frank jackson universals

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Mind Association

Statements about UniversalsAuthor(s): Frank JacksonSource: Mind, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 343 (Jul., 1977), pp. 427-429Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of the Mind Association

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Statements boutUniversalsFRANK JACKSON

A feature fmanyversions fNominalism s the claim that ll statementsputatively bout universals an be translated s statements bout par-ticulars.This is certainly ossible n some cases, for nstance, Wisdomwas a characteristic f Plato is equivalentto Plato was wise . I willargue that it is not, however, lwayspossible; in particular, hatit is*notpossible for Red is a colour and Red resemblespink more thanblue .The usual nominalist uggestion s that Red is a colour is equivalentto something ike Everything ed is coloured . There is a standardobjectionto this translationsee, e.g., A. N. Prior, Existence ,Encyclo-pedia of Philosophy,New York, I967, vol. 3, p. 146). Consider thescattered ocation, L, of all the red things. Everything -located iscoloured,but evidently -location s not a colour. Likewise, everythingred might have been triangular and vice-versa, so that everythingtriangularwas coloured; but triangularitytillwould not have been acolour.The nominalistparticularist an, however, side-step this objectionby offeringNecessarily, verythinged is coloured as his translation fRed is a colour .For itis, atbest, onlycontingentlyruethateverythingL-locatedortriangulars coloured.This replygivesa hostage ofortune,namely, he ontic commitments f such assertions f necessity.But it isarguablethatthese do not include a commitmento universals.It is, thus, mportant hat hefollowing, pparently ecisive, bjectionis availableto the realist boutuniversals. verything ed is both shapedand extended, ut red is neither shapenor an extension.And, further,it is necessarily rue that everything ed is shaped and extended. Thisis not to denythat Red is a colour entails that necessarily verythingred is coloured. But the former ays more thanthelatter. f red s beinga colour were nothingmore than a matter f everyred thingnecessarilybeing coloured, then red s being a shape and an extensionwould benothingmore than the fact that necessarily very red thing s shapedand extended.And redis nota shape and not an extension.t seemsthatRed is a colour says, as realistsmaintain, omething bout red notreducible o something bout red things.The nominalistmighthave recourseat thispoint to the distinctionbetweenanalytic ruth n the Fregeansense of reducibilityo a logicaltruthby synonomy ubstitutionnd necessity n the wide sense. Hemight, hat s, suggest It is analytic hateverythinged is coloured ashis translation.However,there are difficultiesn the way of reducingEverything ed is coloured to a logicaltruth.For instance, ne cannotreplace is coloured by is yellow or red or. . . . Because one cannot

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428 FRANK JACKSON:completethe disjunction, herebeing no finite ist of all the possiblecolours; and further,henominalist annotexplicate he dotsbysayingand so on forall the colours for thisontically ommitshimto all thecolours as well as beingcircular).In general, appeal to relations of synonomy r whatever)betweenlinguistic ntities s beside the pointwhen seekingan analysis of redbeing a colour.Red didnotbecome a colourthe daywe firstommentedonthe fact nour anguages, nd itsbeing a colour s innowaydependenton theexistence f EnglishorFrenchorwhateveranguage he inguisticentitiesmay belongto.Similar difficultiesace nominalistattemptsto give a particularisttranslationf:

(i) Red resembles inkmore thanblue.FollowingArthurPap ( Nominalism, Empiricism and Universals: I,Philosophicaluarterly,(I959)), (i) is notequivalento Anythingedresembles nything ink morethananything lue . For somered thingsresemble omeblue thingsmorethan somepinkthings ecause offactorsotherthancolour. For example,a red ball resembles blue ball morethana pinkelephant.The nominalistmustoffernstead:(2) Anything ed colour-resemblesnything ink more than any-thingblue.The standardrealistobjectionto (2) (again fromPap, ibid.) is that

