ABSTRACT

I should say, first, that the central notion of this chapter is by no means new. It has a long history, and has been variously interpreted and exploited at different times by different philosophers, as will become clear later. My own use of it will be to make a relatively unambitious attempt at a modest simplification in the theory of universals and particulars. But it may strike others as a gratuitous complication, with more than a whiff of scholasticism about it.