Charles Landesman

The question whether universals exist has been a major stimulus to metaphysical inquiry from its very inception. Although philosophical orientation and perspective has dictated how the problem was to be formulated, it is nevertheless possible to identify a single question or group of questions within the various modes of philosophical expression. It is unlikely that any proposed solution will appear very satisfactory outside of the context of a well-developed system of metaphysics. The problem is connected in a systematic way with numerous other issues, and usually the very terms in which it is formulated presuppose or suggest some systematic point of view. In this essay, however, I shall undertake to consider Professor Brand Blanshard’s theory of universals in abstraction from the remainder of his system. In Chapters sixteen and seventeen of the first volume of The Nature of Thought and in the ninth chapter of Reason and Analysis he presents a well-developed and profound consideration of the issue in terms that allow for independent discussion. Although he published his own views prior to the appearance of the influential discussions of universals by such philosophers as Wittgenstein, Quine, and Strawson, they have by no means made his views superfluous. On the contrary, studying Blanshard makes it evident how much the more recent discussions have neglected.