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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Returning to Independent Universals

presented by

Christopher P. Martin

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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RETURNING TO INDEPENDENT UNIVERSALS
By

Christopher Martin

A THESIS
Subnufledto
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Philosophy

2002

ABSTRACT
Returning to Independent Universals
By

Christopher Martin

A conception of properties that treats universals as entities having both abstract
and concrete aspects offers a stronger explanatory account of the identity of
properties across particulars than David Armstrong’s version of immanent
realism. Armstrong’s realism of properties is an attempt to straddle a fence
between nominalism and realism. In attempting to do so, he makes two major
claims which are supported only by a primitive fact; he attempts to account for
each of these claims by defining universals as repeatable particulars. After
exposing several of the explanatory failings of Armstrong’s realism of properties,
I propose as an alternative a realism that treats universals as having both abstract
and concrete aspects. After comparing this proposal to several of Armstrong’s
major points and subjecting it to his criticisms of other theories of realism, I
conclude that this version of realism provides a stronger explanatory account of

the identity of properties than Armstrong’s immanent realism.

DEDICATION
"Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you what the real raw
material of your being is, something quite ineducable, yet in any case accessible
only with difficulty, bound, paralyzed: your educators can be only your
liberators. And that is the secret of all education: it does not lend artificial limbs,
wax noses or spectacled eyes-rather, what can give these things is only the
afterirnage of education. Certainly, there may be other means of finding oneself,
of coming around to oneself out of the daze in which one usually strays as in a
gloomy cloud, but I know of none better than to reflect upon one's true educators
and formative teachers."
~ Nietzsche
To my committee, my liberators, especially Matt McKeon, my chair and

my chief, who have profoundly impacted my philosophical development.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. ARMSTRONG'S CRITIQUE OF TRANSCENDENT REALISM
2. ARMSTRONG'S RESPONSE AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
3. ARMSTRONG'S RECONCILIATION

4. ARMSTRONG'S ACCOUNT OF HIS PRIMITIVE FACT

5. A RIVAL ACCOUNT OF ARMSTONG'S PRIMITIVE FACT

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

iv

18
32

42

As a realist about properties, I maintain that many instances or particulars
can express a single identical property, i.e. a universal, and that each universal
property, in one way or another, must be abstract. David Armstrong proposes a
realism of properties which construes universals and particulars as constituents
of states of affairs; thus universals are particulars, and no particulars are
abstract.1 On Armstrong’s view, universals and particulars are the ontological
constituents of states of affairs. He agues that all entities are particulars and that
universals are particulars that are repeatable.2 In the early section of this paper I
consider Armstrong’s attempt to accomplish consistently the two tasks of
locating universals only in particulars as particulars and of maintaining identity
among various instances of a universal. I argue that Armstrong's theory, as an
account of the apparent identity of properties in particulars, by locating
universals in and only in states of affairs while maintaining that each occurrence
of a universal is identical to other instances, has explanatory deficiencies. His
suggestion that we accept the repeatability of universals as a primitive fact
undermines his theory’s explanation of a realism of properties. I suggest that
Armstrong, by rejecting the abstract aspect of the universal that platonic realists
advocate, has cut himself off from a persuasive explanation of why different
instances of a universal are identical, i.e., one and the same. I suggest a version

of realism that returns to independent universals with abstract and concrete

 

1 This thesis is a consideration of two possible realisms of properties and does not address
nominalist accounts of properties. References to property nominalism refer to trope nominalism.
2 Armstrong’ 5 explanation of immanent realism, as presented and critiqued in this paper, is
drawn from his three primary works on Universals; namely, Universals and Scientific Realism, vols.
1&2, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction and A World of States of Aflairs. Where relevant, I
mention changes between works and strive, at all points, to draw from Armstrong’s most recent
material.

aspects and argue that it is able to provide a better, which is to say, more
persuasive, account of the apparent identity of properties.

I begin by briefly reviewing Armstrong’s criticisms of transcendent
realism and the specifics about his theory that stem from this critique. I then
proceed in the second section to fill in and update Armstrong’s position by
explaining his more recent doctrine of states of affairs. In this section I focus on
two of his claims that are of central importance in this paper; namely, 1) that
universals are located in and only in states of affairs and, 2) that each instance of
a universal is identical to itself in other instances, i.e. other states of affairs. I
argue that without an account of how this is so, i.e., an account of how universals
are both spatially located only in particulars and still identical to themselves in
each instance, the explanatory power of Armstrong’s theory is undermined. I
consider two attempts to account for the compatibility of his claims. The first,
which is Armstrong’s, takes as a primitive fact that universals are a repeatable
type of particular. After exposing the explanatory weakness of this claim, I turn
to the second attempt, which suggests that universals have abstract as well as
concrete aspects. After clarifying a few specifics of this theory, and comparing
the explanatory strengths and weaknesses of each description, I conclude that the
second, suggesting a return to independent universals, provides a more
persuasive account for the identity of properties in particulars. This paper thus
has two objectives: first, to show that Armstrong’s immanent realism does not
provide a persuasive account of the identity of properties and, second, to argue
that a realism that returns to independent universals is able to provide a stronger

account of a realism of properties than Armstrong’s by providing an explanatory

account of what he posits as a primitive fact. I conclude that the second option is
therefore worthy of further consideration and development.
Armstrong’s Critique of Transcendent Real-ism:

Armstrong critiques transcendent realism in his earlier work on universals
and uses several of these critiques as springboards to the construction of his own
theory. Transcendent realism is generally considered to be the theory of
universals proposed by Plato.3 Transcendent realism accounts for the similarity
or identity of certain qualities in different particulars by reference to abstract
universals or forms; i.e., an abstract universal is responsible for its respective
quality in many particulars.4 Consider, for example, where Socrates says ”and
the same account is true of the just and the unjust, the good and the bad, and all
the forms. Each of them is itself one, but because they manifest themselves
everywhere in association with actions, bodies, and one anOther, each of them
appears to be many” (Republic: 476a). Armstrong’s chief criticism of transcendent
realism is that it is a relational theory of universals. ” According to this version, a
has the property, P, if and only if a has a suitable relation to the transcendent
universal or form of F ” (1978a, 64). In the version of universals suggested by
Plato, universals are distinct from particulars while being causally responsible

for certain qualities in them. This is the view Armstrong criticizes when he

 

3Though Plato's dialogues as well as scholarship on Plato’s forms have been a strong influence on
this work, I am not directly concerned with Plato’s actual theory of forms in this paper.

4 Whether instances of platonic forms are identical or similar depends on your interpretation of
Plato’s forms and, more precisely, which theory of forms you are referring to. If forms are
interpreted as paradigm instances of particulars, for example, and their instances as deficient or
imperfect exemplifications of their respective forms, then the instances resemble but are not
identical to their respective forms. If, on the contrary, forms are ideas or concepts of qualities that
are represented in particulars, each instance of a form may be said to be identical to other
instances of the same form.

argues against a relational theory of universals; such a theory postulates distinct
(abstract) universals that are responsible for the qualities of (in) concrete
particulars.5 The question posed, then, is what is the relation between universals
and particulars?

The relation regress, Armstrong’s principle criticism of transcendent
realism, seriously threatens transcendent realism by undermining its ability to
appeal to a single universal to account for many particulars having
(instantiating) one property.‘5 The relation in question is the relation between
universals and particulars that presumably accounts for particular’s having the
properties they do.7 The criticism exposes the actual relation between universals
and particulars as itself constituting a many, i.e. the number of actual relations
between a universal and its participating particulars, in need of a one, suggesting
that the relation itself is a universal as well. ”The relation of participation is
therefore a type having indefinitely many tokens. But this is the very sort of
situation which the theory of forms finds unintelligible and insists on explaining
by means of a form” (Armstrong: 1978a, 70). If we account for this difficulty by

postulating a form of participation such that all the instances of participation

 

5 I do not consider at this point whether ’distinct’ implies ‘transcendent’. There is a clear
difference between these two terms, e.g., a particular may be distinct from a form just because the
form is also in many other instances, whereas transcendence implies abstract, e.g. a platonic
heaven of forms. Whether Plato intends ’distinct’ to imply transcendence or not, though I
suspect not, I leave open for now.

6 Armstrong attributes this objection to Gilbert Ryle. 1939, 137-8. A cursory reading of the
Parmenides shows that Plato was aware of similar difficulties as well. Cf. the third man criticism,
Parmenides 132.

7 A related difficulty implicit in this conception is whether things have properties in virtue only
of their relation to universals or whether universal properties can be said of or in the particular
without any relation holding between the two entities. E.g., are forms really separate from
particulars such that particulars instantiate forms only by a relation between two entities?

participate in this form, we are left wondering how to account for the relation
between the form of participation and each instance of participation, i.e., another
relation question is begged.For example, if we say that X and Y are both separate
universals and that a and b are instances of these universals respectively such
that a is an instance of X and b is an instance of Y, we would then need to
account for the two instances of the participation relation holding between (X
and a) and (Y and b). We would do so, following the method of this criticism, by
postulating a single universal of participation. In this instance the universal of
participation has as two of its constituents the participation between (X and a)
and the participation between (Y and b). However, the relation between the
instance of participation present in (X and a) and that present in (Y and b) and
the universal participation, being two separate instances that are independent of
the instance of participation holding between (X and a) and (Y and b), is now
also a one-over-many, and therefore in need of an account. This account, to
explain the relations between the first-order universal of participation and each
instance of participation between a particular and a universal, requires a higher-
order universal.8 This second-order universal of participation will then be
instantiated in every instance where the first-order universal instantiates a
relation of participation. We can account for these numerous instances, again,
only by postulating a third-order universal of participation and so on ad

infini tum. The problem is that an account of how a particular participates in a

universal can never be given because each stage of the attempted explanation

 

3 The first-order universal cannot be self-predicating, i.e. cannot itself be an instantiation, because
this pulls the form, and all others, into the infamous third-man regress. For a contemporary
version of this criticism cf. Gregory Vlastos or Marc Cohen.

posits numerous instances of the universal of participation that can be accounted
for only by appeal to a higher-order universal of participation which, again, has
numerous instances. So the criticism is not so much that an infinite regress is
endemic to relational versions of realism, but, what is far more important, that an
account of the relation between universals and particulars can never be given
because it must appeal at each step to a higher-order universal which is then
justified by appeal to an even higher-order universal and so on ad infinitum. ”It
appears, then, that the relation regress holds against all relational analyses of
what it is for an object to have a property or relation” (1978a, 70).

Another problem Armstrong has with transcendent realism is that it
allows for the possibility of uninstantiated universals.9 An uninstantiated
universal is a universal that does not presently or did or will not at some point be
instantiated in (by) some particular. Universals, according. to transcendent
realists, are eternal entities. For all universals that are not eternally instantiated,
i.e., do not have at least one instantiation for all eternity, there will be a time
during which the universal exists without any instantiation. For example, if a
new shape comes into existence and is in need of a universal, given that platonic
universals are eternal, the universal must have existed prior to the shape coming
into existence, and during this time was an uninstantiated universal.10

Uninstantiated universals arise from a rejection of what Armstrong refers to as a

 

9 This criticism, though mentioned in Armstrong’s earlier work (1978a), is explicitly analyzed in
Universals: An Opinionated Introduction: 1999, 75-7.

1° I do not accept Armstrong’s argument for and criticism of uninstantiated universals. My aim
here is only to explain his criticisms of transcendent realism. My reasons for rejecting his
criticism are based, in large part, on which specific properties are universals, a topic for another
time.

