ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to consider whether there is a fundamental division of objects into two classes, particulars and universals. This question was discussed by Mr Russell in a paper printed in the Aristotelian Society’s Proceedings for 1911. His conclusion that the distinction was ultimate was based upon two familiar arguments, directed against the two obvious methods of abolishing the distinction by holding either that universals are collections of particulars, or that particulars are collections of their qualities. These arguments, perfectly sound as far as they go, do not however seem to me to settle the whole question. The first, which appears again in The Problems of Philosophy, shows as against the nominalists that such a proposition as ‘This sense-datum is white’ must have as one constituent something, such as whiteness or similarity, which is not of the same logical type as the sense-datum itself. The second argument, also briefly expounded in McTaggart’s The Nature of Existence, proves that a man cannot be identified with the sum of his qualities. But although a man cannot be one of his own qualities, that is no reason why he should not be a quality of something else. In fact material objects are described by Dr Whitehead as ‘true Aristotelian adjectives’ so that we cannot regard these two arguments as rendering the distinction between particular and universal secure against all criticism.
