Attribute-Agreement and the Problem of Universals

Abstract

A pervasive feature of our experience is a phenomenon I shall call agreement in attribute, agreement in things like properties, kinds, and relations. So pervasive is attribute-agreement that language provides us with a multiplicity of devices for expressing the phenomenon. Thus, we can say of two shirts from the same dye lot that they are the same shade of blue; but we can also say that they have the same color, that the color of the one matches the color of the other, that the color of the one is just like the color of the other, or, more straightforwardly, that both shirts are, say, lavender.