’principle of instantiation’. ”Should we, or should we not, demand that every
universal be instantiated? That is, for each property universal, must it be the
case that it is a property of some particular” (1989, 75)? This principle can be
made more demanding by building into it the further demand that every
universal must presently be instantiated in some particular. A difficulty arises if
we reject this principle and allow for the possibility of uninstantiated
universals.n Consider what follows from such a claim. ”Once you have
uninstantiated universals you need somewhere special to put them, a ’platonic
heaven,’ as philosophers often say” (1989, 76).12 Furthermore, given that
uninstantiated universals are occupants of a separate realm, and that instantiated
universals could very well have been or will be uninstantiated at some other
time, it stands to reason, Armstrong suggests, that all forms are occupants of a
platonic heaven.13 Given the need for a separate realm in which to locate forms,

the difficulty accounting for the relation between universals and forms becomes

 

‘1 One example of an uninstantiated universal might be a word from an ancient language that is
no longer used. With many instances of the word, it is likely that we would require a universal
of that word. Once the language is no longer in use, what account do we give of the universal
representing the lost word? This is a poor example, however, because it is difficult to believe that
a theory of universals, even one as extreme as Plato’s at times seems, would require a universal
for every word (or concept) that had more than one occurrence. I do not pursue this issue in this
paper, but understand the question of what should count as a universal to be a very pressing
follow-up to this project. Notice, however, that this also applies to a possible response to the -
relation regress, e.g., where is it clearly demonstrated that the one-over-many relation between
universals and particulars is a many in need of a one?

12 Armstrong’s ’platonic heaven’ reference, presumably, is a reference to Plato’s divided line
argument in Republic VI.

13 This objection could also be countered by dramatically reducing the number of universals. The
essential idea is that the vast majority of particulars are conjunctions of a few universals with the
consequence that we can dramatically reduce the number of necessary universals. See, for
example, Plato’s Sophist, 251d-257a. Depending on the size of the reduction, it is almost certain
that one could maintain that what universals there must always be instantiated, in which case
this criticism would no longer hold.

an even more daunting task; the transcendent realist is forced to cross not just
space-time, but realms in his account of participation as well.14

A third criticism is that the causal properties of particulars stem from their
relation to forms rather than from their internal nature.15 There is more to say
about this third criticism than I can pursue here.

It should be clear, at least, that the chief difficulty for the transcendent
realist is describing the nature of the relation between universals and particulars.
”Transcendent realism makes a major error in keeping particulars and universals
apart” (1978a, 75). One of Armstrong’s fundamental tenets of immanent realism,
we will see, is that universals are located in and only in particulars as
constituents of particulars. The question to consider, then, is how a universal
may be located in and only in different particulars while being identical to itself
in each particular. To examine these and other questions, We turn to

Armstrong’s positive conception of universals and his notion of states of affairs.

Armstrong’s Response and Further Development:
Armstrong’s version of realism, building from his criticisms of
transcendent realism, argues first and foremost that universals and particulars

are inseparable. ”There is no separation of particulars and universals.

 

14 The other criticism stemming from this argument, though not taken up here, is that such a view
commits one to a blob rather than a layer-cake view of particulars (Armstrong: 1999, 77). A blob
view of particulars conceives of a particular’ 5 having a property as a relation between the
particular and a universal. A layer cake view, on the other hand, accounts for properties by
locating universals in things (Universalia in rebus) and thereby giving particulars an internal
structure that seems lacking in the view that attributes properties to particulars in virtue of the
relations between a particular and its respective universals.

‘5 Cf. Armstrong: 1978a, 75.

Universals are nothing without particulars. Particulars are nothing without
universals” (1978a, 113). Armstrong appropriately labels this version of realism
’immanent’ as opposed to ’transcendent’. Transcendent realism argues that
universals are independent of particulars, whereas Armstrong’s immanent
realism locates universals in and only in particulars. I will fill in Armstrong’s
position by examining his notion of particulars, universals and states of affairs
separately and then bring them back together for a consideration of the main
claims of his immanent realism.

Armstrong says of particulars that they may be ’thin’ or ’thick’. A thin
particular is ”a thing taken in abstraction from all its properties”; a thick
particular, conversely; is ”a thing taken along with all its properties” (1978a, 114).
This distinction arises, Armstrong suggests, by distinguishing what it is for a
thing to be a particular, i.e. its particularity, from its non-particular aspects, i.e.
its properties. Thin and thick particulars presuppose a substance-attribute view
of particulars which permits or identifies a heaccitas or ’thisness’ to particulars to
which properties are attributed (1989, 95).16 Armstrong clarifies this notion in
more recent work by clearly stating that the notion of a bare particular, though
metaphysically (ontologically) disputable, is a useful mental abstraction. ”[W']e
are talking about the particular in abstraction from its properties. By
’abstraction’ here all that is meant is that by a mental act of ’partial consideration’
we consider the particular only in so far as it is a particular, we consider it only

in its particularity” (1997a, 123).17

 

1" Cf. Leibniz’s bare monads.
17 The plausibility of thin or bare particulars as real entities, rather than mere mental abstractions,
is strongly tied to Armstrong's substance-attribute view of particulars. If he cannot uphold bare

Armstrong’s thick particular is treated similarly across his three major
works on universals from 1978 to 1997. The thick particular is the thin particular
or heaccitas of a thing coupled with its properties. ”The thick particular is to be
i the particular taken along with all and only the particular’s non-relational
properties” (1997a, 124). Armstrong denies that relational properties such as ’2
feet from’ or ’taller than’ are properties of particular things. ”Relational
properties, although it is often useful to refer to them, do not have the same
metaphysical importance as non-relational properties” (1997a, 124). Armstrong
says elsewhere, however, that only properties, universals and states of affairs
exist.18 If relational properties are not properties in a strong sense, i.e., are not
properties of particulars that describe particulars, and are not included in
(constituents of) states of affairs, what is their ontological status? Do relations
constitute another ontological category? Armstrong does not consider this
objection to his claim that only states of affairs, particulars and universals exist,
but says only that to include relational properties in a thing ”swells the particular
beyond all compass. Particulars thus conceived will, as it were, overlap with
each other” (1997a, 124). Armstrong may have a difficult time accounting for the
ontological status of relational properties; it should nevertheless be clear that a
thick particular is the particular with its various (non-relational) properties, i.e.,

the bare particular plus whatever properties are properties of the particular.

 

particulars as real entities, a position he espouses in earlier works but shies away from here, then
it is not clear that a substance-attribute view suffices as a rejection of, or even argument against,
the bundle-view of particulars. He seems to have retracted or conceded this point, a point which
I see as crucial to his broad theory.

“3 Cf. (1989, 94) and (1997, 1, 126).

10

Armstrong’s properties are universals. What distinguishes universals
from particulars is that universals are repeatable, particulars are not. ”Universals
are entities that are identical, strictly identical, in different instantiations, and so
are the foundations in re for all genuine resemblances between particulars”
(1997a, 21). Universals, by identically occurring in different particulars, are
identical to themselves in each particular. The distinguishing mark of universals,
Armstrong later remarks, is ”their promiscuous repeatability” (1997a, 127); a
single universal is capable of being in many places at once. Thus, for Armstrong,
while universals are repeatable, particulars are not.

The second distinguishing fact about Armstrong's universals is that they
are in and only in particulars; universals are constituents of particulars. ”We can
adopt the view whose Latin tag is universalia in rebus (universals in things). We
can think of a thing’s properties as constituents of the thing and think of the
properties as universals” (1989, 77). Armstrong attributes this view to Aristotle.19
Recall that Armstrong rejects a relational realism in his critique of transcendent
realism. A positive reaction to this criticism is to pr0pose a realism where
universals are literally in particulars as constituents. ”So far from being removed
from space-time, universals will, on this view, help to constitute space-time”
(1997a, 40). A negative reaction is to say that universals are only in particulars,
and not anywhere else. Considering both reactions, Armstrong is arguing that

universals are in and only in particulars. The motivation is to construct a theory

 

1" Armstrong’s view should not be thought more or less plausible because it may or may not be
aristotelian. Armstrong appears to be referring to Aristotle’s view of universals in the Categories,
which is significantly altered, some contend outright reversed, in his later Metaphysics. Cf.
Armstrong: 1989, 77 and 1997, 29.

11

that escapes the supposedly devastating view that requires a relation of some
kind between universals and particulars. ”A moderate or Aristotelian realist
holds that universals are only in particulars, with the word ’in’ subject to
interpretation. The realism of this work is Aristotelian” (1997a, 22).20 Coupled
with the view that universals are repeatable entities, Armstrong is claiming that a
single universal is identically expressed in any number of particulars; each
occurrence of a single universal is identical to every other occurrence and each
occurrence is in and only in its respective particular.

Armstrong introduces states of affairs not as a third type of ontological
entity, but rather as a way of understanding the necessary interdependence
between particulars and universals. ”Particulars are particulars falling under
universals and universals demand particulars. We can put this by saying that
particulars and universals are found only in states of affairs" (1978a, 80). States
of affairs do not constitute a new type of entity, Armstrong contends, because
states of affairs just are the entities in which and from which universals and
particulars are found. ”For it is of the essence of particulars and universals that
they involve, and are only found in, states of affairs” (1978a, 80). Armstrong
defines states of affairs as ”a particular’s having a property, or two or more
particulars standing in some relation” (1978a, 113).” In a later work, Armstrong
explains the need for states of affairs as a confirmation for a particular’s having a

property. He argues that a is F (meaning that a particular a is P where F is a

 

30 Note that in his later work Armsh'ong mentions that the word ’in’ is in need of further
clarification. I pursue what Armstrong means by ’in’ shortly.

21 Armstrong’s most recent definition of states of affairs is virtually identical. ”An atomic state of
affairs exists if and only if a particular has a property, or a relation holds between two or more
particulars. These properties and relations are, of course, universals” (1997, 20).

12

universal and a is a bare particular) requires more than a and F. ”However, a
could exist, and F could exist, and yet it fail to be the case that a is F” (1989, 88). F
and a, Armstrong argues, must be combined in or be constituents of a single state
of affairs which is responsible for the fact that a is F. ”The existence of a, of
instantiation, and of F does not amount to a’s being F. The something more must
be a’s being F - and this is a state of affairs” (1989, 88).22 States of affairs are
identical with thick particulars; they are particulars whose constituents are bare
particulars and its properties. ”We will call the particulars, properties and
relations the constituents of the states of affairs” (1997a, 20). Armstrong builds
into his conception of states of affairs a rejection of the claim that any additional
relation of any kind is required to unite particulars and universals.
There is no relation of instantiation over and above the states of affairs
themselves... It is often convenient to talk about instantiation, but states
of affairs come first. If this is a ’fundamental tie’ required by relations as
much as properties, then so be it. But it is very different from anything
that is ordinarily spoken of as a relation” (1997a, 118).
Armstrong is attempting to shelter his theory from the need to account for any
type of relation between universals and particulars. ”The instantiation of
universals by particulars is just the state of affairs itself” (1997a, 119). This is one

of the principal aims of Armstrong’s work, to reject the claim that a wedge can be

 

22States of affairs, in effect, serve as truthmakers insuring that particulars do in fact instantiate
universals. The need for these follows from a particular, but not all, conceptions of universals.
E.g., if universals are causal (or otherwise responsible for a things having a property) then it is
not clear what purpose a ’truthmaker' and therefore a ’state of affairs’ would serve. Though I do
not discuss such a conception of universals in this paper, as it draws on complexities that are well
beyond the scope of this work, I do submit that this argument commits Armstrong to an
additional type of entity, and therefore increases the ontological expenditure of his theory.

13

driven between universals and particulars. Whether Armstrong succeeds or not
at this will be considered shortly.

States of affairs, furthermore, are ontologically prior to particulars and
universals. Armstrong describes states of affairs as facts. ”The world is a world
of states of affairs. The phrase ’state of affairs’ will be used in the same way that
Wittgenstein in the Tractatus used the term ’fact’” (1997a, 19). A state of affairs as
a fact of reality is ontologically prior to any consideration of its constituents
(universals and particulars). Put slightly differently, Armstrong portrays
universals and particulars as contingent upon states of affairs. He describes
universals as ”a gutted state of affairs: it is everything that is left in the state of
affairs after the particular particulars involved in the state of affairs have been
abstracted away in thought” (1997a, 28-9). Further on he states that ”this
conception of universals as state of affairs types... brings out the dependence of
universals upon states of affairs. As such, it should at least incline us to accept
the primary position of states of affairs...” (1997a, 29).

