What Does the Word "Universal" Mean in Philosophy?
Like most problems in philosophy, the question of universals begins with Plato. Platonic philosophy divides the world into a series of metaphysical binaries: appearance/reality, body/mind, ideal/real, pure/impure, universal/particular. This latter distinction, like so many other metaphysical quandaries, depends on Plato's "theory of forms," a doctrine which postulates the existence of a transcendent realm of pure forms, or "universal essences," and which we can begin to decipher by asking, "Does the color red exist?"
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Significance of Red
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One way to think about universals is to look at the language we use. Certainly red things exist--apples, cherries and fire trucks are all red objects that we can see and point to in the world--but is there a universal essence of "red" expressed in the redness of each object?
Function of Now and Then
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Bertrand Russell was a philosopher who shared Plato's belief that words like "redness" stand for a common essence underlying all things red. In "The Problems of Philosophy" (1912), Russell pointed out that most words in the dictionary stand for universals. Pronouns, for instance, and indexicals such as "here" and "now" stand for particular moments in the context of each respective sentence in which they appear. And yet they are universal in application--that is to say, "now" signifies differently each time it is used (see References).
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A King's Head
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To illustrate this point, Russell offered the following example: "When...we hear the sentence, 'Charles I's head was cut off,' we may naturally enough think of Charles I, of Charles I's head and of the operation of cutting off 'his' head, which are all particulars; but we do not naturally dwell upon what is meant by the word 'head' or the word 'cut,' which is a universal. We feel such words to be incomplete and insubstantial; they seem to demand a context before anything can be done with them" (see References). In Russell's view, there would then be no basis for comparing one context with any another if some "universal" relation were not in place to account for the resemblance of so many like instances.
Considerations
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A number of philosophers, of course, disagree. Plato, in fact, launched a powerful critique against his own theory of forms in the "Parmenides." In that dialogue, Parmenides suggests that, if there is a separate form corresponding to every particular, then ultimately humans can never come to know the "real" form. Of the six objections fired at Socrates, this is one of the most detrimental ones. For a detailed breakdown of these criticisms, see "Plato's Parmenides" by Samuel Rickless (see References).
Other Considerations
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Nominalists deny the existence of universals for a similar reason. They argue that if we have no access to abstract objects as such, it remains to be seen how we can ever come to know, rely on or believe in them with any kind of certainty.
Further Considerations
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Predicate nominalism, in fact, tends to reduce the existence of all things particular to the words we have to describe them. In this view, some things are simply red while others are not. An object, for instance, is red if and only if the predicate "is red" can be rightly applied to the subject in question.
Benefits
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In the end, one thing can be affirmed positively from both sides: truth conditions notwithstanding, Plato's theory of forms has inspired a rich and complicated discussion about the philosophical meaning of "universals" that remains with us today.
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