Questions: Universals and Particulars

Question 1

Which of the following is best classified as a universal rather than a particular?

• A. The Eiffel Tower
• B. This red apple
• C. Redness
• D. Paris

Answer: (C)

Redness is a universal — it is wholly present in every red thing simultaneously, instantiated in multiple objects at once without being divided among them. The Eiffel Tower, this red apple, and Paris are all particulars: each exists in exactly one place at a time and cannot be wholly located in two places simultaneously.

Question 2

Nominalism holds that two red objects share absolutely hardly anything in common.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

Nominalists do not deny that objects resemble each other or share features in some sense — they deny that this resemblance is grounded in both objects instantiating the same abstract universal entity. Nominalists offer alternative accounts (resemblance classes, predicates, sets) to explain similarity without positing mind-independent universals.

Question 3

What is the main explanatory argument realists give for positing the existence of universals?

Model answer: Realists argue that universals explain why distinct objects genuinely resemble one another — two red things are both red because they each instantiate the same universal, redness. Without universals, the resemblance appears unexplained or brute.

The 'one over many' problem asks: what makes multiple distinct things all qualify as, say, red? Realists answer that they share a common universal. This explanatory move is contested by nominalists who argue that positing universals is ontologically extravagant and that resemblance can be explained without abstract entities — but the burden of explanation is real and drives the debate.