In ’the victory of particularity’, written in 1997, Armstrong describes states
of affairs as particulars. States of affairs have as their constituents universals and
particulars. Armstrong argues that each state of affairs is a particular because
something about it distinguishes it from other states of affairs. If two states of
affairs instantiate the same universal, they will nonetheless have two distinct
bare particulars. Likewise, if one (bare) particular has a state of affairs with one
universal and another state of affairs with a distinct universal, each state of
affairs is distinguished by the distinct universal. States of affairs are what we

mean by particulars in our everyday parlance; a non-repeatable particular with

14

properties, i.e. a thick particular.23 ”The thick particular is a state of aflairs. The
properties of a thing are ’contained within it’ because they are constituents of this
state of affairs” (1989, 95).

We can return now to an earlier problem, namely, what does Armstrong
mean by ’in’ when he claims that universals are in and only in particulars?
Armstrong's universals are constituents of states of affairs and states of affairs
are thick particulars. States of affairs tie universals and particulars so intimately
together that no relation between the two types of entities is needed. ”The
instantiation of universals by particulars is just the state of affairs itself" (1997a,
119). To say that universals are ’in’ particulars (or states of affairs), then, must
mean just that universals are constituents of states of affairs and are inseparable
from (bare) particulars in states of affairs. This is what Armstrong understands
by ’in’ in the phrase ’universals are only in particulars’.

One concern with Armstrong’s states of affairs doctrine is whether it
really succeeds or not in tying universals and particulars close enough together
to deny that a relation between the two types of entities exists. Micheal Devitt
criticizes Armstrong by claiming that he has not successfully avoided the relation
regress.24 Devitt argues that Armstrong proposes ’F-ness is a’ ”and simply
declares it to be non-relational and inexplicable: particulars are not related to

universals, but bonded to them in a metaphysical unity” (Devitt: 1997, 98).

 

23 First-order states of affairs are states of affairs whose constituents are particulars and universals
only. A second-order state of affairs may have as one (or more) of its constituents another state of
affairs. The state of affairs that is my car, for instance, is composed of the state of affairs that is
my steering wheel, engine block, tail light and countless other lower-order states of affairs.
Higher-order states of affairs can have as their constituents lower-order states of affairs as well as
universals and particulars. Cf. A World of States of Aflairs, 196-7.

24 The following is one of the many interesting ideas raised by Devitt and Armstrong.

15

Devitt continues his criticism by claiming that ” Armstrong avoids this grievous
difficulty for realism [accounting for the relation between universals and
particulars] by fiat... Do we have even the remotest idea of what the words ’in’
and ’have’ mean here [’a has F-ness’ and ’F-ness is in a’] if they are not construed
as relational predicates?” (Devitt: 1997, 98).25 Armstrong’s response succeeds
only in justifying Devitt’s frustration: he asserts that a realist has two sorts of
answer to the question of how two (or more) components of a thick particular are
put together. The first replies that a relation of some kind exists between the two
components. Armstrong briefly reviews his problems with this view and
suggests a second response, that ”while we can distinguish the particularity of a
particular from its properties, nevertheless the two ’factors’ are too intimately
together to speak of a relation between them... Bare particulars and
uninstantiated universals are vicious abstractions from what may be called states
of affairs: this-of-a-certain-nature” (Armstrong: 1997b, 110). Armstrong admits
that this response is ”profoundly puzzling” and admits ”Devitt is able to claim,
not implausibly, that all I have done is to substitute inexplicable mystery for the
relational view” (Armstrong: 1997b, 110). It is not clear, though, that Armstrong
has even substituted anything for the relational view; all he has done, as Devitt
contends, is replaced the terminology. Instead of ’instantiation’ or ’participation’

we get ’state of affairs’.

 

25 Gail Fine wages a similar criticism against Armstrong. ”Surely it will not do simply to declare,
as Armstrong does, that since relational immanent realism is vulnerable to a regress,
nonrelational immanent realism must be true. Although it is ’inexplicable’ and ’profoundly
puzzling’. Denying that universals and particulars are related, and then insisting that their union
is simply inexplicable, is hardly satisfactory; Armstrong owes us more here” (1981, 268).

16

Another criticism, analogous to Devitt’s, arises from Armstrong’s
description of the particularity of universals and concrete particulars as distinct
types of entities. Armstrong (1997a, §3.6) considers David Seargent’s proposal
(1985, ch. 4) that universals be conceived of not as things or entities, but rather as
’ways’ things are. Armstrong responds: ”I demur at his suggestion that
properties and relations are not entities” (1989, 31). Armstrong feels the same
way about particulars. ”The position being taken is that the particularity of
particulars is not to be accounted for in terms of universals, or, indeed, in terms
of properties taken as particulars. It is an irreducible feature of particulars,
distinct from their properties” (1997a, 107).26 So, for Armstrong, even as
constituents of states of affairs, universals and particulars are two fundamentally
distinct types of entities. Armstrong rejects, however, the view that universals
can be uninstantiated and that particulars, except in thought, can be bare;
universals and particulars are co-dependent entities and are united in states of
affairs.27 In fact, universals and particulars are contingent upon states of affairs.
”[I]t is fundamental to the system being developed here that they [universals],
like particulars, are contingent beings” (1997a, 38).28 States of affairs unite
particulars and universals, but it is not clear that they do so while escaping the
need to account for why or how universals and particulars are so intimately

intertwined. Recall that states of affairs can be understood as an attempt to reject

 

2" Armstrong had earlier answered ’yes’ to whether we really need a separate category for
particulars. He goes on to proffer an epistemological and an ontological argument for the need of
particulars as a type of entity independent of any other types of entities.

27 Arguments for and against bare particulars are considered in Armstrong (1989, 94-6) and (1997,
123-6) as well as his earlier work, which is reviewed and updated in his most recent work.

23 For a critique of this argument, see Dodd, 1998.

17

that a wedge can be driven between universals and particulars. Is this consistent
with the depiction of universals and particulars as two distinct types of entities
brought together in states of affairs, or does Armstrong’s state of affairs
terminology simply replace the older terminology of instantiation and
participation? I think Devitt is right in arguing for the latter; Armstrong claims
that universals and particulars are non-relational, but he also explicitly argues
that they are both distinct types of entities, in which case, how can they not be
related to one another in states of affairs? If his view is relational, furthermore,
then he requires of himself, apropos his first criticism of transcendent realism, an
explanation of how particulars instantiate universals, or how states of affairs tie
universals and particulars closely enough to reject the claim that any relation
between the two exists?29 I don’t buy it, nor does Devitt. I do not take up the
issue here, but only remark that if universals and particulars are two distinct
types of entities, something more than the claim that they are united in states of

affairs is needed as an account of the (non)relation between the two.

Armstrong’s Reconciliation:

Armstrong’s conception of universals is an attempt to reconcile the
nominalist notion of reality’s being constituted only by concrete particulars with
the realist notion that a single universal can have many instances (multiple
realizability). I show, first, how Armstrong conceives universals as concrete

entities. I then contrast this with his claim that universals can be multiply

 

2" Cf. Fine (1981) and Devitt (1991) for similar concerns.

18

instantiated. Armstrong's claim that universals are multiply realizable is
unsupported because it is at odds with his claim that universals are particulars. I
also consider two options through which an account of these two claims may be
given. I suggest that the best account requires accepting that universals are, at
least in part, abstract entities, and propose a sketch of how such a conception of
universals might work. I conclude that some version of transcendent realism is a
better candidate for a realist theory of properties than Armstrong’s immanent
realism.

Despite their repeatability, Armstrong’s universals are a type of particular.
Armstrong distinguishes universals from particulars by stipulating that
universals are repeatable, bare particulars and states of affairs are not. He
attempts to tie universals intimately to a reality of particulars. To do so, he
modifies the abstract/ concrete distinction to include multiply instantiated
universals as concrete particulars and rejects the view that abstract objects are
spatio-temporal entities. Armstrong’s abstract/ concrete distinction is drawn on
space-time grounds and, coupled with his thesis that universals are located in
and only in particulars, permits repeatable universals to be in concrete particular
entities. Armstrong’s distinction, as I will show shortly, argues that abstract
entities are outside of space-time and, as such, are unnecessary, and that concrete
or particular entities are only and all those entities that are within space-time.30
On this account, given that only concrete entities populate space-time, coupled

with the claims that universals are constituents of states of affairs and that states

 

3° This view is motivated in part by Armstrong’s naturalism thesis. He defines naturalism, as it
pertains to his work, as ” the contention that the world, the totality of entities, is nothing more
than the space-time system” (1997, 5).

19

of affairs are particulars (concrete entities), so also must universals be particulars
(concrete entities).

What Armstrong means by ’ particular,’ ’concrete’ and ’abstract’ becomes
clear by looking at his conception of abstract entities. Armstrong states that
entities that are thought to be (postulated as) additional to the space-time system
”are often spoken of as ’abstract’” (1997a, 8). Abstract entities include,

among other candidates, possible worlds, [transcendent] universals and

classes.“ It will be part of the task of this work to argue that either such

entities can be dispensed with or, as is preferable in general, that an
account of them can be, given within the space-time system, with that

system taken to be a system of states of affairs (1997a, 8).

Again, when considering Reinhardt Grossmann’s depiction of universals,
Armstrong characterizes abstract entities as entities that are additional to space-
time.32 Armstrong is in agreement with Grossmann insofar as Grossmann argues
that properties and relations are universals. Grossmann’s error, Armstrong
claims, is that ”all these things [properties and relations] he calls, in the
unfortunate Harvard terminology, ’abstract’. They are not to be identified with,
they stand apart from, that great particular, the space-time realm" (1997a, 136). It
is clear, then, that abstract entities, for Armstrong, are entities that are additional
to or otherwise outside of space-time. Further, given Armstrong’s naturalism,
these entities, as he says, are to be dispensed with or otherwise located within

space-time. Universals are a perfect example of this shift from abstract to

 

31 It is clear that Armstrong does not intend immanent universals to be included in this category,
given that they are by definition constituents of (in) particular states of affairs.
32 Cf. Grossmann, 1992.

20

concrete entities. Armstrong dispenses with the univer’salia ante rem (universals
before things) depiction suggesting that universals are independent of
particulars (and perhaps transcendent) and replaces it with the universalia in
rebus (universals in things) depiction which located universals in and only in
spatio-temporal particulars.

By rejecting abstract entities and identifying the whole of reality with and
only with the space-time realm, i.e. ’that great particular’, Armstrong reduces all
entities to the category of particulars. The world is a world of states of affairs
(Armstrong’s oft quoted and seemingly favorite sentence), and states of affairs
are particulars. Given that only particulars exist, I suggest that Armstrong has
two slightly different conceptions of ’particular’, respectively corresponding to
his distinction between particulars and universals. In one sense, an entity is a
particular just in case it has or occupies a single spatio-temporal location. Bare
particulars and states of affairs fall into this category of particulars. Bare
particulars are non-repeatable and therefore tied to their occupied spatio-
temporal location. Likewise, every state of affairs has as one of its constituents a
bare particular, and so is also spatio-temporally fixed.33 In another sense, an
entity is a particular just in case it lies (exists) within space-time, but need not be
limited to a specific spatio-temporal location. Universals, in virtue of their
repeatability, are such entities, i.e., fall into this second category of particulars.
Universals are distinguished from bare particulars and states of affairs by their

promiscuous repeatability. States of affairs and bare particulars are not

 

33 Having an instance of a universals does not alter this because, per Armstrong’s description, any
single instance of a universal in a state of affairs is a particular instance that is located in and only
in the given state of affairs.

21

repeatable and are consequently particulars in a concrete sense, whereas
universals, in virtue of their repeatability, are particulars in a particular sense,
but not a concrete one. By extending the category of particulars to include
multiply realizable entities, Armstrong is able to describe universals as
particulars and to push the meaning of ’abstract’ to include all and only those
objects which are outside of space-time.