x colour-resembles is analysableas x resemblesy in colour , wherethe latter s obtainedfrom x resemblesy in z by substitution or z .Hence (2) is ontically ommitted o universals, lbeit n disguise,for tcontains three-place elationwith place fordesignations funiversals.Notoriously, he trouble withthisobjection s that it is hard to provetherealist s nalysisofcolour-resemblance ithout egging hequestionofthe existence funiversals.There is, however, further bjection o(2) whichavoids thisdifficulty.Consider the possible world in which red and triangular re co-extensive, pink and sweet are co-extensive, nd blue and squareare co-extensive. n this world, anything riangular olour-resemblesanythingweetmorethananythingquare. But no-one willwant to saythat nthisworld riangularityesembles weetnessmore han quareness.Hence, arguingalong the same lines as before, here s more to red sresembling inkmore thanblue than the factthat red things colour-resemblepink thingsmorethan blue things.For triangularhingsmightcolour-resembleweetthingsmorethansquare thingswithout riangu-larity esemblingweetnessmore thansquareness.It may be suggestedthat I am here misconstruinghe nominalist ssuggestion. t is not that AnythingF +-resemblesanythingG morethananythingH is invariably quivalentto F resemblesG morethanH , it is only equivalentto the latterwhen F, G, H are all +. Now Ihave no doubt this s true,but it is not something nominalist an say.It re-introduces niversals, or t is theywhich are requiredall to be +.The obvious response for the nominalist s to point out that 2) istrue n all worlds, nd so to advocate Necessarily, nything ed colour-



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STATEMENTS ABOUT UNIVERSALS 429resembles nything inkmore han nything lue as his translation f i).(This also has the advantage of avoiding difficultiesrising fromthepossibility f therebeing no red, pink,orblue thingsmaking2) triviallytrue n some worlds.)This responsehas, however, crucialshortcoming. t cannothandleThe colour of ripe tomatoes resembles he colour associated withgirlbabies more than thecolour associatedwithboybabies . For thisstate-ment is true, while Necessarily,anythingwith the colour of ripetomatoes olour-resemblesnythingwiththe colour associatedwithgirlbabiesmorethananythingwiththe colourassociatedwithboy babies isfalse. The statementgoverned by necessarily s true, but only con-tingentlyo-tomatoes and baby loremighthave been such that t wasfalse. Of course, he nominalistwillwantto write, or xample, anythingsame-coloured s ripe tomatoes rather han anythingwith the colourofripetomatoes ,but this s not germane o the present oint.)Finally, the line of argument ust outlined can be modified o applyto ourfirst tatement,Red is a colour .Red is, let us suppose,themostconspicuous propertyof ripe tomatoes; then the most conspicuousproperty f ripe tomatoes s a colour. This cannot be nominalisticallytranslated s Everythingwith the most conspicuous property f ripetomatoes s coloured . I leave aside thequestion ofwhat further rans-lation thenominalistmight ttempt o eliminate the most conspicuousproperty. . ). Because the mostconspicuous property f ripe tomatoesmighthave been theirsmell while it remained true that all tomatoeswere coloured thoughnot so conspicuously); hen Everything ith themostconspicuous property f ripe tomatoes s coloured would be truetogetherwith the falsity f The most conspicuous property f ripetomatoes is a colour . And, of course, it would be wrong to offerNecessarily, verythingwith the most conspicuous propertyof ripetomatoes s coloured s thetranslation f The mostconspicuous ropertyof ripe tomatoes s a colour . The formers false,there s no necessityabout it: the most conspicuous property f ripe tomatoes might havebeen,as we have ust noted,their mell, nd somethingswiththat mellmighthave been transparent, o that some thingswith the most con-spicuous property f ripe tomatoesmightnot have been coloured.Onthe other hand The most conspicuousproperty f ripe tomatoes s acolour is true.It seems thenthat-though some criticismsn the literature f par-ticularistranslations f Red is a colour and Red resemblespinkmorethan blue and the ike maynotbe decisive-there are decisivecriticismsof thesetranslationsvailableto therealist.LA TROBE UNIVERSITY


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