Question

1.       Evaluate the 4 views as to the nature of universals and particulars.

Answer 1

Universal is the term used for ideas or concepts. Particular is generally used for objects or individual things that we encounter in the world.
The ‘Universal’ term include words like blue, red, book, or car. Plato argued that reality consists of the Forms (the immaterial essence of the objects that exist in a separate reality) and that the forms exist in a separate realm.
4 views as to nature of universals and particulars are:
(a) Extreme realism is the view that Forms (or universals) exist in a separate realm and that objects in this reality copy the immaterial Forms.
(b) Exaggerated realism holds that universals exist in particulars as part of what makes them similar. Ideas exist in the physical objects, such as our minds, and not in a separate reality.
(c) The next view would be called conceptualism. Conceptualism claims that ideas are real, but they depend upon what you think or thoughts. The function of a universal term is to denote a special relationship between particular objects. Universals or forms are object concepts that we create in our minds by examining particulars.
(d) The last view is called extreme nominalism. Extreme nominalism claims that universals or forms do not exist. In this view, ideas are not real objects. Universals or forms do not have any existence, only particulars or individual objects exist.