A difficulty with this view, however, is that Armstrong’s modification of
the abstract/ concrete distinction makes it difficult to conceive how any entity
could be abstract. By claiming that space-time is composed only of particulars,
i.e., repeatable and non-repeatable concrete objects, Armstrong defines abstract
objects as entities outside of space-time and reduces all objects in space-time to
particulars. This is convenient for Armstrong because it makes his argument for
naturalism all the more likely to be true. However, if we have a different
understanding of the abstract/ concrete distinction, we might argue that an object
is concrete just in case space or time limits it. An object is abstract, conversely,
just in case it is limited neither by space nor time.34 These are exhaustive
categories, furthermore, because every entity either is or is not limited by space
or time. This is a more specific interpretation of the abstract/ concrete distinction
than Armstrong offers; on his interpretation, a universal can be concrete without
being spatio-temporally limited. Armstrong’s universals are not spatially bound
because they can always instantiate another (spatial) particular. Moreover, so

long as a universal is instantiated in at least one state of affairs, a universal is not

 

3‘ Cf. Jerrold Katz: 1998, 120-32 for descriptions of the standard interpretation of this distinction
and for an interesting spin on the abstract/ concrete distinction.

22

temporally limited either. If all entities are particulars, as Armstrong argues,
then there is no use for a category of abstract objects; it is an empty set.

The more specific version of the distinction calls into question the status of
Armstrong’s universals. If universals are constituents of particulars and
themselves particulars, are they abstract or concrete? A single instance of a
universal, being a particular constituent of a concrete state of affairs, appears
concrete. Armstrong argues that universals are concrete, repeatable entities.
However, the universal qua universal, which is not the same as one instance of a
universal but rather constitutes all of its instances, would seem abstract, i.e.,
limited neither by space nor time. If universal X can be in more than one location
at once we can hardly claim that it is spatially limited, even though individual
instances of it are, and even though the universal in each instance is just identical
to itself in each other instance, e.g., the universal can always occupy another
spatial location.35 Likewise, if the universal itself does not perish when it ceases
to be instantiated in a particular state of affairs, so long as it is instantiated in at
least one other state of affairs, we can hardly claim that it is temporally limited.36
So Armstrong’s universals, under the traditional abstract/ concrete distinction,
appear abstract. Therefore, how we interpret the abstract/ concrete distinction
determines whether Armstrong’s universals are abstract or concrete. Armstrong

argues that they are repeatable concrete particulars, but relies on a somewhat

 

35 I suppose one could argue that because universals are confined to particular instances and that
each instance of a universal is a particular, the universal is a particular, but this claim fails to
show how the universal as an entity with multiple instantiations is ever limited by space or time,
i.e., it can always be instantiated in another spatial location at another time.

3" Once again, I am avoiding the debate over uninstantiated universals and therefore assume for
now that all universals have at least one instance.

23

weighted interpretation of the abstract/ concrete distinction to do so, i.e., by
expanding the category of concrete entities to include concrete entities that are
repeatable, Armstrong is able to claim that universals are particulars, i.e.,
repeatable concrete entities. However, with this characterization, viewed under
the traditional distinction, Armstrong’s universals are in danger of being labeled
abstract. It is ambiguous, therefore, which category of entities Armstrong’s
universals fall into, depending on how one chooses to make the

abstract/ concrete distinction.

We can now state the first of two claims that are of central importance to
Armstrong’s realism: universals are located in and only in concrete particulars as
particulars. This is consistent with the nominalist claim that only concrete
particulars exist. ”For me, as a nominalist, the world is a world of individuals”
(Goodman 1956, 15).37 Keith Campbell defines nominalism as the claim that
” there are only concrete particular objects - rabbits and foxes, chairs and tables,
and so forth. These objects fall into groups resembling one another more or less
closely. Such objects have in common their membership in sundry classes, but
no genuinely common universal element” (1990, 17).38 Armstrong’s realism is
consistent with the nominalist claim that only particulars exist.

The second major claim of Armstrong’s realism is that universals are

multiply realizable, meaning that a single universal can be wholly present in

 

37 Nelson Goodman continues in his article to clarify the meaning of ’individual’ and ’particular’,
especially by rejecting that classes are individuals (16-7). Goodman's nominalism ”demands only
that all entities admitted, no matter what they are, be treated as individuals” (17).

33 Two other qualitative summaries of trope nominalism are Keith Campbell’s ”The Metaphysics
of Abstract Particulars” and David Lewis's discussion of properties (50-69) in On the Plurality of
Worlds. Campbell’s article is a more thorough consideration whereas Lewis’s chapter provides
an instructive comparison between tropes and universals.

24

many places at once and identical to itself in each instance. This is what
Armstrong means when he says that repeatability is the mark of universals, and
is consistent with the principle realist tenet that instances of (universal)
properties are identical to other instances of the same property. This accounts for
the apparent identity of properties in different concrete particulars.39

With these two claims we can see that one of the motivations for
Armstrong’s theory of universals is to straddle the fence between realism and
nominalism. Armstrong attempts to incorporate the essential nominalist claim
that the world is a world of particulars with a central realist claim that universals
account for the apparent identity of properties in particulars. His aim is to
establish a world of particulars, some of which are multiply realizable
particulars, i.e. universals. By locating universals in and only in particulars,
Armstrong avoids transcendent entities, and by claiming that universals are
multiply realizable, he enables the identity of properties across different
particulars. He offers a theory of universals that includes multiply realizable
universals within a world of particulars. An account of the compatibility of these
two claims, each being central aspects of Armstrong’s realism, is needed. I turn
now to a consideration of this issue and argue that Armstrong's explanation of
how these two claims fit together is not persuasive. Following this I consider
two ways in which the two claims may be coherently incorporated and argue

that the second option, that we accept that universals have abstract as well as

 

3" What the most important realist principle is would probably differ from individual to

individual. For example, Plato might argue that the claim that universals are intelligible but not
visible is the fundamental realist principle, Armstrong argues that they must be repeatable, and
Aristotle might argue that they can only be ’said of’ particulars. It is clear, however, that one of
the principle claims is that a single universal is expressed or represented by (in) many instances.

25

concrete aspects, offers a stronger explanatory account than Armstrong’s
immanent realism.

Accounts of the two central claims under consideration here work against
each other. The first claim, that universals are located in and only in particular
states of affairs, seems intended to appease nominalists who argue that only
concrete particulars exist. On Armstrong’s view, reality is constituted by
particular states of affairs whose constituents are bare particulars and particular
instances of universals. The instance of a universal in a state of affairs is a
concrete instance that perishes with the state of affairs. Armstrong’s world is a
world of particulars. The problem, however, is that this view lends no credence,
and even suggests difficulties with, the claim that universals are multiply
realizable. If we construe the world as a world of concrete particulars, what
reason do we have to accept that certain particulars, namely universals, are
identical to themselves in numerous instances, i.e., that one particular can be a
concrete constituent of numerous particulars at one time, especially when the
other two classes of particulars (bare particulars and states of affairs) do not
share this characteristic? Not only does the characterization of the world as a
world of particulars neglect to account for the repeatability of certain types of
particulars, but even works against it by construing all other types of particulars
as non-repeatable.

The second claim, while upholding the realist tenet that individual
instances of properties are identical and that it is this abstract (meaning multiply
realizable) nature of properties that accounts for the apparent identity of

properties in different particulars, does not corroborate and even undermines the

26

first claim.” Under this claim, Armstrong is wearing the hat of a realist. He
argues that universals are a type of entity that is repeatable such that one single
universal is spatially and temporally locatable in numerous particular instances.
On this view, while a particular instance or instantiation of a universal may
perish with a state of affairs, the universal qua universal, so long as it is
instantiated in at least one other state of affairs, is alive and well, i.e. exists.
Because the universal is repeatable, an alteration of one instance has no effect on
other instantiations of the same universal. Armstrong describes the situation like
this: ”Properties are not the sort of thing which can be destroyed (or created).
The language of destruction and creation is simply inappropriate in connection
with universals" (1978a, 112-3). Yet this is precisely what happens to particular
(concrete) instances of universals; they are created, altered and destroyed. For
example, I buy and store cardboard boxes as flat pieces of cardboard. I then fold
them into rectangular and square shapes, instantiating the universals rectangle
and square respectively. When I’m finished, I alter and ultimately destroy the
concrete instances of the universals by collapsing the boxes. Throughout this
process, however, I have not affected the quality or property of the universals
rectangle and square, they represent the same quality whether instantiated in my
boxes or not. The property, despite being wholly present as a concrete
constituent of a state of affairs (first claim), is, more importantly, that property or

quality of its various particulars that is unchanged despite changes to particular

 

‘0 I assume, and have been assuming a familiarity with the notion of ’partial identity’. Namely,
that two different particulars can be identical in respect to a single property without the
particulars themselves being identical. Cf. Armstrong 1989: 2-5, 7 and, more significantly 1997:
17-8, 51-7.

27

instantiations. This is because a single universal is repeatably instantiated such
that an alteration to one particular instance does not affect other instances. This
counters the first claim, however, that any single instance of a universal alone
constitutes the universal. With the second claim, the universal is identified by
the transitive quality or property that is multiply located; whereas the first claim
identifies the universal as a single instance of the universal. It is not obvious
how a universal is both a constituent of a single particular (first claim) and a
transitive property of many particulars (second claim). The second claim does
not corroborate the first claim that a universal just is any given concrete instance
of the universal in a given state of affairs.

Given the central importance of these two claims to Armstrong’s broader
theory, an account of their compatibility is needed. As things now stand, we
have the description of universals as concrete constituents of states of affairs on
the one hand and the description of universals as multiply realizable or
repeatable properties on the other. To pull this account off, we need to
understand how it is that universals coherently share both of these qualities or
descriptions. Armstrong appeals to his notion of repeatability as a response to
this challenge. If universals are repeatable entities, then a single universal, while
maintaining the superficial appearance of a concrete constituent in a given state
of affairs, also possesses the elusive quality of being able to be identically
repeated or multiply realized as a concrete constituent in other states of affairs.
More specifically, the universal literally is a concrete constituent of a particular
state of affairs. This concrete constituent, moreover, is identically located or

repeated as a concrete constituent of any number of other states of affairs;

28

universals are repeatable concrete constituents of states of affairs. The problem,
as I further elaborate, is that he suggests we accept repeatability as a primitive
fact, i.e., it is a primitive fact that a type of particular, namely universals, is
repeatable.

Armstrong accepts as a primitive fact that universals are repeatable
entities and suggests that we do so as well. The impetus to claim that the actual
universals are multiply located, rather than separating each universal as a single
entity from its multiple instantiations, follows from Armstrong’s rejection of
transcendent universals; if universals are only in space-time, what better place to
locate them than, literally, in their respective particulars. And if they are in their
particulars, they cannot be divided between them, apropos of Parmenides’s sail,
and so must be wholly instantiated in each particular.41 ”If two different
electrons each have charge e, then e, one thing, a universal, is to be found in two
different places, the places where the two electrons are, yet entirely and
completely in each place.” Armstrong admits that this view seems ”wildly
paradoxical to many philosophers.” He suggests that ”You might try just
accepting the multiple location of universals” (1989, 98).

The problem, however, is that Armstrong’s suggestion takes as primitive
the very claim that makes his theory of properties a realism of properties.
Armstrong’s claim that universals are repeatable constitutes his justification of
the identity of properties in different particulars, but this claim is a primitive fact.

Armstrong’s justification for realism, then, is that you either accept or do not

 

41 Cf. Plato’s Parmenides, 131.

29

accept his primitive fact; no further argument can be given. This, I claim,
significantly reduces the explanatory strength of his realism; specifically, his
realism’s explanatory power turns on, or is reduced to, an intuitive acceptance or
rejection of his primitive fact claim that certain concrete particulars are
repeatable. I elaborate further, given that the sine qua non of property theory is
the explanatory success of a theory, that the realism with the best explanation of
apparent identity of properties is the most successful.42 Armstrong’s realism
does not provide a very strong account, and it is therefore worthwhile, as a
realist, to consider a different version of realism with a plausibly stronger
account or explanation for the apparent identity of properties in different
particulars.

