the relationship between universals and particulars, or between general claims and determinate examples thereof is a central concern for epistemology. Hegel examines the theme of examples in relation to knowledge in the first chapter of his Phenomenology of Spirit. He argues that “sense-certainty” – the epistemological stance that takes immediacy to be the criterion for knowledge – fails to recognize the role played by examples in knowledge and experience. Although the theme of example is not explicitly dealt with elsewhere in the text, the question of the relation between universal and particular in knowledge is a crucial one for the Phenomenology of Spirit as a whole. The present study aims to develop the conception of example that is implied within Hegel’s text as a whole.

In addition to attempting a resolution of a number of the criticisms raised against Hegel’s account of “sense-certainty,” the first chapter develops the implications of Hegel’s claim that sense-certainty fails to appreciate the fact that it relies upon a determinate conception of the nature of examples, which undercuts its claims to immediate knowledge. The second chapter focuses upon experimental knowledge, and shows that the turn to experiment in epistemology can be interpreted as an attempt to rethink the nature of examples as they relate to knowledge. Hegel’s basic criticism of the “experimental conception of knowledge” is contrasted with a number of the criticisms that have been raised by recent investigations of experimental practices. Chapters three and four examine Hegel’s conception of self-knowledge, and show that a number of the problems raised within the previous forms of knowing are resolved within the sphere of self-consciousness and “Spirit.” In particular, the final chapter shows that the kind of self-knowing that takes place in the phenomenon of “conscientious forgiveness” has a universality that is attentive to the particularity of the situation wherein it arises. It is argued that to this form of knowledge there corresponds a conception of example – that of “exemplary selfhood” – that can successfully resolve the problem of the relation between universal and particular in knowledge with which the study begins.

This is a general account of Plato's conception of the forms insofar as they can be conceived of as universals. I focus on the ontological status of the forms, on the relation (which, I argue, is in the final analysis unproblematic) between their status as universals which sensible particulars instantiate and their status as models of which sensible particulars are copies, and on some of the terminology by which Plato refers to the forms, especially the ὅ ἐστι (ho esti) idiom, which I subject to a detailed analysis.

In this text I seek to give an overview of the development of theories of the universal from roughly the 4th to the 8th centuries. I show how trinitarian theology around the middle of the 4th century necessitated for the first time systematic theological reflection about the nature of the universal. Its historically most influential result, which I then sketch, is Gregory of Nyssa's complex theory which he applies to a variety of other theological questions as well. One of those is Christology, but it turns out that this particular application becomes the crux of Gregory's theory. The latter part of my paper is dedicated to the proof that and how theological developments after the Council of Chalcedon (451) caused fundamental modifications to that theory, which in their turn had a wide-ranging impact on broader metaphysical issues.

A problem for Aristotelian realist accounts of universals (neither Platonist nor nominalist) is the status of those universals that happen not to be realised in the physical (or any other) world. They perhaps include uninstantiated shades of blue and huge infinite cardinals. Should they be altogether excluded (as in D.M. Armstrong's theory of universals) or accorded some sort of reality? Surely truths about ratios are true even of ratios that are too big to be instantiated - what is the truthmaker of such truths? It is argued that Aristotelianism can answer the question, but only a semi-Platonist form of it.

As the first paragraph explains: - These pages began as an attempt to look at Abelard’s theory of universals in connection with contemporary discussions. But it soon became apparent that there is little consensus about what this theory is and, despite the extensive literature on the subject, no place where readers, including those without any prior knowledge of the medieval background, can find a straightforward account of what Abelard said, what are the main questions of interpretation and how, or whether, they can be answered.  This paper is intended to fill that gap. The first section presents the main lines of Abelard’s theory, and the second looks in more detail at some of its problematic areas.

I consider, in particular, whether Abelard's nominalism is like that of contemporary 'austere' nominalists or, rather, is a merely superficial nominalism, in which a role is given to universal-like entities that are said not to be things.

It is often said that Scotus and Ockham made significant contributions to the debate about universals and individuation. I argue that no clear view of their theories about properties has emerged. On the contrary, there are deep ambiguities and technical confusions in both the primary and secondary literature. In this paper, I try to outline some of the more important ambiguities and confusions in as clear a way as I can.

After a brief summary of the literature on the topic of universals in Hus’s writings, the present study continues with a summation of our knowledge of Hus’s commentaries on Aristotle, and a presentation of those of Hus’s other treatises which are the most relevant to the topic of universals. Although the topic of universals is fundamentally philosophical, a significant source for our understanding of Hus’s position is his theological works, particularly his Sentences commentary. Based on an analysis of Hus’s Super IV Sententiarum I, distinctions 19 and 33, the study shows (in the theological contexts of the divine properties and a comparison between God and a universal) that Hus was persuaded about the reality of universals understood as formal components of the essence of individual substances, which are different from these substances by means of a formal distinction. Besides providing further details on Hus’s philosophical realism, the study demonstrates that similarly to his position concerning the divine properties, which is based on Thomas Aquinas, Hus understood his realist position as the opinio media. Hus also agreed that there are many similarities between God and a universal, although, as Hus puts it, it would be devious and false if someone would want to see this likeness in all the aspects.

