Who is closer to Ockhams position on universals, Plato or Aristotle?
Answer Hello, Jean. It’s time to interpret: My favorite Philosopher, Plato, at least during the first part of his life, believed there to be a sharp distinction between the world of sensible objects and the world of universals, or Forms: one can only have mere opinions about the former, but one can have knowledge about the latter. For Plato it was not possible to have knowledge of anything that could change or was particular, since knowledge had to be forever unfailing and general. For that reason, the world of the Forms is the real world, like sunlight, the sensible world is only imperfectly or partially real, like shadows. Plato, accordingly, took a realist position regarding universals. This Platonic realism, however, in denying full reality to the material world, differs sharply with modern forms of realism, which generally assert the reality of the external, physical world and which in some versions deny the reality of ideals. One of the first nominalist critiques of Plato’s reali