Armstrong might proffer, if asked, as a reason for accepting multiple
realizability as a primitive fact that this is a central and crucial component of the
best realist theory around.43 Devitt argues that Armstrong does not account for
the relation (or, more specifically, Armstrong’s claim to a non-relation) between
universals and particulars. Having rejected transcendent realism, in part,
because of the difficulties of the relation regress, Armstrong attempts to unite
particulars and universals in states of affairs which represent universals and
particulars as ’non-relational entities’ (1978, 108-11). Devitt characterizes this
attempt to escape the need to account for instantiation or participation, as
mentioned earlier, as replacing ”the explanatory failings of relational realism

with a complete mystery” (Devitt: 1997, 98). Armstrong concedes that his non-

 

42 I consider ontological economy to be a secondary factor to explanatory success, i.e., to be a
further consideration once the explanatory success of a theory is determined. Cf. Oliver, 1996.
43 This is based on Armstrong’s response to a similar objection posed by Micheal Devitt.

30

relational view has problems, but claims that ”It may be crooked, but it looks to
be the best (realist) game in town” (Armstrong: 1997b, 110). Armstrong might
similarly respond to the difficulty of accepting the multiple location or
repeatability of universals as a primitive fact; it may be groundless, but it does
nevertheless incorporate a key realist principle into his theory of properties.
Viewing Armstrong’s theory as an attempt to straddle the fence between
nominalism and realism exposes the fact that he can do so only by admitting the
central realist tenet, one every nominalist and his or her mother would reject, as a
primitive fact. The first option, then, following Armstrong, is to claim the
apparent repeatability of properties as a primitive fact. However, failure to
propose an account, I argue, calls Armstrong’s claim to be espousing a realism of
properties into question, especially because his primitive fact is what, and all,
that grounds or constitutes his theory’s realism. Once the explanatory failings of
Armstrong’s primitive fact are realized, his theory loses a significant amount of
explanatory power, the life-blood of property theory. I do not think that
construing repeatability as a primitive fact, given the importance of this claim to
Armstrong’s realism, is a persuasive option and therefore intend, in the
remainder of the paper, to compare this option with one that I argue has more
explanatory value or success. The second option is to account for or to explain
the identity of properties by returning to independent universals. In pursuing
this option, I propose a return to an account of independent universals that
construes universals as entities having both abstract and concrete aspects. I
conclude that the second option, though ontologically more expensive than an

immanent realism, provides a stronger explanation of the repeatability of

31

properties than Armstrong’s primitive fact centered version of immanent

realism.

Armstrong’s Account of his Primitive Fact:

As demonstrated above, Armstrong attempts to account for each of his
central claims by appealing to his primitive fact explanation of universals as
repeatable entities. In this section I consider two options for explaining the
apparent repeatability of properties in particulars. The first option is
Armstrong’s attempt to define ’property’ such that its definition alone, as a
primitive fact, accounts for the repeatability of properties. Extending the
criticism concluding the previous section, however, I argue below that this
attempt has explanatory failings, and, given the emphasis on explanations in
property theory, is not a persuasive account of the repeatability of particulars.
The second option is to consider or hypothesize that universals have abstract as
well as concrete aspects, i.e., that each universal has a single abstract aspect
which is independent of its concrete instances and that each concrete instance
constitutes a concrete aspect of the universal. This view, in origin at least, is
platonic, though not transcendent, and constitutes a major break from
contemporary realist theory. I argue, nevertheless, that this view offers a
substantive explanation of the apparent repeatability of properties in particulars
as well as each of Armstrong’s two central claims. This option, consequently, has
more explanatory value than Armstrong’s immanent realism.

The first option for explaining the apparent repeatability of properties,

demonstrated by Armstrong’s theory, is to define ’property’ such that its

32

definition alone entails that some particulars, namely universals, are repeatable.
As discussed earlier, Armstrong defines ’universals’ as repeatable concrete
particulars. Their alleged particularity, satisfying the first claim, is what
accounts for how a single concrete instance of a universal, a concrete constituent
of a state of affairs, constitutes the entire universal. Because it is a single
universal that is repeated, each of its instances is identical to its other instances,
satisfying the second claim. Armstrong proposes this definition of ’property’ as
an account for each of his two central claims.

Armstrong’s response is reminiscent of an argument made by GE. Moore
in response to CF. Stout’s claim that properties of different particulars cannot be
identical to one another. Stout argues that given A and B, two concrete
particulars that are both round, we assert ” that some particular example of an
absolutely specific sort of quality belongs to A, and that a particular example of
the same sort of quality belongs to B. We do not assert that it is the same
instance of roundness in general which belongs to both” (1923, 117). More
succinctly, he argues ”local separation of the things is in the same sense local
separation of the qualities (1923, 121). So on Stout's account, the local separation
of two qualities or properties entails that the properties, like particulars, are
separate, i.e., not one and the same. This argument is an early version of trope
nominalism, which argues that no matter how closely two or more properties of
different particulars might resemble one another, they can never be said to be
identical. Moore counters Stout by arguing that particular objects and particular
properties are two different kinds of entities; unlike concrete particulars, ”one

and the same quality can be in two different places at one time” (1923, 106).

33

Moore’s characterization of qualities is indicative of Armstrong’s definition of
’properties’; both authors contrast qualities (or properties) from particulars and
argue that qualities, unlike particulars, can be multiply located, i.e., repeatable.

There are at least two reasons why we should question the explanatory
value of this approach. First, Armstrong’s primitive fact constitutes his theory's
realism, so the explanatory worth of his theory is contingent upon accepting his
primitive fact, and, being primitive, no argument is given for why we should do
so. Second, though Armstrong’s theory explicitly rejects independent universals,
it tacitly implies that universals have a quality independent of single
occurrences, suggesting that each individual instance of a universal does not,
considered alone, constitute the universal. This independent quality of
universals, furthermore, is analogous to and suggestive of the approach I
suggest, that we accept that each universal has an independent and abstract
aspect. .

The claim that universals are repeatable particulars is what grounds
Armstrong’s theory in realism. The central realist tenet of property theory is that
there are properties in virtue of which particular properties of concrete
particulars are identical.44 Armstrong incorporates this claim, the central realist
tenet, into his theory by claiming that universals are repeatable particulars as a
primitive fact; it is a primitive fact, according to Armstrong, that certain types of
particulars are repeatable, and these particulars account for the identity of

properties in different particulars. Armstrong’s realism, therefore, is constituted

 

‘4 Plato, Armstrong, Butchvarov and Katz, as well as other realists for properties, all argue that
properties, in one way or another, are distinct ontological entities.

34

by his primitive fact claim; his theory is a realism of properties because it asserts,
primitively, that universals are repeatable.

Armstrong’s version of properties, furthermore, is a realism of properties
only because of its primitive fact claim about the repeatability of universals.
Armstrong’s theory amounts to a nominalism with the one stipulation that
certain particulars, namely universals, are identically repeatable. States of affairs
and bare particulars are particular and concrete entities, apropos Goodman’s
nominalist claim that the world is a world of particulars.45 In fact, all of
Armstrong’s entities are particular entities; there are no types of entities except
particulars. Armstrong has stretched the conception of particular to include
repeatable particulars, but even repeatable particulars are particular and
concrete. Armstrong’s world is a world of particulars.

Nothing in Armstrong’s theory thus far is inconsistent with trOpe
nominalism. Trope nominalists do object, however, to the claim that properties
of different particulars can be identical to one another, and this is where, perhaps
only where, Armstrong’s theory differs from theirs. In Armstrong’s theory,
however, this is claimed only as a primitive fact, meaning that the only
distinction between Armstrong's theory and a trope nominalist’s theory is
Armstrong’s primitive fact that certain particulars are identically repeatable.
This is a significant difference between the two views; my point is that it is based
solely on an intuitive claim. I suspect that the distinction between nominalism

and realism is based on more than intuitive grounds. Armstrong’s claim to

 

45 Cf. Keith Campbell’s. ”The Metaphysics of Abstract Particulars.” 1997.

35

realism, then, is constituted by and only by his primitive fact that universals are
repeatable particulars.

One is persuaded or unpersuaded by Armstrong’s view only by whether
one accepts or rejects his primitive fact. Armstrong’s theory, in other words, is
persuasive only to those predisposed to realism. And even those predisposed to
realism, such as myself, may be unpersuaded by Armstrong’s primitive fact that
certain particulars are repeatable, and consequently unpersuaded that his
realism is the best realism in town. The potential value of the discussion
between realists and nominalists over properties is to compare the explanatory
strength of each view’s account of the apparent identity of properties and then to
decide, based on the strength and breadth of the explanations, which view
provides the best explanation.46 If we start with intuitions, as Armstrong
proposes, we cannot objectively compare theories in terms of their explanatory
strength because how one gauges the explanatory strength of a theory will be
biased by whether one accepts the theory’s intuitive claims. Nominalists, for
instance, reject Armstrong’s primitive fact, and because this grounds his realism,
no nominalist will be persuaded otherwise by the explanatory strength of his
theory. Rather, the explanatory value of each theory should be independent of
any individual’s intuitions, and one should decide whether and to what degree
they are persuaded by a theory only once its explanatory worth is duly

determined. I propose a more radical and robust realism that attempts to

 

‘6 The number and types of ontological entities is another important issue, but only once the
initial explanatory value of each theory is assessed, i.e., economy is a secondary consideration; a
theory whose explanation is much stronger than another theory, but which achieves its strength
by appealing to more and different ontological categories, is still a stronger theory. For a
thorough discussion of this point, see Oliver, 1996 2-11.

36

counter Armstrong’s, and eventually the nominalist's, theory by appealing to
abstract objects rather than primitive facts, thus providing a basis to believe that
a single property can be multiply instantiated. The real worth of such a theory
can be determined only when compared to other realist and nominalist views
and judged by such criteria as explanatory worth and parsimony. I am well
aware that most nominalists, and even many realists, balk at the notion of
admitting abstract objects into one’s ontology. However, if I can propose a
version of realism that includes abstract objects but that, in doing so offers a
strong explanation for the apparent repeatability of properties, then my proposal
will be a more effective addition to the ongoing discussion than a realism such as
Armstrong’s that grounds its realism in a primitive fact that most other realists
and all nominalists do not accept, or, more specifically, are not persuaded to
accept.

The second reason why Armstrong’s attempt to account for each claim by
defining ’properties’ as repeatable concrete particulars is unpersuasive is that he
undermines his first major claim by tacitly implying that universals have an
independent quality, i.e., that no individual instance of a universal constitutes
the universal.47 If this criticism is persuasive, Armstrong’s definition of
’properties’ is insufficient because it fails to explain the independent aspect of
universals. Furthermore, the relation regress that Armstrong wields against
other versions of a realism of properties will come back around to affect his own

theory.

 

47 Armstrong is not explicitly aware of this tacit implication and rejects the claim out of hand.

37

Armstrong locates universals, literally, in particulars as concrete and
observable constituents of particulars; the concrete constituent of a particular is
identical to or defined as the universal. By strictly identifying the universal with
one of its concrete instances, Armstrong is committed to the consequence that if
the concrete instance constituting the universal is changed in some way, so is the
universal. Therefore, if you alter the concrete constituent of the particular that is
the universal, you alter the universal. Under a platonic conception of forms, i.e.,
in which the form is independent of particulars, it is clear that a change to a
particular instance, i.e. an instantiation, of the universal does not affect the
universal because the universal and the particular are two separate, or at least
distinct, entities. On Armstrong’s view, however, the universal literally is a
concrete constituent of the particular, so it is difficult to see how, on this view,
certain changes to the concrete particular do not result in changes to the
universal. Of course, when we alter or destroy a specific concrete instance of a
universal, we do not, in the same way, alter or destroy the universal. For
example, if we crush a tennis ball in a vice, we do not literally crush the universal
sphericity. Likewise, when the tide washes over a circle drawn in the sand, we
do not claim that the universal circularity, like the sand it was imprinted in, is
washed out to sea. The problem, then, is whether we can coherently maintain
this while advocating an immanent realism that strictly identifies the universal as

a single concrete instance“!8 If we do not accept that we have crushed sphericity

 

43 I am tabling for the time being the question of the status of a universal once it loses all of its
instances, i.e., whether the universal of sphere is squeezed if the tennis ball that is squeezed
happens by chance to constitute the very last instance of the universal sphere. I concede for now
that any universal, to exist, must be instantiated, and return to modify this claim in the
concluding section of the paper.

