Sombra de universales

This work discusses several proposals about the nature of the so-called “problem of universals” or “one over many”. First, it is argued that the problem has nothing to do with a conceptual or semantic analysis about predication or resemblance. The properties that –supposedly– would be justified by the considerations to which the problem of universals lead are determined ‘scarce’ properties whose existence should be a matter of a posteriori research and not a priori reflection. In second place, it is argued that the problem has nothing to do with the ontological commitment one may have acquired by saying or thinking something. Everyone in the current debate in metaphysics of properties would accept that if, say, a is F and b is F, then there is something that both a and b are. The problem lies in the nature of the entity referred to and attributed both to a and b. Considerations of ontological commitment alone are useless for the discrimination between the different alternative theories by which these entities have been understood. Neither can the problem be understood as a problem about how a single object can have different properties (many over one), for the properties are conceived from the beginning by all the parties in the debate as capable of multiple instantiation. Finally, it is rejected that the problem of universals is a problem about truthmakers. The problem has nothing special to do with sentences of a language or propositions. It is not a semantic problem, but simply an ontological one about how the ‘same’ nature can be instantiated in a plurality of exemplifications.

2015

Crítica. Revista hispanoamericana de filosofía, 2024

RESUMEN: Varios filósofos han propuesto un enfoque "algebraico" de los universales de acuerdo con el cual hay operaciones de universales a universales. No es obvio, sin embargo, cómo estas operaciones deban ser interpretadas y qué impacto tengan para las condiciones de identidad de los universales. Hay dos interpretaciones principales del álgebra de universales. Por una parte, se ha interpretado como formas de "construir" universales complejos. Por otra, ha sido interpretada como "morfismos" o "mapeos" entre universales, pero no como algo que "construye" universales complejos desde otros más básicos. En este trabajo se evalúan las ventajas comparativas de las dos concepciones, y se ofrecen razones para preferir la segunda.

2022

Capítulo del libro coordinado por M. El Mauden, A. Martín Castellanos, R. González Galiana y R. Crismán Pérez, "El mundo árabe e islámico y occidente. Retos de construcción del conocimiento sobre el otro", Dykinson, Madrid, 2022. ISBN: 978-84-1377-642-2.

This work presents the idea of a unique pluriverse instead of a plurality of possible worlds as an explanation of modal facts. First, the idea and motivations of a pluriverse sentence in the context of a linguistic theory of modality is exposed. Then it is defended a conception of modal facts dependent on universals in which possible worlds should be understood as maximal structural universals. Here the pluriverse universal is one single property determining the totality of the modal space. Each way the world might be is represented in the pluriverse universal as a disjunct in the universal. Finally, the work presents one main difficulty for the pluriverse universal as a metaphysical explanation of modality: it seems to require a previous domain of actual and merely possible objects.

Museo- Juan Enrique Bedoya, 2019

Se trata de un texto escrito para Museo, catálogo de la exposición de Juan Enrique Bedoya, en el MALI (Museo de Arte de Lima), en 2018

década de los años de 1530, ya que no a la precedente.

Universals are entities that can be instantiated in a plurality of cases, in virtue of their own nature. This work tries to explain and clarify the systematic function that universals satisfy, or might satisfy, in different forms of actualist modal metaphysics. A modal conception is actualist if it postulates only one concrete world as the totality of everything, while merely possible worlds should be conceived as some form of abstract “construction”. There are several forms by which it has been tried to explain possible worlds as constructions of some type or other: maximally consistent stories in some language (or formed by a set of propositions), maximally possible states of affairs, combinations of objects and properties, and maximal structural properties. Although it has been assumed that metaphysical theories of properties are neutral with respect to any of these theories (and with respect to possibilist modal theories), it will be argued here that a plausible actualist account of modal facts impose non trivial requirements on metaphysics of properties. First, the reduction of possible worlds to maximal structural properties requires transcendent universals, as one may have expected. The more interesting point, though, is that in the other forms of actualist modal metaphysics transcendent universals seem also to be required, if one expects to develop a theory that satisfy some of our core modal intuitions. Linguistic, combinatorial and possible-states-of-affairs theories should explain why the instantiation of alien properties (i. e., properties not actually instantiated) is possible. If the basis of ontological resources at the disposal of these theories is too meager, for example, limited just to tropes, inmanent universals, or classes of actual objects, the explanation of such possibilities seems very difficult. The intuition that there are possibilities referred to alien properties, then, is a reason to amplify our ontology.