I begin this article, in Part I, with a summary outline of the theses I have maintained in previous writing on this topic. In Part 2 (which has three sections, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3). I treat the subject more fully, and with variations, reversing the order in which I approached the questions in those earlier writings. Finally, in Part 3, I try to set the whole discussion in the wider context of philosophy in general.

Part 1

More than thirty years ego I wrote a book which was published in 1959 under the title Individuals and was subsequently translated into French. In that work I began by addressing myself to the question: what, in our human schemes of thought (and talk), are the basic or primary objects of singular identifying reference? The question has both a logical and an ontological aspect. Both aspects are united in Aristotle's doctrine (in the Categories) of primary substances. He identified primary substances in ontological terms as those relatively enduring substantial spatio-temporal individuals which exemplify some distinctive principle of organisation - such as the individual man or horse; but the criterion he proposed for the status of primary substance was of a logical character - primary substances were to be irreducibly subjects of predication or, as we now say, objects of reference.

This union of logic and ontology persists through the history of philosophy. We find it in Kant who offers a formal or logical criterion of substance as that which can only appear or be thought of as subject, never as a predicate or determination of something else; and then proceeds to identify substance as matter. We find it, in our day, in Quine, whose criterion of ontological commitment is logical: to be is to be among the ultimate objects of reference, i.e. in his terms, to be among the values of the variables of objectual quantification in a regimented scientific language.

In the first part of Individuals I argued for a conclusion which was at least similar to that of Aristotle: I contended that relatively enduring substantial material objects and persons were the basic individuals from the point of view of identification and reference.

In the second part of the book I raised a more general logico-ontological question. The individuals which, in at least partial parallel with Aristotle, I identified as basic individuals are only a sub-class of spatio-temporal particulars in general; for the class as a whole includes more than relatively enduring substantial individuals; it includes substance-dependent particulars, like events and processes, and other relatively fleeting or insubstantial items. There is an ancient ontological or metaphysical

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distinction between the comprehensive class of spatio-temporal particulars on the one hand and general concepts or universals on the other. There is also a no less fundamental logical distinction, registered formally in the schemata of standard modern logic by the distinction between individual variables and predicate-letters. The simplest schema of an atomic sentence (Fx) represents a certain fundamental operation of speech and thought: viz. the operation of identifying some individual item and characterising it in some general way; or, in other words, the operation of definite singular reference together with predication; or, in yet other words, the coupling of a definite singular term (e.g. a name) with a predicate-expression. I call this a fundamental operation since it is a presupposed by the other logical operation of generalisation and sentence-composition.

The question which I addressed in the second part of Individuals is the question; what is it, in reality and our thought about reality, that underlies and accounts for the formal distinction of the two types of term which enter into this basic combination of a singular reference and predication, i.e. the distinction between definite singular terms and predicate-expression? My answer was, and is, that what at bottom underlies and sustains the formal (and grammatical) distinction is precisely the ontological or metaphysical distinction, above referred to, between spatio-temporal particulars and universals or general concepts. Of course this conclusion is nothing new: there is a traditional association in Western philosophy between the logical distinction of subject and predicate (reference and predication) and the ontological distinction of particular and universal. It is the explanatory arguments which I produced in support of the conclusion which were, I think, relatively new. Essentially I showed how the grammatical distinctions familiar in modern Western languages between singular subject-expressions and predicate-expressions (the substantival or noun-like character of the former and the necessary presence of a verb in the latter) can be explained in terms of the ontological distinction of category between the particular and the universal. This somewhat complicated explanatory argument I shall not try to summarise in this Part.

Of course these grammatical distinctions, not being universal in all languages, may be thought of as relatively superficial features, lacking in universal significance. But there correspond to them, in formal logic, certain other formal or logical distinctions which are independent of language-specific grammatical classifications and hence have the required universality of significance. The explanation of these distinctions also can be shown to rest at bottom on the same metaphysical or ontological distinction between particular and universal; and the demonstration of this dependence I carried out in another work, namely Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar, published in 1974 and so far untranslated into French.

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But this is not the end of the story. Although the fundamental ground of the basic combination of singular reference and predication is to be located in the case in which a designated spatio-temporal particular is the object of reference and a general concept or universal is predicated of it, the combination in question admits of generalisation beyond its fundamental ground. For the characteristic relation between a particular and a property or kind (a universal) which it exemplifies can be, and is, reproduced at a higher level. Just as properties or kinds serve as principles of grouping or collection of particulars, so these properties or kinds may themselves be grouped under higher principles to which they stand in the same formal relations as particulars stand to the principles which group them. So universals themselves may, and do, figure as objects of reference and subjects of predication. And if to be an actual or potential object of reference is the mark of an individual, then universals, and abstract objects generally, are also individuals. Indeed anything whatever, of any category whatever, can be the object of an identifying reference, and hence the singular subject of some predication. So anything whatever is an individual.