Essential elements of Marcuse's Critical Theory can be better understood and appreciated when their Whiteheadian origins are examined. Marcuse's recourse to Whitehead's philosophy in both Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man has escaped explicit and sustained attention and this essay addresses this lacuna. The primary theme of the essay therefore consists of a careful examination of the instances of terminological and textual intersection grouped around three headings: the great refusal, universals and reason. A secondary objective that focuses the investigation concerns 'provisional realism'. The phrase 'provisional realism' was used by Whitehead infrequently. I adopt it here to suggest the shared metaphysical concerns of Critical Theory and Whitehead's philosophy. The great refusal is an appeal to a provisional realism implicating universals functioning as the intersection of actuality with possibility. This in turn facilitates the expansion and intensification of human reason as an agency in history.

PhD Thesis

This thesis is an investigation into the implications of the introduction of grounding into established debates on the laws of nature, focussing mainly on the implications for David Lewis’s Humean account, and David Armstrong’s universals account.

In chapter 2, I flesh out the notion of grounding that I use throughout the thesis. Grounding is intended to capture the notion of metaphysical dependence. Previously, metaphysical dependence was thought of as being the relation of supervenience. I explain the reasons for the rejection of supervenience in favour of the primitive notion of grounding. Having done so, I then explore grounding’s formal features, how best to regiment grounding talk, what the relata of grounding might be, and the relations connection to explanation. I then move on to discuss how universal generalisations are grounded, whether grounding is ontologically innocent (whether we pay an ontological price for grounded entities, beyond that paid for their grounds) and lastly, argue that ontological dependence should be understood as a species of grounding.

In chapter 3, I then employ the notion of grounding to assess Armstrong’s theory (1978) of universals. I explain how grounding might be employed to solve the problem of unity (the problem of how particulars and universals are held together in states of affairs), and how doing so provides significant theoretical benefits. Having argued that employing grounding is beneficial for Armstrong’s account, I then use grounding to demonstrate an underlying tension in Armstrong’s account that is visible once the account is stated in terms of grounding. Armstrong requires, to solve the problem of unity, that states of affairs ground their constituents. The consequence of this, however, is that his account of laws says that laws are constituents of states of affairs. As such, it appears instances of laws (being states of affairs) ground laws themselves. This is particularly problematic for Armstrong, given that he accords laws a governing role; if laws are grounded by their instances, what mechanism remains for them to govern those same instances?

In chapter 4, I explore the implications for Lewis’s (1973) Humean account of the laws of nature. I explain the motivations for the contemporary Humean’s famous denial of necessary connections, concluding that contemporary Humeans would be reluctant to commit to an irreducibly modal notion like grounding as a result of the denial. I then argue, however, that without a notion like grounding, Humeanism collapses into an interminably expensive position, ontologically. Furthermore, shorn of any notion of dependence other than supervenience, I demonstrate the counterintuitiveness of the resulting position, in so far as it requires that we sacrifice any notion of fundamentality, and offers no account of how laws explain their instances. I finally highlight a separate problem for Humeanism, in that, despite the frequency with which one hears the claim, Humean laws don’t actually appear to supervene on their instances.

"This essay takes up the contentious issue of Gregory of Nyssa’s use of a theory of the universal. It is argued that Gregory, in his trinitarian theology and elsewhere in his thought, employs with remarkable coherence a kind of theory for which the universal is essentially the whole of its individuals (collection theory). For Gregory this is a realistic theory in which the concept of the whole is either entirely detached from that of the individuals (as ousia or hupostasis in his trinitarian theory) or related to them as actual to potential nature (for example in his cosmology). It is characteristic for him that he makes the whole collection the object of reference for the substance- sortal. This theory helps him avoid (to some extent) doctrinal ramifications within trinitarian theology as it explains the Trinity as a perfect unity-in-
trinity which is both irreducibly one and irreducibly three. "

This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, which opens Avicenna’s (d. 1037) most comprehensive summa of Peripatetic philosophy, namely the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. For the first time, the text is established together with a stemma codicum showing the genealogical relations among 34 manuscripts, the twelfth-century Latin translation, and the literal quotations by Avicenna’s first and second-generation students. In this book, Avicenna’s reappraisal of Porphyry’s Isagoge is examined from both a historical and a philosophical point of view. The key-features of Avicenna’s theory of predicables are analyzed in the General Introduction and in the Commentary both in their own right and against the background of the Greek and Arabic exegetical tradition. Readers shall find in this book the first systematic study of the Madḫal which, in addition to being the only logical work of the Šifāʾ ever transmitted in its entirety both in Arabic and in Latin, is crucial for understanding Avicenna’s conception of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics.