ABSTRACT
P.K. Sen’s reconstruction of an account of universals – an account that is presented in various of the writings of P.F. Strawson – combines sympathetic exegesis with telling criticism. His method is one he describes as philosophical ‘pruning’ – cutting away the metaphysical dead wood in order to uncover a healthy and elegant theory beneath.1 The ‘prunings’ Sen recommends fall under three heads:
1 a revision in the domain of entities admitted to be universals by Strawson, eliminating from the domain sets, numbers, types, facts and propositions, while bringing in relations;
2 a revision in Strawson’s tripartite division of universals into the sortal universal, the characterizing universal and the feature-universal, specifically by eliminating feature-universals; and
3 a revision in Strawson’s tripartite division of the so-called ‘non-relational’ ties into the instantial tie, the characterizing tie and the attributive tie, specifically by eliminating the characterizing tie.