Neither does the matter end quite here. So far it seems that the status of individual belongs to anything that can in principle appear as the object of some singular identifying reference. We might say that anything that can appear as an individual is one. And this, as remarked, is a notably non-exclusive criterion, since everything satisfies it. But I should like to go a little further, in a direction which is certainly controversial in our contemporary terms. It is clear that though any individual can, many do not (normally) in fact, appear in discourse as individuals, in the sense of 'appearing as individuals' just explained. For often, instead of being referred to by definite singular terms, they are simply absorbed, in other forms, into predicate-expressions. But now - and this is the controversial suggestion - I should like to revise the sense of 'appearing as an individual' and suggest that even in these cases the universals in question do so appear. And this result can be achieved if we are prepared to regard what we familiarly classify as predicate-expressions as consisting of two elements, viz. (1) a general term standing for a universal (e.g. property, kind or relation) and (2) a copulative device. The copulative device, in familiar languages, may consist of a form of the verb 'to be', e.g., 'is' or 'is a'; it may consist of an inflection which yields a finite form of some other verb; or it may consist in the simple concatenation of singular term and general term. The general term will be an adjective or common noun or the uninflected stem of the verb. The unconventional element in this suggestion is the enlargement of the class of expressions which are regarded as designating or standing for universals beyond the class of abstract nouns such as 'courage' or 'manhood', to include adjectives, common nouns and verb-stems. The old-fashioned, or reactionary, element in the

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proposal in the recognition of the copulative device as an essential element in the complete sentence, though not, of course, an element that stands for, or designates, anything. The predicate-expression as a whole is consequently not regarded as standing for, or designating, anything either, though, on this view, it contains a part (the general term) that does.

In all these respects, the view I am here proposing runs flatly contrary to the now generally accepted views of Frege who held that the predicate-expression as a whole stands for something essentially 'unsaturated' (ungesättigt) which he called a concept (Begriff), and who would correspondingly reject the distinction, within the predicate-expression as a whole, between a copula (a notion his followers tend to treat with contempt) and a universal-denoting element. But here, as elsewhere, I find the appeal to authority unimpressive. Frege's great achievement is not significantly diminished by dissent on this point.

Here I end my brief and perfunctory sketch of my previous arguments and conclusions on the subject of individuals. The writings in which those arguments and conclusion were developed are scattered through a number of published books and articles which I list at the end of this article. It will be seen, from this brief sketch, that I began concentrating on what I regarded, and still regard, as the primary or basic individuals, namely substantial and relatively enduring spatio-temporal objects, including persons; and that I extended the range of individuals to include, first, spatio-temporal particulars in general and, finally, universals or abstract objects in general, thus ending with an all-comprehensive category of individuals.

In the more detailed discussion that now follow, I shall reverse this order: first making the case for universals and abstract objects generally (in Part 2, Section 2.1); then speaking of particulars at large (in Part 2 Section 2; and finally returning to my original and quasi-Aristotelian starting-point (in Part 2, Section 2.3).

Part 2

Section 2.1

I begin, de novo, with some general remarks about the concept of an individual. Of course the word 'individual' has several uses, some of which are relatively specific and of little, if any, philosophical interest. Thus, sometimes we use the word to mean no more and no less than 'person' or 'human being'; as when we ask. 'Who is that individual you were talking to?'. Or again, we may use the word

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adjectivally to mean 'distinctive' or 'unlike any other' or 'characteristic', as when we say 'He handles the situation in his own highly individual style'. But these uses are, at best merely suggestive. If we are to accord the concept the fundamental place in ontology and logic - indeed in philosophy in general - which it may be held to deserve, we must find for it the more comprehensive significance which the uses I have just mentioned do no more than point waveringly towards. This is the task which I now set myself.

An individual, then, is something single and self-identical. The characterisation seems comprehensive indeed; for surely everything is identical with itself. So is everything an individual? We might say: for something to be an individual, it must at least be, i.e. exist. So is 'individual' equivalent to 'entity'? Perhaps so. But we might say that the bare requirements of existence, singularity and identity still leave the notion of an individual somewhat remote from our experience, from our actual thought about things. So we might seek to counter this remoteness by adding that every individual must, at least in principle, be distinguishable from everything else and identifiable as just the single thing it is. Thus we strengthen the abstract thought of self-identity into the requirement of identifiability (in principle); thereby putting some flesh on the bare logical bone. (The notion of an individual which is unidentifiable in principle by us [i.e. beyond the reach of any cognitive powers that we might eventually acquire], thought not, I think, a meaningless notion, remains, for us, empty of content.) Similarly, with the bare notion of singularity; whatever is single, an individual, must be capable (in principle) of being referred to by a grammatically singular expression, be it name, pronoun or noun-phrase in the singular. So an individual is anything which exists which is, in principle, an identifiable object of singular reference.

The resultant characterisation still seems notably comprehensive. Anything which in principle falls within the scope of our identifying thought qualifies as an individual. So there is no restriction whatever on the categories of things which may qualify. Individuals will include not merely the familiar spatio-temporal particulars which surround us and impinge on our senses - people and material objects and particular happenings and processes. They will include also the members of every sort of abstract category which has a role in our thought: e.g. types, properties, qualities, relations, numbers, propositions etc. etc.

Now this is a result which I, for my part, find perfectly satisfactory. But not all philosophers have done so - or do so. Surely, some would say, the individual must be contrasted with the general; hence universals - properties, qualities, kinds, etc. - do not qualify as individuals; if, indeed, universals can be said to exist at all. And, in this last expression of doubt, we touch on that general suspicion of

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abstract entities which finds classical expression in the flatly nominalistic phrase of John Locke: "all things that exist being particular". Other philosophers, notably Quine, are prepared to countenance some abstract individuals, notably numbers and classes, as being essential to the development of physical science. But Quine's tolerance does not extend to properties or propositions.

What are the grounds of this limitation of tolerance? They are, in Quine's case, clear enough. He embraces a conception of philosophy which makes it, in this phrase, 'continuous with science'. Of course, philosophy is a more general and, in a sense, a more abstract enquiry than any of the recognised natural sciences; but it is, in his view, subject to the same requirements of exactitude and precision as physical science in general. Nothing is to be admitted, in serious philosophical theory, which does not satisfy those stringent requirements. It is at once evident that some curtailment of the lavish range of entities and concepts which our ordinary thought seems to embrace will be entailed by these requirements, however they are to be understood; and Quine, as in all consistency he is bound to do, makes it clear just how they are to be understood. He requires, of any candidate for the status of real object or entity, that it should be of some kind such that there exists some common general criterion or principle of identity for all things of that kind. This is the gloss he puts on his famous slogan, 'No entity without identity'.

It is at once clear that classes (including numbers) satisfy this test. A perfectly general principle of identity for classes is easily given: for all x and for all y, the class x is identical with the class y if and only if all members of x are members of y and conversely. It is equally clear that no such general principle is available for certain other purported abstract entities; not for properties or attributes, nor, indeed, for 'intensions' generally (propositions, senses, meanings). It is no good, for example, saying that properties are identical when their instances (their extensions) are identical. This would be to assimilate them to classes and hence to deny what is thought of as their distinctive character; since different, i.e. non-identical properties, as ordinarily understood, may characterise just the same objects, i.e. may have just the same instances as each other. Neither is it any good to say that properties are identical when they belong to the same classes, since, given the identity-condition for classes, this would be obviously circular.

Quine acknowledges that the difficulty could be overcome if we were allowed recourse to other intensional notions such as that of the senses of expressions or that of analytic necessity. Then we could say that property x was identical with property y when the sense of the predicate expressing x was identical with the sense of the predicate expressing y; or when the predicates in question were analytically or necessarily equivalent. But these notions are in the same case as that of property itself.

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They belong to a circle of notions no one of which satisfies the stipulated requirement. There is, for example, no perfectly general and non-circular criterion or principle of identity for the senses of expressions.

But, pace Quine, the philosophy of natural science is not the whole of philosophy, the domain of which is, rather, human thought in general. So it is not clear that what one scientifically-minded philosopher declares to be the sole test for the status of entity or object is to be accepted as such. It is clear that whatever can properly be counted as an entity must satisfy some identity - condition; and I have already suggested such a condition, viz, that anything that really exists must be capable, in principle, of being identified as the thing it is.

Now this test, this condition, is much more liberal than Quine's. For the properties, and other general or abstract things, which fail Quine's text, certainly pass this one. They are, in general, things we can identify, or learn to identify, can recognise, or learn to recognise, as the same again in different situations.

Consider not only those general qualities or attitudes or styles for which we have names or predicates (e.g. 'red', 'generous', 'witty', 'desire', 'jealousy', 'Gothic'), but also those many for which we have none or, at best, only names derived from particular associations which are not essential to the occurrence of recognition of the general feature in question (e.g. hair-styles, literary styles, ways of walking, manners of speaking). These are all things or features which can be recognised and identified by the experienced and perceptive. How absurd to say that they do not exist, that there are no such things! In the cases where we have such names or predicates as those I first listed, we may say that anyone who has mastered the use of these expressions, and hence knows how to apply them in particular cases, knows thereby how to identify the corresponding general thing, be it colour, quality, attitude, style or whatever. The criterion of the name or predicate is the individual criterion of identity of the individual quality or relation. The sense of the name or general term gives the individual essence of the general thing. So there is no need for common general criterion of identity for all things of the kind to which that general thing belongs. The general things which fail to satisfy Quine's more demanding identity-condition succeed in satisfying the more liberal condition of identifiability.

To this approach there will be two objections, both based on the ground of vagueness. First, it will be objected that the notion of the sense of expressions, lately appealed to, itself lacks precision, since there is no general criterion of identity for senses (or meanings); and, second, that the general qualities or features in question (and hence the particular senses of their names or predicates, when they have such) are themselves vague and ill-defined. Both objections may be admitted, but both are

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inconclusive. To rule out any appeal to senses or meanings on the ground that they fail Quine's test is not only to beg the question in favour of the latter; it also flies in the face of the common procedures of human beings engaged in critical discussion of even moderate sophistication. If expressions lacked identifiable and recognisable senses, intelligent, even intelligible, communication would be impossible. The second objection may yet more cheerfully be admitted. In the cases where a general property of feature has a corresponding predicate, the extensions of those predicates generally have no sharp cut-off points. Who shall say exactly when red gives place to pink or generosity to mere prodigality or the Palladian to the neo-Classical style? But the same thing is true of those material things or particulars which everyone, the philosopher of science included, is prepared to admit as entities or objects. In these cases, spatial rather than conceptual or logical limits are in question; but a lack of complete determinateness in those limits is no hindrance to the meteorologist, the geographer, the botanist or even the physicist. The general point is that the indentifiability of a thing, whether general or particular, does not require that its boundaries be sharply drawn.

But now a different objection suggests itself. It hinges on the distinction between general and particular, between the abstract and universal on the one hand and the spatio-temporally located particular individual on the other. Every spatio-temporal particular which satisfies the condition of identifiability also satisfies, and must satisfy, the more stringent identifiability-condition proposed by Quine. That is to say, every such particular does belong to some general kind, or fall under some general concept, which constitutes, or supplies, a common general principle or criterion of identity for all particular individuals which belong to that kind or fall under that concept. For though we may speak loosely of the essence of this or that particular spatio-temporal individual, no such individual can be represented as having an individual essence in the relevant sense, i.e. such as could serve as an individual principle of identity for that particular. In every case, identifiability essentially depends on our grasp of the general principle of identity implicit in the concept of the general kind to which it belongs.

And now the objection develops. Such spatio-temporal objects as are spoken of are the very model of identifiable individuals and also the very model of what we most naturally regard as real things. And, as we have just seen, they do satisfy the more stringent identity-condition proposed by the scientifically-minded philosopher. So those universals or general things which do not satisfy the stringent condition are to be seen, by contrast, as nothing but rather vague principles of discriminating among, or grouping together, those satisfactory object which do satisfy it.

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But this objection contains the seed of its own rebuttal. The contention that the identifiability of particular objects depends on the grasp of the general principles of identity for the general kinds to which they belong is tantamount to the admission that the identifiability of the particular presupposes and depends upon the prior identifiability of the general. In the domain of identity, universals are prior to particulars. The identity-conditions of the former are therefore more fundamental than the identity-conditions of the latter.

As far as the identifiability-criterion is concerned, then, the case for acknowledging general or abstract things as included in the category of individuals or objects is complete. It stands secure in spite of the failure of most such things to satisfy Quine's more demanding criterion for inclusion in the category. It is worth adding, however, that there are more abstract objects which succeed in satisfying that stringent requirement than merely Quine's own favoured abstract objects, namely classes (including numbers). It can be argued that, in our day at least, though not in earlier times, there do exist general common principles of identity, not just for all particular specimens of a given animal species (say, lions or elephants), but for all animal species in general; or, again, not just for all particular specimens of a given chemical substance, but for all chemical substances in general. So here are two more classes of universals which satisfy Quine's test - a result which should gratify the scientifically-minded philosopher, since it is the outcome of the development in these fields of a science which supplies a systematic taxonomy, and hence principles of classification which apply at this high and general level throughout the fields in question. But it is clear that while natural history may given birth, and has given birth, to natural science and so to this possibility, no comparable development is to be expected in the fields of art history or literary history, so that emergence of clear and general criteria of identity for literary or musical or architectural styles remains as improbable as ever.

Yet even here, within the fields of art, some general criteria of identity for some universals (some forms) may be detected. An individual sonnet or sonata is, of course, a universal which supplies criteria of identity for particular inscriptions or renderings of it. But have we not also common general criteria of identity for all sonnets and for all sonatas? For every sonnet (or sonata), every inscription on rendering is an inscription or rendering of the same sonnet (or sonata) if and only if it exhibits a certain form and composition, namely that of an original inscription or rendering. The quasi-Platonic model of an ideal prototype has here a peculiar aptness; and the same can be said of certain other types of universal whose instances are artifacts.

Nevertheless, even when it is granted that the class of universals which satisfies Quine's test is more comprehensive than he claimed, it must still be insisted that the class of those which do not satisfy it is

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yet more extensive, including as it does all those 'intensions' (e.g. properties or attributes) which are the objects of his special antipathy. The main burden of my argument so far in this Section (2.1) has been that the only identity-condition which anything can be required to satisfy in order to qualify as an individual is that of identifiability-in-principle, and that this is a condition as clearly satisfied by the abstract objects which fail Quines's test as by those which pass it.

But is identifiability-in principle sufficient? Did I not, in the opening paragraph of Part 2, refer to two other conditions, viz. (a) existing and (b) being a possible object of definite, grammatically singular reference? It should be evident that if the condition of identifiability-in-principle is satisfied, the condition of existence is satisfied too. For a universal to exist, it is not necessary, though it is sufficient, that it should have actual instances. It is enough that one should know that there logically could be an instance of it and to know in principle how you would tell that you had encountered such an instance. As for the condition concerning reference, it is sufficient to remark that discourse abounds with abstract singular names of universals and would be severely crippled without such names; that even when such names are not readily available, it is always possible to frame a definite singular term standing for any abstract or intensional item whatever; and, finally, that, as controversially maintained towards the end of Part 1, singular reference to universals can (perhaps) properly be held to be effected, not only by grammatically singular substantival or noun-like expressions in subject-position, but equally by adjectives, common nouns or verb-stems figuring as parts of predicate-expressions.

Section 2.2

That final, controversial contention, mentioned immediately above, must be treated with reserve. For if it is correct, it seems that a whole philosophical tradition, running from Aristotle, through Kant and others, to Quine, is mistaken. This is the tradition which, as we have seen, links the notion of being an object or entity or individual essentially to that of being among the subjects of predication or objects of reference, and which, at the same time, interprets the notion of being an object of reference in such a way as to rule out the idea that a universal figures as an object of reference when it is expressed by an adjective, a common noun or a verb-stem occurring as a mere part of a predicate-expression.

Although tradition should not be regarded as having absolute authority, either in philosophy or in any other sphere, it is entitled to respect and consideration; and especially so when the challenge to it has the highly controversial character which I have acknowledged. And it is, in any case, a matter of

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consuming philosophical interest to enquire into the grounds of a grammatico-logical distinction to which the tradition attaches, as we have seen, such great ontological significance. So, on both these scores, it is important to revive the enquiries pursued in those earlier studies of mine which I have referred to.

Let us begin, then, with an enquiry into the association between the two complementary functions of reference and predication and the ontological distinction of particular and universal - an enquiry into the form that association takes and into the reasons for its taking that form. It is as clear to us as it was to Kant that discursive thought requires general concepts and that, at least for beings constituted as we are, these must include concepts applicable to objects of sensible experience in our world. It is also clear that, concepts being essentially general, i.e. essentially capable of multiple application in different individual cases, we must, if we are to have any capacity for applying concepts at all, be able in principle to distinguish different individual instances of a given concept from each other while recognising them as alike instances of the same general concept; and, in the sphere of objects of sensible experience, it is precisely spatio-temporal distinguishability which is the uniquely necessary ground of this possibility. Hence, the fundamental case of the individual instance of a general concept is, precisely, the spatio-temporal particular; and the fundamental form of discursive thought about our world is the thought which couples such a particular (or two or more such particulars) with some general concept which it (or they) is (or are) deemed to instantiate or exemplify.

Even when so much is granted, the question remains: why, in this coupling, should the formal and grammatical features of, respectively, reference and predication (subject and predicate) be associated as they respectively are with that part of the thought (or its expression) which introduces or specifies the particular(s) and that part which introduces or specifies the concept or universal? The answer to this question obviously requires a prior specification of the formal and grammatical differences in question between the referring (or subject) parts and the predicative part of the thought or its expression. Here logical and grammatical considerations are intertwined.

I begin with the simplest of these differences. Formal logic characteristically distinguishes between predicate-expressions as being either one-place, two-place or three-place. There is no parallel distinction among expressions capable of occupying referential, or subject, position. Any expression of the latter class may figure in a complete sentence in coupling with an appropriate predicate-expression of any of the three classes just distinguished. But a predicate-expression requires coupling, in a complete non-elliptical sentence, with a definite number, one, two or three, of

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referential expressions. Now this formal or logical distinction between referential expressions and predicate-expressions tallies exactly with the distinction between particulars and universals. For universals divide, as predicates do, into those that can characterise single individuals (e.g. being red), those that apply to couples (e.g. being a twin of) and those that apply to triples (e.g. betweenness); whereas particulars can figure equally well as bearers of monadic properties and as terms in dyadic or triadic relations.

The next formal asymmetry we shall consider between singular subject terms and predicate-expressions concerns negation. Evidently any proposition in which an identified individual is assigned a monadic predicate can be significantly negated. And this can be done in either of two ways. The negating particle or phrase can be attached to the proposition as a whole or it can be incorporated into the predicate-expression. The result is the same in either case. But there is no possibility of achieving the same result by incorporating negation into the subject-term. Why not? Once again this logical difference can be explained by appeal to the ontological distinction between particulars and universals (or general concepts). Every universal, e.g. every quality, has a complementary range of incompatible qualities, such that the possession by any given individual of a given quality is incompatible with the possession by that individual of any quality of the complementary range; whereas for no particular is there any 'incompatible' particular such that the possession by a given particular of any quality is incompatible with its possession by the 'incompatible' particular. The very idea of 'incompatible' particulars', so understood, makes no sense. Since any general quality excludes a range of others from being possessed by whatever individuals possess that quality, we can coherently form the concept of the complementary quality of any given quality (i.e. of the negation of the expression for the quality). But since no particular excludes any other particular from possessing every quality it possesses, we cannot coherently form the corresponding concept of the complementary particular of any given particular (i.e. of the negation of the subject-term standing for the particular). This difference follows from the very nature of particulars and universals respectively. On the assumption, then, that the basic predicative combination consists in the coupling of a term designating a particular in subject or referential position with an expression introducing a universal in predicate position, it follows immediately that, in such a basic combination, negation may be taken with the predicate and not with the subject in order to yield the negation of the original proposition. Once the case is conceded for the basic combination, it easily admits of generalisation to the cases in which a non-particular, i.e. an abstract object, is introduced in subject position and a higher-order universal (a principle of grouping of abstract objects of the kind concerned) occupies predicate position.

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Next we turn to an overtly grammatical feature of the distinction between subject-terms and predicate-terms. In our modern Western languages the subject-term is always a noun or noun-phrase and the predicate-expression a verb or verb-phrase. How to explain this difference on the assumption that, in the basic case, the subject-term designates a particular while the predicate-term introduces a universal? Well, there are two distinct, but mutually supporting, routes to the explanation. Both begin from the same point.

The common point of origin consists in the observation that the presence of a finite form of the verb as part or whole of the predicate-expression is necessary in our language in order to yield a proposition, something capable of assessment for truth or falsity. A mere list of nouns or noun-phrases would not have this feature; it would be merely a list. (Of course, in colloquial speech, as in ancient languages, the verb-form is sometimes omitted: the bare concatenation of proper name and adjective or common noun, for example, might serve to carry a message. But such usages are elliptical; in strict grammatical propriety the verb-form is supplied.) The important point to gather from this is that it is the predicate-expression rather than the subject-term which is regarded as carrying the mark of a proposional combination of terms, as indicating that the combination of terms in question yields something complete, a proposition capable of having a truth-value.

The first explanation, of the two I foreshadowed, draws on the previous point about negation. As already remarked, to form the negation of a given simple proposition, negation may either be taken with the proposition as a whole (as in the form 'It is not the case p' or, symbolically, ' 'p') or it may be absorbed into predicate; but it may not be taken with the subject. This was explained by reference to the primary case in which the subject-term designates a particular and the predicate-term introduces a universal. But to negate the predicate-term is equivalent to negating the proposition as a whole just because it is the predicate-term which carries the symbolism of propositional combination. So the very same fact about the difference between particulars and universals which explains why negation goes with the predicate-term in the basic case simultaneously explains why, in that case, the predicate-term carries the symbolism of propositional combination, i.e. the form of the verb. Once again, generalisation carries us over into the other cases.

That is one explanation. The other is a little more complicated and refers us, once again, to Frege's distinction between what he called proper names (Eigennamen) and predicate-expressions. The former, he says, are complete, the latter incomplete or unsaturated (ungesättigt). Predicate-expressions are incomplete just because they call for completion into a proposition by being coupled with expressions such as proper names (i.e. definite singular terms). Without such

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essentially unsaturated expressions as predicate-expressions are, there would be nothing to hold the parts of a proposition together. These explanations of Frege's terminology are not entirely clear; but, especially in the light of the immediately preceding characterisation (in terms of 'what holds the parts of a proposition together'), it does seem clear enough that at least part of the point Frege is making about predicate-expressions is precisely that it is they, and not subject-expressions, which carry the symbolism of propositional combination.

But we must enquire whether we cannot find a deeper significance in the Fregean contrast between the 'completeness' of singular subject-expressions and the 'incompleteness' of predicate-expressions. If we turn once more to the distinction between particulars and universals, we discover that we can indeed find such a further significance - a significance which harmonises with the above distinction regarding the symbolism of propositional combination and which adds yet further explanatory force to the association of, particulars with subject-terms and of universals with predicate-expressions.

This additional significance discloses itself when we enquire into the conditions of the understanding and successful use of particular-designating expressions on the one hand and of universal-introducing expressions on the other. To use an expression of either kind in a genuine utterance, we must understand that expression, i.e. we must know what we mean by it. But the conditions of our having such knowledge are quite different in the case of a particular on the one hand an in the case of a universal on the other. To know which universal we mean requires no more than knowledge of the sense or meaning of the linguistic expression which we use to introduce the universal; but to know which particular we mean requires more than this merely linguistic knowledge; it requires us to know at least one empirical fact about that particular which serves to distinguish it from any other to which the linguistic expression we use might be (or might have been) applied, in all linguistic propriety, in appropriate circumstances. Hence a particular-designating expression, used with understanding, carries with it a weight of particular fact, and is, for that reason, something already complete for thought; in that, to explain which particular we mean by it, it would not be sufficient to appeal to knowledge of the language - we should have, in one way or another, to indicate or adduce a distinguishing proposition, true uniquely of that particular. A universal-introducing expression carries no such weight. Its use simply requires knowledge of the language. Hence it is, in the relevant sense, incomplete for thought, and if it is to serve as a part of the vehicle of a complete thought, it calls for completion by coupling with another term. Here, then, we find the marriage or affinity of the two kinds of incompleteness; the association, in the basic case, of the symbolism of propositional combination with the universal-introducing expression rather than with the particular-designating

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expression we see, in the end, as the mark of the former's lack of that completeness with the latter possesses. The subject-predicate distinction is seen once again to rest, at bottom, on the particular-universal distinction. And once again, analogies previously referred to explain the extension of the former distinction beyond the basic case.

