Universal, Particular, and Individual

Abstract

Existence is identity of place and time, or numerical identity, and distinct from other such identities. Universality is identity of kind. It is the existence or subsistence of a universal or concept which unites its particulars, which they imitate or in which they participate, or however else we may provisionally and traditionally describe the relation between the universal and its particulars—the transaction in which they are engaged. An individual is a particular as determined by its universal. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a particular or a universal. All things are individuals. But every individual possesses particularity which separates it from others of the same kind, or under the same universal; and it possesses universality which converts its bare particularity into individuality. Universality is thus a categorial character of all things. Such a thing need not be a thing with continued existence in time. It may be a sensory object, a flash of colour, or of sweetness, which is momentary and yet as being of a certain kind, red or sweet, is individual.