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Good morning Father Angelo,

I’m writing to you about a topic that I’ve been puzzling over for some time.

According to realism, universals actually exist and their existence is earlier than and prior to things: universalia ante rem.

Yet, in several texts I read that moderate realism, which Thomism agrees with, establishes the foundation for the existence of universals on things: in re.

How can these two intentions be brought together?

Furthermore, and also relating to this subject, it is not clear to me what ontological nature Thomism recognizes to the universals perceived by human intellect. It is not clear to me whether such universals are the same ones that allow the existence of the particular or they are abstractions in the meaning of “logical entities”.

In the second case, they would be pure concepts, and therefore one would fall back into idealism.

Besides, I don’t see how human intellect can “abstract” the universal from the senses, as they are grounded in the physical realm and therefore cannot “convey” the universal that makes them exist.

Of course, it is entirely possible that I have not fully understood how Thomism deals with this subject and therefore my doubt would have no reason to exist, which is why I need your help!

Many thanks

God bless you

Alberico

Answer from the priest

Dear Alberico,

1. when I was studying philosophy among the Dominicans, I attended a course on logic that featured a thesis that had to be learnt by heart in Latin.

It sounded like this: “Insunt in mente nostra conceptus vere universales, quibus a parte rei respondet natura his conceptibus expressa. 

Nihilominus haec natura, ut a parte rei existit, non est universalis, sed singularis”.

I remember that the older brothers, sometimes during recess, when the opportunity arose, loved to repeat it with a smile.

2. Here is the translation: “In our mind there are truly universal concepts, to which the nature expressed with these concepts corresponds in reality.

However, this nature insofar as it exists in reality is not universal, but singular.”

3. Firstly, what is meant by the universals? Universals are concepts that encompass a set of subjects, all of which have the same nature.

For example, the concept of man refers to all those who possess human nature, which consists of a body and a rational soul.

4. As it immediately arises, universals, being concepts, do not exist in reality. They exist only in our mind.

In reality, there are individual subjects, from which we abstract through our intellect an identical nature common to all of them.

To answer your last question: universals exist only in the mind, they are abstractions. But the foundation of such abstraction is in reality.

5. Among the so-called realists (in philosophy, we call realists those who state that there is a reality existing in nature which corresponds to our concepts) some assert that universals exist outside of intellect and outside of reality.

This first meaning comes from Plato, who stated that ideas (universal concepts) exist in themselves, and are incorruptible and eternal. They exist in the so-called hyperuranium.

The matter which is shaped by the demiurge corresponds to them in a certain manner.

6. Others say that the universal does not multiply itself in the individual subjects, but is one in all of them, and they are differentiated from one other only by reason of accidents.

Such was the judgement of the Parisian dialectician William of Champeaux (1070-1121), according to whom, for example, humanity exists objectively in reality, while single human subjects are differentiated by accidents.

Hegel (1770-1831) and Schelling (1175-1854) also trace back to this thesis: according to them there exists an absolute spirit, while individual realities are merely apparitions (epiphenomena) of the universal nature.

7. All of those authors (mentioned in paragraphs numbered 5 and 6) belong to the so-called exaggerated realism.

8. According to others, however, including Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), St. Thomas (1225-1274), and many scholastics, a pair of elements must be differentiated in the universal: matter, that is, what is contained in the universal concept, namely nature; and form, that is, universality.

According to them, universality exists only in the intellect, while matter exists in real subjects.

This is the so-called moderate realism.

9. St. Thomas writes: “We must then understand that the universal is that which inheres in the many, but not which exists in the many (sciendum autem quod universale est quod natum est pluribus inesse, non autem pluribus inest; the words are taken from Aristotle, Metaphysica, 7,13); because there are universals that contain only a single subject beneath them, like the sun and the moon” (In Metaph., 7,13).

Thank you for the question, a bit hard for people who are not accustomed to philosophy.

I wish you all the best, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo