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In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. [1] For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green.
In Aristotle's view, universals are incorporeal and universal, but only exist only where they are instantiated; they exist only in things. [1] Aristotle said that a universal is identical in each of its instances. All red things are similar in that there is the same universal, redness, in each thing.
For example, Socrates is a particular (there's only one Socrates-the-teacher-of-Plato and one cannot make copies of him, e.g., by cloning him, without introducing new, distinct particulars). Redness, by contrast, is not a particular, because it is abstract and multiply instantiated (for example a bicycle, an apple, and a particular woman's hair ...
Platonic realism (also called extreme realism" [33] [34] or exaggerated realism) [35] [36] is the view that universals or forms in this sense, are the causal explanation behind the notion of what things exactly are; (the view that universals are real entities existing independent of particulars).
Platonic Forms were the first universals posited as such in philosophy. [7] Our term "universal" is due to the English translation of Aristotle's technical term katholou which he coined specially for the purpose of discussing the problem of universals. [8] Katholou is a contraction of the phrase kata holou, meaning "on the whole". [9]
For example, the particulars Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi instantiate the universal humanity, similar to how a strawberry and a ruby instantiate the universal red. [45] A topic discussed since ancient philosophy, the problem of universals consists in the challenge of characterizing the ontological status of universals. [46]
To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines the commonalities among all things and investigates their classification into basic types, such as the categories of particulars and universals. Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, such as the person Socrates, whereas universals are general, repeatable entities, like the ...
For example, there is no Form Not-Greek, only particulars of Form Otherness that somehow suppress Form Greek. Regardless of whether Socrates meant the particulars of Otherness yield Not-Greek, Not-tall, Not-beautiful, etc., the particulars would operate specifically rather than generally, each somehow yielding only one exclusion.