38

or washed circularity out to sea, we are committed to the consequence that there
is a quality or qualitative nature to a universal property that is constant
throughout the coming-to-be and perishing of its individual concrete instances.49
More importantly, we are committed to accepting that the qualitative nature of
the universal is not strictly identical with its concrete constituent’s in particular
instances.

Armstrong might respond that the universal ceases to be instantiated as
soon as the concrete constituent of the particular which is the universal no longer
instantiates or expresses the quality of the universal. For example, as soon as we
begin to crush the tennis ball in a vice, it ceases to instantiate sphericity. We do
not crush sphericity because the crushed particular no longer instantiates
sphericity. Because sphericity is no longer instantiated in the crushed tennis ball,
and is instantiated elsewhere in spherical tennis balls and other spherical objects,
the universal property is unaffected by the crushing of a single tennis ball. This
certainly sounds right, but is it consistent, i.e. can it consistently be maintained,
given Armstrong’s first major claim?

The problem with this reply is that Armstrong implicitly separates the
quality of the universal from its concrete instance, and therefore reaffirms the
criticism. Armstrong identifies the universal with a concrete constituent of the
particular in which it is instantiated; if we could hold up the particular and shake
it, we would literally be shaking the universal it instantiates (assuming it is not

the universal of stability or rest). The concrete constituent of the particular can

 

4" The phrase ’qualitative nature’ is Butchvarov’s. Cf. Butchvarov, 185. ”The qualitative nature of
a universal quality is completely independent of changes in the existence, identity, characteristics,
relations and causal properties of the things in which it is instantiated”.

39

change, however, without affecting the universal, e.g., the sand in which we
inscribed our circle does not wash the universal out to sea with it. This is
because the universal is instantiated in another particular, i.e., so long as a
universal is elsewhere instantiated, any change to a single instance of it does not
affect the universal. However, this line of thought appeals to the quality of a
universal that is multiply located, rather than to any single instance, i.e., the
universal is not identified by any single instance; rather, it is identified by the
quality that is repeated in many instances. So Armstrong modifies his claim that
any single instance of a universal constitutes the universal to state that the
quality that is instantiated in a single instance of a universal constitutes the
universal. The difference between these two statements is that the first strictly
identifies the instance as the universal, a claim Armstrong professes to uphold,
whereas the second distinguishes the concrete instance of the universal from the
quality of the‘universal, i.e., the quality of the universal is not the concrete
instance, but the repeated quality in a number of concrete instances. This shift
distinguishes the universal or universal quality from its concrete instances. In
making this shift Armstrong implicitly appeals to the quality of a universal

independent of its (or any single) instances.50

 

50 There is a further problem underlying this argument which I have left out. Briefly, it is unclear
how a universal can be a concrete constituent of many different particulars when the particulars
have nothing but an abstract or generic quality in common, e.g., the universal seven is
supposedly an identical constituent of ’7', ’siete’, ’VII’ etc. . .. What is the concrete constituent of
these instances that is identical? Another example of this is a functional type universal. For
instance, suppose we have five mousetraps, but that each is made of a different material, and
there is no superficial way in which each resembles any of the other four, i.e., they are identical in
respect to their function, but their function is not a concrete constituent. We would say that they
are all mousetraps, supposing a universal of mousetraphood, but what is the common concrete
quality justifying this claim?

40

Armstrong explicitly rejects any separation between the universal quality
and its concrete instances. If we have indeed driven a wedge between them, then
Armstrong is thrown onto his own chopping block by being asked to account for
the relation between the two entities. As his criticism of: other-realisms of
properties argues, the relation between them will then itselfbecome a multiply
instantiated property and thus a universal. The relations between the universal
of instantiation and instances of instantiation will then require a second'order
universal and the relation regress, Armstrong’s chief criticism of other theories,
comes full circle to affect his theory as well. In short, Armstrong’s realism,
despite its explicit rejections of this conclusion, is saddleiwith' the burden of
accounting for the relation between universals and particular instances of
universals.

Given these two concerns with Armstrong’s suggested definition of
’ property’, namely, that his theory’s explanatory value is significantly
diminished by realizing that his realism is only grounded in his primitive fact
definition of ’universals’, and that, despite claims to the contrary, he has the
difficulty of accounting for the relation between universals and particulars, his
account of the apparent identity of properties in different particulars is not as
strong as realists might hope.

With this in mind, I turn to the suggestion that universals have abstract as
well as concrete aspects. I argue that this approach, once developed, offers a
stronger account, i.e. a better explanation, of the apparent identity of properties
in different particulars than Armstrong’s immanent realism. Specifically, it can

substantiate Armstrong’s primitive fact and further support his two major

41

claims. This interpretation, by offering fuller accounts of the central realist
claims, provides a better explanation for a realism of properties than

Armstrong’s immanent realism.

A Rival Account of Armstrong’s Primitive Fact:

Another way to account for the apparent identity of properties across
particulars and, consequently, the two major claims of Armstrong’s realism of
properties, is to accept that each universal has an abstract aspect in addition to its
concrete aspects or instances. On this view, the abstract aspect is independent of
its concrete instances and constitutes the qualitative nature of the property. I
pursue this possibility by first elaborating what I understand ’abstract' to mean.
I then show how embracing an abstract aspect to universals substantiates
Armstrong’s primitive fact and further supports, with modifications, his two
major claims. I then appeal to the views of like-minded authors to elaborate this
proposal further.51 Finally, I consider this prOposal in light of Armstrong’s two
chief criticisms of transcendental realism and conclude that this proposal
provides a stronger explanatory account of properties than Armstrong’s
immanent realism.

Abstract aspects of universals have three major characteristics: they are
neither spatial nor temporal, second, they represent the quality of universals that
is unaffected by particular instances of a universal and, third, each universal has

only one abstract aspect. Abstract aspects are neither spatial nor temporal, but

 

5‘ Property theorists might benefit by incorporating scholarship on Plato’s forms into their
theories of properties.

42

are nevertheless in space-time. The traditional characterization of abstract
objects, alluded to earlier, is that they lack spatial and temporal existence.52
Jerrold Katz describes the traditional distinction; ”An abstract object can have
nothing about it that is spatially or temporally locatable, and a concrete object
can have nothing about it that is neither spatially nor temporally locatable”
(1998, 121).53 Armstrong varies the distinction by stating that entities lack spatial
and temporal location because they are outside space-time; Armstrong’s abstract
objects are all and only those objects that are outside space-time. This variant,
however, presupposes a naturalism of concrete and only concrete particulars; to
argue that only concrete particulars can be constituents or inhabitants of space-
time presupposes the point this theory is attempting to overturn and therefore
unfairly determines the parameters of the discussion. I take it as an open
possibility that reality may be constituted by both concrete and abstract objects.54
Furthermore, in passing, I suggest that Plato’s forms, as presented in, e. g. the
Parmenides, an implicit influence on the view hypothesized here, are entities
which are inside space-time rather than occupants of a ’platonic heaven’. Thus,
as pertaining to this proposal, abstract aspects lack both spatial and temporal

existence but are nonetheless constituents of space-time.

 

52 Though I accept this version as the traditional one, there are several different versions of the
abstract/ concrete distinction.

53 Katz makes some intriguing modifications to the traditional distinctions. Though we are both
involved in the same project, that of proposing a return of rationalism, I do not find his
modifications necessary and do not pursue them here.

54 An argument for this claim, given its size and importance, cannot be pursued here. However,
both Katz and Bonlour attempt to construct arguments in this vein. Cf. Bonlour: 1998, 56-61 and
Katz: 1998, 160-3.

43

The second defining characteristic of abstract aspects is that they represent
the quality of universals that is unaffected by particular instances of the
universals. Recall the criticism of Armstrong considered above that he tacitly
implies that there is a quality to universals that is distinct from individual
concrete instances of the universal. The problem with Armstrong’s immanent
conception of universals is that he is caught between the claim that a universal
just is a single concrete occurrence with many repetitions and the claim that the
universal quality does not change despite changes to any single concrete
instance. With Armstrong’s theory it is unclear, for example, how in leaving my
basketball in the sun too long I have deflated the concrete particular basketball
but not its concrete constituent sphericity. With a view that accepts that
universals have both abstract and concrete aspects, we are able to explain how
concrete instances of a universal come —to be and perish without affecting the
universal quality by describing the universal quality independently of its
concrete instances. The second characteristic of abstract aspects is that they
represent the quality or property of a universal that does not change.

Finally, for every universal, though there are any number of concrete
instances, there is only one abstract aspect. We can imagine why concrete
instances of universals are differentiated; they are in different concrete
particulars. We cannot differentiate two abstract aspects of a universal, however,
because there is nothing to differentiate them. For this reason, each universal has
one and only one abstract aspect. The universal, on this view, is properly

thought of as a one-over-many such that its composite entities are at least one

44

abstract aspect and however many concrete instances instantiate the abstract
aspect.55
An acceptance of the claim that universals have abstract and concrete

aspects is compatible, given certain modifications, with both of Armstrong’s two
major claims and, more importantly, substantiates his primitive fact, i.e., his
intended account of the two claims. The first claim states that universals are
located in and only in particulars as concrete constituents. Under a theory of
universals advocating abstract and concrete aspects, concrete aspects would be
located in and only in particulars. The first claim would be assimilated into the
suggestion proffered here that a single universal with many instances has many
concrete aspects (one for each instance). The original claim must be modified,
however, to incorporate the abstract aspects of universals as well. On this
reading, the universal is not in and only in concrete particulars, rather it is in and
also independent of concrete particulars, where ’independent’ refers to abstract
aspects of universals that are not in particulars. This constitutes a dramatic
alteration of the first claim, but is consistent with the suggestion that universals
have abstract aspects and therefore follows from the rationale given in this paper
for adopting such a view. The first claim would therefore read: universals are in
and independent of particulars as, respectively, concrete and abstract aspects of
the universal.

The second claim, that universals are multiply instantiated, requires only

slight modification. Speaking in terms of the concrete aspects, which represent

 

55 Whether a universal can consist of a single abstract aspect without any concrete instances, i.e.,
an uninstantiated universal, is taken up in a later section.

45

the greatest affinity between the view I am suggesting and Armstrong’s, the
universal is indeed multiply instantiated; a single universal has (is capable of
having) many concrete aspects which are constituents of concrete particulars. On
the view proffered here, each concrete aspect of a universal is distinct from each
other concrete aspects while all are concrete aspects of a single abstract aspect.
We have, as it were, a one-over-many; the sum total of the concrete aspects and
the abstract aspect constitute the universal. However, I want to stress that the
abstract aspect of a universal is not multiply instantiated; there is only one
abstract aspect per universal. The repeatability of universals just is, then, the fact
that one universal, qua abstract aspect, is responsible for many instantiations, qua
concrete aspects; the many concrete instantiations mark the apparent
repeatability of universals. What is missing in Armstrong’s claim, which I
further stipulate shortly, is that multiple instantiation is made possible and
accounted for by the introduction of abstract aspects; without something similar,
Armstrong’s argument for realism remains an unsupported claim. The second
claim states, then, that concrete aspects of universals are multiply instantiated.
Once again, the modification stems from the introduction and need to
differentiate the concrete from the abstract aspects of universals.

Accepting an abstract aspect to universals substantiates Armstrong’s
primitive fact that universals are repeatable concrete particulars. Recall that
Armstrong defines universals as repeatable particulars and that this accounts for
Armstrong’s two claims; because universals are repeatable particulars, they are
capable of being both concrete constituents of particulars and multiply located

entities. The problem is that Armstrong’s definition of ’universal’, the peg upon

46

which his realism hangs, is ungrounded, i.e. a primitive fact. Given the weight
that this claim carries, if Armstrong’s theory is to maintain explanatory
plausibility, it cannot be asserted as a mere primitive fact. Accepting that
universals have abstract as well as concrete aspects substantiates this claim.
Universals are identically repeatable because each concrete aspect of a universal
is an instance of (instantiates) a single abstract aspect. More specifically, each
concrete instance is identical to the other concrete instances of the same universal
in virtue of their instantiation relation to a single abstract aspect, i.e., one abstract
aspect is responsible for all of the concrete instances of a universal. By
grounding the identity of concrete instances in their identical instantiation of a
single abstract aspect, this theory provides an account or explanation of how and
why various concrete instances of a single universal property are identical. If we
accept that all concrete instances instantiate one abstract aspect, then it is in
virtue of instantiating a single, i.e. the same, abstract aspect that each instance is
identical to other instances; their identities lie in their identical relation to a single
abstract aspect. This interpretation, therefore, is able to provide a plausible
account or explanation of the identity of properties across particulars.