Section 2.3

If we are convinced by the arguments developed in Section 2.2 above, and if at the same time we reject, or agree to disregard, the controversial proposal outlined at the end of Part I (and mentioned again at the end of Section 2.1) then we should conclude both that only the items referred to by expressions in referential or subject position are genuine individuals or entities and that particulars in general are the primary or basic individuals, universals being admitted by courtesy to this category only because, and in so far as, they too can win a place among the items referred to by expressions in referential position. But there is a yet more restrictive doctrine to be considered, which would confine the class of primary individuals more narrowly still. This is the view, referred to earlier in connection with Aristotle, that it is only a sub-class of particulars, viz. individual substances, which may be reckoned the primary or basic individuals, since it is they, and they alone, which can figure in thought or discourse only as subjects and never as predicates; whereas all universals can always be introduced predicatively into thought, and other particulars, e.g. events, when they figure as subjects may be seen as constructs from primary substances and e.g. event-universals. (For example: 'Yesterday's fight between X and Y was bitter' derives from 'X and Y fought bitterly yesterday'.) My reconstruction of Aristotles's doctrine may be questioned on both historical and philosophical grounds. It is doubtful whether it is faithful to Aristotle's thought; and it is questionable whether it is philosophically sound. But there are nevertheless independent grounds for holding that it is indeed the case that substantial and relatively enduring particular individuals are, and necessarily are, the primary and basic objects of reference or subject of predication and hence, given the present approach, the primary or basic individuals or entities.

I say 'given the present approach' (i.e. the approach of this Section 2.3), because it already accords priority to particulars in general over universals as objects of reference, i.e. as individuals. Our questions is: what grounds are there, other than those just hypothetically attributed to Aristotle, for according priority in this respect to the sub-class of particulars distinguished as substantial particulars? The answer turns once more on the issue of identity, indeed, more precisely, on that of identifiability. Most non-substantial particulars, e.g. particular events, processes and conditions, are

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essentially events, processes and conditions which happen to, or occur in, substantial individuals, i.e. space-occupying and relatively enduring objects or persons. Hence a standard way of giving or fixing or specifying the identity of such non-substantial particulars involves identifying reference to the substantial particular in question. The identification of the former is then dependent on the identification of the latter.

It is not true, however, that the identifiability of non-substantial particulars is in every case thus dependent on the identifiability of substantial particulars. It is not true in every case even of those non-substantial particulars which are essentially states or changes in substantial particulars - still less of those relatively few which are not. So it is not adequate to argue, as I did in the first part of the book Individuals, for the priority of the substantial over the non-substantial particular, from the point of view of identification, merely on the ground of the identifiability- dependence of the latter on the former. For it is sometimes possible to identify, say, a particular event by specifying the universal under which it falls and relying on context to indicate its spatial and temporal incidence without reference to any substantial particular and even without knowledge of the identity of the substantial particular which the particular event belongs to - as in using a phrase such as 'That remark ..' or 'that explosion...'

But though the mentioned argument is in itself inadequate, the reason for its inadequacy points the way to another and this time decisive argument. Any identification of a non-substantial particular which is independent of the identification of a substantial particular must at least depend on placing the particular in question in space and in the time-series. And the world in which we must make our identifications is a unified spatio-temporal world in which, and on which, each of us, at any moment, enjoys a particular spatial point of view, relative to the objects which constitute that world. Objects, of course, undergo change and movement, cease to exist or come into existence; our point of view on them changes too. But unless we were conscious of the retention of identity on the part of some on the space-occupying objects which we perceive, the whole concept of a unified spatio-temporal world, of our place in it and our point of view on it would lose all content; and the very notion of identifying a particular by locating it in space and time would be empty. Hence the pervasive existence of relatively enduring space-occupying, identifiable objects in sufficiently stable or traceable relations with each other is a fundamental condition of identifying particulars of any kind. But such relatively enduring objects as these are precisely the substantial particulars which were to be shown to be basic or primary objects of identifying reference.

Kant, in the first Critique, used partially parallel arguments to demonstrate, as he thought, the necessary permanence of substance, which he identified with matter in general. But he erred in

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supposing that he had established so strong a conclusion. In order to secure the unity of the spatio-temporal system of the world and the possibility of our awareness of change in it, it is not necessary to suppose that it contains anything absolutely permanent or abiding. It is sufficient for the unity, and hence endurance, of the system as a whole that all changes of state and all comings-to-be and ceasing-to-be of things or stuff in the system can in principle be spatially and temporally related to each other; and a quite modest degree of relative and overlapping endurance of things is sufficient for this, as it is also for awareness of change and for the retention of the notion of the observer's (perhaps changing) point of view on the unified spatio-temporal system. So we can be content with the more modest conclusion that the existence and identifiability of relatively enduring space-occupying particulars, i.e. for short, of substantial particular individuals, is the fundamentally necessary condition of the identifiability of particulars in general in our world. And this concludes the argument for the thesis that substantial particulars (material objects and animals, including people) are the basic or primary objects of reference, the basic individuals.

Part 3

Now it is time to sum up and to place the whole discussion in the wider context of philosophy in general.

