Boethius against Universals: The Arguments in the Second Commentary on Porphyry

Abstract

A study of the part of Boethius' Second Commentary on Porphyry where he presents the case against metaphysical universals. The paper discusses: (a) where Boethius got his famous three-part description of a universal as something present as a whole, simultaneously and in some appropriate metaphysically intimate way to several things at once, (b) the curious and little-explored "infinite regress" argument contained in the passage, and (c) the overall structure of the passage, how the various arguments are related to one another.