A few stipulations are in order. First, I should stress that the universals
are not particulars, nor are they constituted only by particulars. On the View
proposed here, universals have an abstract aspect and many concrete aspects.
The concrete aspects are constituents of particulars and perish with particulars,
but do not alone constitute the universal. To account for Armstrong’s claim that
universals are repeatable, we need to posit something in virtue of which each

concrete instance is identical; hence the abstract aspect. The abstract aspect is not

47

a particular and is what constitutes the lasting quality of the universal amidst the
coming-to-be and perishing of its concrete aspects. With the inclusion of the
abstract aspect that is neither spatial nor temporal, universals are not particulars.
Secondly, concrete aspects instantiate, but are not solely responsible for, the
apparent identity of properties in concrete particulars. As stipulated above, the
identity of concrete instances flows from their instantiation of a single abstract
aspect; without a single abstract aspect establishing a commonality amongst
concrete instances, as Armstrong’s theory illustrates, we cannot account for
identity. Finally, ’multiple instantiation’ better represents this phenomenon than
’repeatable’. Repeatability crudely suggests that a single universal is able to be
identically located as a concrete constituent in many particulars. This description
is not quite right; no entity is repeated. Rather, each concrete, i.e. strictly
concrete, instance is identical to other instances in virtue of its instantiation
relation with the universal’s abstract aspect. ’Multiple instantiation’ is a more
accurate term for this because it suggests that a single abstract aspect has
multiple instantiations in various concrete instances. By focusing on the abstract
aspect, which is neither spatial nor temporal, we do not run the risk of implying
that a single concrete entity can be multiply located; rather, a single abstract
aspect simply has multiple instantiations.

This proposal is markedly different from Armstrong’s, but all of the
differences follow from the attempt to substantiate the central realist claim that
instances of a property are identical to other instances. Armstrong’s theory does
not support, despite advocating, this claim. I have substantiated it by proposing

that universals have abstract aspects and suggesting that these are responsible

48

for, i.e. substantiate, the identity across a universal’s concrete instances. All
modifications to Armstrong’s claims, small and large, follow only from an
attempt to substantiate the primary realist tenet that remains unsupported in his
account.

When Armstrong unconditionally rejects independent universals, he loses
the ability to account for the identity of properties across particular instances.
Armstrong rejects independent universals and replaces them with concrete
repeatable. This does avoid significant difficulties associated with traditional
realist theories, e.g., the problem of participation, but only by seeking refuge in
the primitive fact claim that certain types of particulars are repeatable. This
might not be so disturbing if it did not constitute his theory’s claim to realism.
With my proposal, I have attempted to construct a plausible argument for a
realism of properties that returns to independent universals as an ontological
entity useful in explanation. In the following section I hope to clarify further and
direct this approach to properties by considering several authors who espouse
comparable theories. Despite the close affinities between these authors and my
broad theory, my aim in this section is not to consider the overt similarities, but
to note the specific differences in hopes of further clarifying my proposal. I turn
to the work of Daniel Devereux, Panayot Butchvarov and Katz to do so.

Devereux argues for an interpretation of Plato’s middle theory of forms
where forms are entities separate from particulars but responsible for immanent

characters in particulars that express the properties of the forms.56 ”So the hot,

 

56 Devereux's article accomplishes much more than is discussed here. I am interested in the
comparable relation between Devereux’s characterization of Plato’s ’immanent characters’ and
forms and my proposal sketched here. The theory of forms considered in his article is derived

49

cold, etc. that are in such things as fire and snow are not forms; they are distinct
entities, subject to coming-to-be and perishing. Let us call them ’immanent
characters’ ” (Devereux: 1999, 197). He offers a few distinctions between forms
and immanent characters to elaborate what he means by each.57 First,
”immanent characters are perishable while forms are not” (Devereux: 1999, 200).
Likewise on my view, concrete instances of universals in particulars are subject
to coming-to-be and perishing, e. g., we can crush a tennis ball and in so doing
witness the perishing of a concrete instance of sphericity. So long as it is
instantiated elsewhere, however, we assume that the abstract aspect of sphericity
has not changed.58 Secondly, immanent characters in different objects are
distinct; ”corresponding to the single form largeness, there will be many
immanent characters of largeness” (Devereux: 1999, 200). Thirdly, ”it also seems
that many immanent characters can be perceived by the senses; we can see the
largeness in Simmias, and feel the heat in the fire. The forms of largeness and
heat, however, can only be apprehended by reasoning" (Devereux: 1999, 200).
One consequence in this shift in platonic thought from an earlier conception of

forms which located forms in particulars, e. g. in the Eu thyphro, is that it

 

from what some scholars believe to be Plato’s middle dialogues. One significant difference from
the earlier Socratic dialogues, Devereux argues, is that forms are depicted as immanent rather
than separate from particulars. Devereux contends that Plato made this shift in the Pheado (209-
10).

57 Most of Devereux’s claims are supported by references to various dialogues. Because I am not
concerned with platonic exegesis, I am presenting his argument just as a description of how
immanent characters, which are very similar to concrete instances, relate to platonic forms.
Though there is certainly a resemblance, I do not wish to emphasize the relation between abstract
aspects and platonic forms, only the similarities between concrete instances and immanent
characters.

53 Plato included at least the possibility of uninstantiated forms. I do not at this point claim the
same for abstract aspects.

50

demonstrates that forms or universals do not need to be in a number of
particulars for those particulars to instantiate the forms. ”Forms are not in
anything, and immanent characters are in only one thing. Once the distinction is
made, the form becomes in effect a ’one-over-many’” (Devereux: 1999, 212). My
characterization of concrete aspects of universals as distinct instances which all
participate in a single abstract aspect is similar; my view, like Devereux’s,
proposes a ’one-over-many’ relation between a single abstract aspect and many
concrete instances.

While I agree with Devereux’s characterization of the relation between a
single form and many immanent characters, I disagree with his language of
separation. On Devereux’s account, forms are separate from immanent
characters, i.e., forms and iManent characters are portrayed as separate entities.
I suggest that Devereux's distinction between forms and immanent characters is
too distinct; on his view, immanent characters are instances of, but not aspects of,
forms. On the view I have proposed, however, abstract and concrete aspects are
aspects of one and the same thing; namely, the universal. Unlike Deveruex’s
view which construes universals and concrete instances of universals as separate
objects, my proposal endorses a conception of universals that construes them as
having both abstract and concrete aspects. Butchvarov offers a conception of
universals that is similar to Devereux’s in differentiating the abstract quality of a
universal from its particular instances.559 Butchvarov also argues explicitly for

uninstantiated universals. He does so first by distinguishing the qualitative

 

59 Cf. Butchvarov. Resemblance and Identity. 1966. The arguments given here are taken from the
concluding chapter where he considers, for the first time, an ante rem theory of universals.

51

nature of a universal from its occurrence in particular instances. ”The qualitative
nature of a universal quality is completely independent of changes in the
existence, identity, characteristics, relations and causal properties of the things in
which it is instantiated. The destruction of a circular thing makes no difference
to the geometrical properties of the circle” (1966, 185). Butchvarov argues that
the quality or qualitative nature of universals does not change with the coming-
to-be and perishing of its instances, and that for this to be the case, the universal
quality must be something distinct from its instances. ”A universal quality is not
the collection of its instances but rather the pervasive qualitative nature of these
instances" (1966, 184). He extends this to argue that the universal quality is so
independent of its instances that were all of its instances to perish, the universal,
lacking any instantiation, would still exist. ”The natural conclusion of this train
of thought is that a universal quality may exist even if it has no instances at all”
(1966, 186). It is not clear precisely how distinct Butchvarov intends the
universal quality to be from its instances. What is clear, however, is that for
Butchvarov the qualitative nature of a universal runs through, but is not
identified with, any (and every) particular instance. Both Devereux and
Butchvarov, then, firmly differentiate the universal (or universal quality) from its
particular instances.

T he relation between abstract forms and concrete or inunanent characters
has plagued philosophy at least since the Parmenides. Devereux concedes that
this is a significant problem for his interpretation and shows that Plato was
clearly aware of the difficulty. ” According to the proposed interpretation,

sensible objects somehow ’participate’ in forms without having forms in them.

52

What exactly is involved in this ’participation’? The Phaedo provides no
answer...” (Devereux: 1999, 199).60 I think the way around this difficulty is to
view the relation in question as between an abstract aspect and a concrete aspect
of one and the same entity rather than a relation between a concrete particular
and a separate abstract object. The difference between these two is that the
former represents the abstract and the concrete as two aspects of a single entity
whereas the latter relates two distinct (one abstract and one concrete) entities. In
other words, the onus for my proposal is to show how a single entity can have
both abstract and concrete aspects. This is a slightly lighter onus than accounting
for a relation that exists between an abstract and a separate concrete object
because it is obligated to account only for how a single entity can have abstract
and concrete aspects. 61 To be sure, my theory still faces a robust version of the
problem of participation, which I return to in the concluding section of the paper.
I turn now to the work of Katz to draw out the distinction that even
though the abstract and concrete aspects of a universal are not separate objects, it
is not the case that both aspects are components or constituents of each particular
instantiation. Katz modifies the traditional abstract/ concrete distinction by
introducing ’homogeneous,’ and ’heterogeneous’ or ’composite’ as two further
classifications of objects.62 Homogenous objects are objects that are either

entirely concrete or entirely abstract. Homogeneous abstract objects are ”abstract

 

6° Cf. Devereux 199-200 for further examples of Socrates’ inability to account for participation.

61 The latter version, furthermore, seems to suggest a separate realm of. existence for abstract
objects. If so, then the problem becomes even larger because the realist is forced to explain how
relations between abstract and concrete objects not only exist, but span realms as well.

62 Katz (145, n11) uses ’heterogeneous’ and 'composite’ as two designations for the same class of
objects. Why he does so will be clear shortly.

53

all the way down, and [homogeneous] concrete objects are concrete all the way
down” (1998, 121). Katz’s heterogeneous or composite objects are objects that
have both abstract and concrete components, i.e., Katz supplements the
traditional categories of abstract and concrete objects by introducing a
heterogeneous category of objects which consists of both abstract and concrete
components. ”The equator of the earth is a composite object. Its abstract
component is a mathematical circle, its concrete component is a part of the
surface of the earth...” (1998, 148).'53 A triangle on a chalkboard is another
example; the chalk outline is a concrete component, the type triangle is an
abstract object, and both are components of the composite object, i.e., the triangle
on the blackboard. The abstract aspect of my proposal is comparable to the
abstract component of a composite object. Likewise, the concrete aspect of my
proposal is similar to the concrete component of a composite object; concrete
components come-to-be and perish with the composite, abstract components do
not.64

Despite large affinities, there is an important difference as well, a
difference hat has 1) semantic, and 2) ontological facets, between Katz’s and my
views. First, in Katz’s terminology, abstract objects are components of composite
objects and cannot be differentiated by abstract and concrete aspects, i.e., for

Katz, the entire universal, not just one of its concrete aspects, is a component of a

 

‘3 Because the equator has a history, i.e. came into being and will eventually go out of being, and
has been crossed many times in that history, the physical equator is a concrete component of the
composite object equator (Katz, 138).

‘4 Katz argues that composite objects are contingent because of their concrete components, which
are contingent (Katz, 146).

54

composite object. Katz’s terminology does not permit him to differentiate the
abstract from the concrete aspects of universals.