Early in the discussion I linked ontological and logical considerations in specifying three conditions that any individual must satisfy. They were: (1) existence; (2) identifiability in principle; and (3) being capable of figuring in thought or discourse as an object of singular reference or a singular subject of predication. I claimed that both spatio-temporal particulars in general and universals or abstracts objects in general satisfied these conditions; and, at a certain point in the discussion (at the end of Part 1), I relaxed the condition (3) above to the extent of suggesting, controversially, that even when a universal did not appear as a subject of predication or in referential position as normally understood, but was represented, in a non-nominal or non-substantival form, as a mere part of a predicate-expression, it could still be regarded as there appearing as named or designated, i.e. as an object of reference.

Later (in Sections 2.2 and 2.3) I shelved, or put on one side, this last suggestion because of its controversial, not to say dubious, character; and addressing myself instead to the standard or normal logico-grammatical distinction between reference and predication (or subject and predicate), I argued, first, on general epistemological and metaphysical grounds, that it is the ontological distinction

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between particular and universal that provides the underlying ground of the standard logico-grammatical distinction; and, further, (in 2.3), again on general metaphysical-epistemological grounds, that among spatio-temporal particulars in general, it is substantial or relatively enduring space-occupying particulars, which must be regarded as the primary or basic objects of reference.

So much for summary. Now for the place of the discussion in philosophy at large.

We are familiar, in philosophy, with those three departmental-sounding names, ontology, epistemology, and logic: ontology, or the theory of being, of what fundamentally exists; epistemology, or the theory of knowledge; and logic, or the general theory of judgement or the proposition, the theory of those (generally linguistically expressed) things which are bearers of truth-value, capable of truth or falsity. What the foregoing discussion shows, I think, is that, at a very fundamental level, these three are interlinked as just three aspects of a single unified enquiry. And it is a very fundamental level; for the discussion treats of thought, existence and knowledge at the extremest limit of generality.

That is the first point I want to make: viz, that the question I have been addressing in the foregoing is as general and fundamental as any - indeed is perhaps the most general and fundamental of any - in the whole of metaphysics. But my answer to the question leads on to another point. For that answer commits me to what was formerly known as realism about universals. And this commitment, especially in our own naturalist days, tends to encounter severe prejudice. 'Are you not', it may be asked, 'in thus defending the real existence of universals, in effect defending Platonism? And is not Platonism a discredited myth?'

I answer: there may well be mythological elements in some versions of realism about universals; perhaps in Plato's own. But there is none in mine. If I am said to be defending Platonism, let it be added that it is demythologised Platonism. Where there are mythological elements in such realism, they arise from failure to accord its full force to the point that abstract objects, including universals, are in no sense natural objects (though their instances are or may be); they have no place in space or time, they have no causal power or efficacy (thought their instances may have both). They are objects of thought alone. The failure to recognise fully the non-natural character of abstract objects may lead to the proposal of inappropriate natural analogies in an attempt to explain the relation between the universal and its instances - such as the model of original and copy or prototype and product. This is where myth-making begins. But all such attempts should be forsworn, and are forsworn as soon as it is clearly seen that no natural model for the relation could exist.

And here we encounter the deeper source of prejudice. It consists in a strong natural disposition to understand by the notion of existence the same thing as existence in nature, to think that whatever

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exists at all exists in nature and that whatever relations hold between things are relations that are exemplified in nature. Perhaps those least liable among us to be held captive by this belief, this disposition, are pure mathematicians; for they are supremely concerned with non-natural, necessary relations between abstract objects. It is my view that philosophers, also concerned with non-natural relations, with conceptual (or logical or analytic or semantic) connections or necessities, should also be immune from this belief. But the evidence is that many, perhaps most, of them are not; that they too are in the grip of this prejudice, this natural disposition. And here we have a metaphysical divide that will perhaps persist as long as there are philosophers left to take their stance on one side or the other of it.

REFERENCES

Many of the themes developed in this article have been treated at greater length and in fuller detail by the author in the following books and articles:

Books:

Individuals (London, Methuen, 1959): French translation. Les individus (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1973).

Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar (London: Methuen, 1974).

Analyse et Metaphysique (Paris: J. Vrin, 1985).

Articles:

"Singular Terms and Predication", in The Journal of Philosophy. 1961; reprinted in Logico-Linguistic Papers (London: Methuen, 1971). French translation, "Termes singuliers et predication", in Etudes de Logique et de Linguistique (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977)

"The Asymmetry of Subjects and Predicates", in Language, Belief and Metaphysics, ed. Kiefer and Munitz (Ithaca, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1970); reprinted in Logico-Linguisistic Papers (London: Methuen, 1971); French translation, "L'asymetrie entre sujets et predicats", in Etudes Logique et de Linguistique (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1977)

"Entity and Identity", in Contemporary British Philosophy, Fourth Series, ed. H.D. Lewis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1976).

"Universals", in Midwest Studies in Philosophy. Vol. IV (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1979).

"Properties and Concepts", in The Philosophical Quarterly (1987): Vol. 37, pp. 402-406.

Journal 'From the Logical Point of View' thanks Kluwer Academic Publishers

for kind enableing us to reprint this article.

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