There are different interpretations of the problem of universals. I understand it as the problem of giving the truthmakers of propositions to the effect that a certain particular is such and such, e.g. propositions like 'this rose is red'. Others have interpreted it as a problem about the ontological commitments of such propositions or a problem about what those propositions mean.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

Categorized in : Commitment Mean Giving

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I became for a while fixated on the question whether there could be two 'identical' stones. This is, of course, the question whether the principle of identity of indiscernibles is true and, as I formulated it then, I was bound to fall into confusion about it.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

two years fall

The problem of how to characterise the properties that would trivialise the principle is one of the hardest problems concerning the principle of identity of indiscernibles and one the problems to which least attention has been paid of.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

principles identity attention

The huge majority of philosophers seem to think that including impure properties in the range of the quantifiers of the principle would make the principle trivial. I have argued that it does not.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

majority principles thinking

In my view the bundle theorist should say that when a bundle is located somewhere, there is an 'instance' of the bundle there. The instance is entirely constituted by the universals of the bundle. But the bundle and the instance are two distinct entities. Bundles of universals can be multiply located, but their instances cannot, and particulars are instances of a bundle of universals.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

should views two

For bundles of universals can be in more than one place at the same time; so a bundle can have more than one instance; so there can be numerically distinct particulars sharing the same universals; so the principle of identity of indiscernibles is false.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

bundles principles identity

By arguing that the bundle theory does not entail and is not committed in any way to the principle of identity of indiscernibles, I have thereby defended the bundle theory from a traditional objection to it.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

principles identity doe

I do not believe in the bundle theory anyway. The bundle theory postulates universals and I do not believe in them; so I do not believe in the bundle theory.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

bundles theory believe

A truthmaker is an entity in virtue of which the proposition it makes true is true. And it is a necessary condition of being a truthmaker (though not a sufficient one) that a truthmaker necessitates the proposition it makes true.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

propositions entity virtue

The difference between resemblance nominalism and class nominalism is that the former, but not the latter, brings in resemblance to account for the truthmakers of the propositions in question.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

latter differences class

Leibniz believed in freedom, both divine and human, and he thought that contingency was a necessary condition of freedom. That is, if an agent A acts freely when choosing X, then A's choosing X cannot be necessary. But there are some elements in his philosophy that seem to make contingency impossible.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

agents elements philosophy

The parallelism, or denial of any causation between mind and body, derives basically, and fallaciously, from a theory of substances as having complete concepts that include everything that is true of them.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

denial substance mind

I think there is a metaphysical problem of the relation between mind and body. Thinking that there is no metaphysical dimension to the problem is an error.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

errors mind thinking

I would say I was a philosophical boy. Thoughts about 'identical stones' are the earliest philosophical thoughts I remember. But when I was a teenager I also thought about the more typical philosophical problems teenagers think about: the existence of god, the objectivity of morality, whether one can know that the external world exists.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

philosophical teenager boys

At one point I took a copy of Berkeley's Principles from my father's library. That was the first philosophy book I read. I found it fascinating and wanted to read more philosophy.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

philosophy father book

I decided to do philosophy at university, with a view to becoming a professional philosopher. Being a rather unstable character, at some points I had doubts about becoming a professional philosopher, but the example of two of my teachers, Ezequiel de Olaso and Juan Rodriguez Larreta, made me confirm my original decision.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

teacher character philosophy

Those who take knowledge to be a whole zoo of sub-disciplines will react to my giving metaphysics a privileged position in that zoo or to my thinking of knowledge as a tree, with more and less fundamental parts.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

discipline zoos thinking

Those who think that metaphysics is just misunderstood grammar will react to my giving metaphysics some place or another in the system of knowledge.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

misunderstood giving thinking

Metaphysics is the study of the most general nature and basic structure of reality, and therefore the concepts of metaphysics, concepts like time, space, identity, resemblance, substance, property, fact, event, composition, possibility, etc., are the most fundamental concepts. Thus metaphysics is the most fundamental theoretical discipline.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

discipline space reality

The role of metaphysics in relation to other disciplines, whether philosophical or not and including the natural sciences, is thus a foundational role. Lack of clarity in the concepts of metaphysics implies lack of clarity in other disciplines - both theoretical and practical disciplines - employing those concepts or employing concepts that depend on those of metaphysics.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

philosophical discipline roles

Knowledge has the form of a tree, and since metaphysics is the most fundamental one of the theoretical disciplines, it represents the roots of the tree.

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra

discipline roots tree