Second, Katz’s view commits him to arguing that the entire abstract object
is a component of each of its concrete particulars. Katz’s composite objects have
both concrete and abstract objects as components. An abstract object, then, is a
component of each object in which it is instantiated. Rather than describing
universals as constituting a one-over-many relation with their particulars, Katz’s
view portrays them as being simultaneous components of any number of objects,
i.e. a one-in-many characterization. While I agree in part with Katz’s claim that
some aspect of the universal is in each of its instances, 1 reject the suggestion that
the entire universal is in each of its instances. This is one of the important
circumstances that my proposal is designed to avoid. 65 My concern with
Devereux and, to a less clear extent, Butchvarov was that their separation of the
universal from its instances is too distinct, i.e., they treat the universal and its
instances as separate entities, whereas I have argued that universals and
particulars are not separate entities. I stipulate that universals have distinct
abstract and concrete aspects, with the result that the entire universal is not a
constituent of its particulars; rather, while its concrete aspects are constituents of
particulars, its abstract aspect is independent of its particular instances. Thus, we

should conceive universals as entities that are distinct and independent of, but

 

‘5 One plausible route is to argue that the particular necessarily includes the concrete instance
and that the concrete instance necessarily entails the abstract aspect and, in this way, the
universal (abstract and concrete aspects) is a component of the composite particular. But it does
not follow from this that the abstract aspect is a necessary component of the particular, only that
the abstract aspect is responsible for one of the particular’s components; namely, the concrete
instance of the universal.

55

not separate from, particulars. In order to understand this, we must conceive
each universal as being constituted by both abstract and concrete aspects.

Thus far I have cast doubt on the explanatory adequacy of Armstrong’s
theory of universals and suggested instead a realism of properties that returns to
independent universals. There are many other issues that would need to be
filled in in order to develop fully the theory sketched here. My aim in this paper,
however, is to suggest that such a view is at least as much if not more capable of
explaining or accounting for the apparent identity of properties than
Armstrong’s immanent realism. In the remaining section I return to two
criticisms Armstrong wields against other versions of a realism of properties.
After suggesting that the force of Armstrong’s criticisms are not as strong against
the proposal sketched here, I summarize the benefits and deficiencies of each
view in an explanatory calculus and conclude that a return to independent
universals promises a stronger account of properties than Armstrong’s
immanent realism.

The first and most significant criticism that Armstrong wages against
versions of realism that separate the universal from its concrete instances is that
such views are faced with the relation regress, which Armstrong argues commits
them to a vicious and infinite regress. First, let me say that Armstrong’s critique
is directed against a transcendent realism of properties which construes
universals solely as abstract objects which, Armstrong claims, are located outside
of space-time. Notice, however, that my View, while advocating a return to
independent universals, locates universals both in and independently of

particulars, depending on whether one is referencing a specific concrete instance

56

or the abstract universal quality. If the universal is composed of its concrete
instances and an abstract aspect, then there is not a relation between the
universal and its concrete instances; rather, each concrete instance, in virtue of
instantiating the abstract aspect, is a component of the universal. In this respect,
the relation regress does not apply to the view of properties sketched here.
However, it might apply to the relation between each concrete instance and the
abstract aspect, i.e., this View potentially faces the relation regress insofar as it is
obligated to account for the relation between the concrete and abstract aspects of
a single universal. While I do not have a definitive response to this difficulty, I
would like to make a few comments that I hope recast the criticism and suggest
that the relation regress does not necessarily follow from distinguishing the
universal itself from its concrete instances. I also suggest that insofar as my
theory is obligated and not yet able to clarify fully the relation between the
abstract and concrete aspects of a universal, Armstrong's theory is in equally dire
straits insofar as he is obliged to account for how states of affairs, which unite
particulars and universals, are non-relational entities.

First, it is not the case with this view that a single concrete particular is
multiply instantiated; each concrete instance of a universal is distinct from other
concrete instances of the same universal. This marks a stark contrast to
Armstrong’s version that asks that we accept that certain concrete particulars are
able to be multiply located. On my view, each concrete instance is identical to
others only insofar as each instantiates the same abstract aspect as the others.

Nor is it the case that the abstract aspect is multiply located, as this implies

57

spatio-temporal location, a quality that the abstract aspect importantly lacks. So
there is no claim with this view that a single entity occupies multiple locations.
Second, because one of the entities in the relation between concrete
instances and abstract aspects is abstract, it is not a question of the relation
between various concrete instances or between one abstract aspect and many
concrete instances, but rather how each single concrete instance instantiates the
abstract aspect. It is not clear that a concrete instance’s instantiating an abstract
aspect necessarily entails a relation between two distinct entities. Before we can
claim that a relation relates the two aspects of a universal, we need a clarification
of the precise nature of instantiation. The relation regress assumes that a relation
between the aspects or entities is necessary, so until it is shown that for a
concrete instance to instantiate an abstract aspect, a relation must exist between
the two aspects, this view is not necessarily committed to the relation regress. I
propose, then, that we seriously consider what it means to be abstract and how
abstract and concrete realities might relate with one another. I am not,
admittedly, prepared to give such an analysis here. I simply want to point out
. that the question is how a concrete instance instantiates an abstract aspect rather
than one of a necessary relation regress. My point is that the nature of
instantiation is prior to the claim that a relation is necessary to bind the two
entities. The uncertainty of the unity or combination of the two aspects of a
universal is, for now, a fairly significant drawback to this view, but it is not the
case that the drawback is that this view is committed to an infinite and vicious

regress; rather, this view has some work to do in explicating at least the possible

58

ways in which a concrete instance might instantiate an abstract aspect of a
universal.

Third, insofar as this proposal is being compared with Armstrong’s
immanent realism, one might equally ask Armstrong how it is that states of
affairs tie universals to particulars without any type of relation holding between
them. Armstrong claims that states of affairs are non-relational entities. He
states that ”there is no relation of instantiation over and above the states of affairs
themselves” (1997b, 118). He shortly adds that

It is often convenient to talk about instantiation, but states of affairs come

first. If this is a ’fundamental tie,’ required by relations as much as

properties, then so be it. But it is very different from anything that is

ordinarily spoken of as a relation” (1997b: 118).

Devitt, as mentioned earlier, criticizes Armstrong for replacing the relation
between universals and bare particulars with ”a complete mystery” (Devitt: 1997,
98). Armstrong claims that ”while we can distinguish the particularity of a
particular from its properties, nevertheless the two ’factors' are too intimately
together to speak of a relation between them” (Devitt: 1997, 108). So Armstrong
claims that universals are instantiated by particulars, but that they are not related
to particulars, i.e., states of affairs unite particulars and universals too intimately
to speak of their union as a relation. Why can’t I say the same for the non-
relation between the abstract and concrete aspects of a universal? I might
equally state that while we can distinguish the abstract aspect from a concrete
instance of a universal, nevertheless the two factors are too intimately together to

speak of a relation between them. Just as Armstrong’s two distinct types of

59

entities are non-relationally united in a state of affairs, so are the abstract and
concrete aspects of universals non-relationally bound together as constituents of
the universal. I do not think that Armstrong’s claim that states of affairs are non-
relational entities is at all persuasive, but if he can claim that, there is no reason
why I can’t claim the same for the two aspects of universals. More to the point, if
his theory is insufficient in this claim, then my theory’s inability to account for
the relation between the abstract and concrete aspects of a universal is not as
serious a drawback in respect to the comparison between my theory and his.
Worst case scenario: both theories are part of the same hypocrisy.

The second criticism Armstrong levies against transcendent realism is that
it entails uninstantiated universals. For transcendent realists, universals are
separate from particulars, suggesting that if no particular instantiates a universal,
the universal need not cease to exist and may, in fact, exist as an uninstantiated
universal. This is especially true for theories such as Plato’s which argue that
universals are eternal, i.e., never cease to exist. Armstrong places universals,
both with and without instantiations, in a ’platonic heaven' which, he claims, is
outside of or independent of space-time; on Armstrong’s view, only concrete
particulars populate space-time, and transcendent universals are certainly not
concrete.

On the view sketched here, however, I do not accept that space-time can
only be populated by concrete particulars, so my view is not committed to the
existence of a ’platonic heaven’; rather, my universals are constituents of space-
time just like concrete objects, except that they have aspects that are abstract. If I

were to accept uninstantiated universals into this theory, however, I would

60

jeopardize the definition of a universal as a property that is expressed through an
abstract aspect and concrete aspects. So, on my conception, despite being able to
locate. uninstantiated universals in space-time, I had best not for fear of altering
my definition of ’universals’ as properties with abstract and concrete aspects.
Whether universals are eternal and whether the definition of ’universal’ I have
proposed necessarily excludes the possibility of uninstantiated universals,
however, are questions for which I have no definitive answer. I am amenable,
for the time being, to accepting that a universal cannot exist unless it has at least
one concrete instance, given the definition of ’universal’ proposed here. My
proposal, then, in defining universals as necessarily having at least one concrete
instance, does not fall prey to the criticism of uninstantiated universals.

Even if I did claim that universals can exist without concrete instances,
however, my view would not fall prey to Armstrong’s uninstantiated criticism.
It is not difficult to imagine how a universal composed only of an abstract aspect
without any concrete instances might exist. The abstract aspect would be located
in space-time as an abstract entity like all other abstract aspects of universals
with the one exception that it would not also have concrete aspects. This caveat
does not entail any devastating consequences for the proposal prima facie.
Furthermore, on Armstrong’s view, a universal that is instantiated, then not
instantiated, and later instantiated again, comes into and out of existence. Given
the option of accepting that an abstract aspect of a universal exists despite not
having a concrete instantiation, or accepting that universals come into and out of
existence, I choose to accept that an abstract aspect can exist uninstantiated.

Armstrong’s criticism is that separating universals from particulars forces

61

universals into a ’platonic heaven'. While I am not sure what theories of
universals this criticism would apply to, I can say that it does not apply to mine.

I have thus far sketched a conception of a realism of properties that is an
alternative, and, I argue, an improvement upon, Armstrong’s immanent realism.
Which is to say, my proposal is as, if not more, persuasive in its attempt to
account or explain the apparent identity of properties across particulars. Given
that the theory with the most persuasive and parsimonious explanatory value
should be the theory realists advocate for properties, I therefore conclude that a
return to independent realism offers a better realist account of properties than
Armstrong’s immanent realism. To see this, we need, in conclusion, to consider
and compare the costs and benefits of each view.

I have shown that Armstrong’s realism is based in his primitive fact claim
that certain concrete particulars are repeatable. If you do not accept his primitive
fact, however, his theory does not persuade you otherwise, i.e., if you do not
accept his primitive fact, you would not endorse his theory. Furthermore, his
primitive fact is what supports his two major claims about properties, so if his
primitive fact is questionable, then his two major claims are proportionately not
very well supported. Another deficit of Armstrong’s theory is that it seems
committed to independent universals. If this is true, then Armstrong’s theory is
equally required to account for the relation that he argues is the death knell for
theories of transcendent or independent universals. Armstrong’s theory's
advantage, especially in terms of the view it is contrasted with here, is its
economy; Armstrong admits only particulars into his ontology. However, the

value Armstrong gains from this is lessened once we realize that he actually

62

includes three distinct types of particulars in his theory, e. g., bare particulars,
universals and states of affairs, all of which, he argues, are distinct and necessary.
These I take to be the most significant explanatory failings of Armstrong’s theory
of properties. His theory’s claim to be the best realism in town is contingent
upon his theory’s being the strongest account a realist can give of properties. I
don’t think this is the case; my proposed view, by returning to independent
universals, significantly strengthens the realist’s argument for properties.

My proposal, first and foremost, expands the ontological category of

entities to include abstract aspects of universals, which is to say, my theory posits

 

abstract aspects of universals that are independent of particulars. This is a
hypothesis that my theory makes which, if the explanatory payoff avails’itself, is
worth accepting. By returning to independent universals, my proposal is able to
substantiate the identity of properties across particulars with a plausible account;
the cost is that we accept that space-time is populated by abstract aspects of
universals as well as concrete particulars. Where Armstrong requires three
distinct types of particulars, my theory advocates one category of particulars and
another of abstract objects or entities. Thus far, having substantiated
Armstrong’s primitive fact and consequently further supported the two major
claims of his theory of properties, while reducing the ontological cost of abstract
aspects by noting Armstrong’s numerous types of particulars, my proposal
should have a considerable lead in terms of explanatory value and parsimony

over Armstrong’s immanent realism.

63

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