Transcendent Universals and Ontological Priority

Universals are postulated to satisfy certain explanatory work. They partially ground the nature that objects have. They partially ground objective resemblances between objects. They partially ground causal powers. In effect, objects are as they are, because they instantiate certain universals. At the same time, the Aristotelian maintains that universals require instantiations to exist, i.e., universals are grounded in their instantiations. It is argued in this chapter that the grounding profile attributed to universals by Aristotelians is incompatible with the general grounding profile that any universal –either Platonic or Aristotelian– should have.