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Essence Without Universals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Hubert Schwyzer
Hubert Schwyzer*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

One might want to say that the difference between an apple and the colour red is a greater difference than that between an apple and a pear, between red and blue. In the same vein, one might want to say that the philosopher's question “What, really, is a piece of wax?” has greater generality than the more ordinary question “What distinguishes a piece of wax from a piece of soap?” I think Wittgenstein would say that to talk in this way (and it is the same way in each case) is to make the difference at issue seem too slight, so that we fail to see what the difference really amounts to.

I should like to suggest that the following thesis is pervasive and fundamental in Wittgenstein's later teaching.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , September 1974 , pp. 69 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1974

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References

1 Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. LXI (1960-61 ), reprinted in Wittgenstein, ed. Pitcher, G. (Doubleday, 1966)Google Scholar. All page references are to the Pitcher volume.

2 In fact, Bambrough does not look elsewhere. Wittgenstein's “solution to the problem of universals” is extracted solely from the talk about family resemblances.

3 We shall suppose for simplicity's sake that the word “omega” correctly applies to an object only if that object has just four of the five properties ABCDE.