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Resemblance Nominalism Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford)

Resemblance Nominalism By Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford)

Summary

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra offers a fresh philosophical account of properties. How is it that two different things (such as two red roses) can share the same property (redness)? According to resemblance nominalism, things have their properties in virtue of resembling other things. This unfashionable view is championed with clarity and rigour.

Resemblance Nominalism Summary

Resemblance Nominalism: A Solution to the Problem of Universals by Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford)

Gardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other because they are red? Since the 1970s philosophers have tended to favour the latter view, and held that a satisfactory account of properties must involve the postulation of either universals or tropes. But Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra revives the dormant alternative theory of resemblance nominalism, showing first that it can withstand the attacks of such eminent opponents as Goodman and Armstrong, and then that there are reasons to prefer it to its rival theories. The clarity and rigour of his arguments will challenge metaphysicians to rethink their views on properties.

Resemblance Nominalism Reviews

Rodriguez-Pereyra . . . develops a novel understanding of the problem of universals, offers his own conception of truthmaking and examines the relative virtues of qualitative and quantitative economy. . . . [he] deserves praise for following arguments where they lead and challenging so many of the ingrained assumptions that metaphysicians routinely bring to bear upon the discussion of resemblance nominalism. * Fraser MacBride, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Dan Dennett's Philosophical Lexicon contains the entry: 'Exhume, v. to revive a position generally thought to be humed.' This book is the most brilliant philosophical exhumation that it has been my pleasure to encounter. This book argues that our attributions of properties and relations can be given satisfactory truthmakers using no more than resemblances holding between ordinary particulars. Many of us had assumed that this program is bankrupt, but now we must think again ... With patient and ingenious argument [Rodriguez-Pereyra] has shown that the theory has more to be said for it than ever I, and I suspect many others, had imagined. The fundamental nature of properties and relations may be the central question in metaphysics. He has made an important contribution to the topic. * D. M. Armstrong, Australasian Journal of Philosophy *

About Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford)

Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is Fellow and Tutor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

Introduction ; 1. The Problem of Universals: A Problem about Truthmakers ; 2. The Explananda of the Problems of Universals ; 3. The Many over One ; 4. Resemblance Nominalism ; 5. The Coextension Difficulty ; 6. Russell's Regress ; 7. The Resemblance Structure of Property Classes ; 8. Goodman's Difficulties ; 9. The Imperfect Community Difficulty ; 10. The Companionship Difficulty ; 11. The Mere Intersections Difficulty ; 12. The Superiority of Resemblance Nominalism ; Appendix: On Imperfect Communities and the Non-communities they Entail ; References, Index

Additional information

NPB9780199243778
9780199243778
0199243778
Resemblance Nominalism: A Solution to the Problem of Universals by Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Hertford College, Oxford)
New
Hardback
Oxford University Press
2002-07-04
252
N/A
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