In
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
, particulars or individuals are usually contrasted with
universals
In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For exa ...
. Universals concern features that can be exemplified by various different particulars. Particulars are often seen as concrete, spatiotemporal entities as opposed to abstract entities, such as properties or numbers. There are, however, theories of ''
abstract particulars
Abstract may refer to:
* ''Abstract'' (album), 1962 album by Joe Harriott
* Abstract of title a summary of the documents affecting title to parcel of land
* Abstract (law), a summary of a legal document
* Abstract (summary), in academic publishi ...
'' or ''
tropes''. For example,
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
is a particular (there's only one Socrates-the-teacher-of-Plato and one cannot make copies of him, e.g., by cloning him, without introducing new, distinct particulars). Redness, by contrast, is not a particular, because it is abstract and multiply instantiated (for example a bicycle, an apple, and a given woman's hair can all be red).
In nominalist view everything is particular. Universals in each moment of time from point of view of an observer is the collection of particulars that participates it (even a void collection).
Overview
Sybil Wolfram[ Sybil Wolfram, ''Philosophical Logic'', Routledge, London and New York, 1989, , page 55.] writes
Particulars include only individuals of a certain kind: as a first approximation individuals with a definite place in space and time, such as persons and material objects or events, or which must be identified through such individuals, like smiles or thoughts.
Some terms are used by philosophers with a rough-and-ready idea of their meaning. This can occur if there is lack of agreement about the best definition of the term. In formulating a solution to the
problem of universals
The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist be ...
, the term 'particular' can be used to describe the ''particular'' instance of redness of a certain apple as opposed to the 'universal' 'redness' (being
abstract).
The term particular is also used as a modern equivalent of the Aristotelian notion of individual substance. Used in this sense, particular can mean any concrete (individual) entity, irrespective of whether it is spatial and temporal or not.
See also
*
Epistemological particularism Epistemological particularism is the view that one can know something without knowing ''how'' one knows it. By this view, one's knowledge is justified before one knows how such belief could be justified. Taking this as a philosophical approach, one ...
*
Moral particularism
Moral particularism is a theory in meta-ethics that runs counter to the idea that moral actions can be determined by applying universal moral principles. It states that there is no set of moral principles that can be applied to every situation, ...
*
Type–token distinction
The type–token distinction is the difference between naming a ''class'' (type) of objects and naming the individual ''instances'' (tokens) of that class. Since each type may be exemplified by multiple tokens, there are generally more tokens than ...
*
Particular affirmative
In logic, a categorical proposition, or categorical statement, is a proposition that asserts or denies that all or some of the members of one category (the ''subject term'') are included in another (the ''predicate term''). The study of arguments ...
/negative
References
Concepts in metaphysics
Physical objects
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