Platonism and the Problem of Universals: A Polemic with Paweł Rojek’s Tropy i Uniwersalia (Tropes and Universals)

This paper is a polemic with Paweł Rojek’s criticism of Platonism as one of the positions concerning universals. The problem of universals is taken to be about the basis of resemblance between things. Rojek maintains that Platonism is a hidden form of nominalism. Section 1 presents my understanding of the key terms concerning the controversy. Section 2 shows that Rojek’s argument begs the question: he simply presupposes that only a moderate realist has a correct concept of universal. In section 3, I argue that the Platonist argument for the transcendence of universals is valid, and I criticize Rojek’s responses to the separation argument against moderate realism. Finally, section 4 demonstrates that the transcendence of universals is compatible with their generality.