Philosophy Colloquium Series - Anna Marmodoro, Durham University

Title: The ‘birth’ of instantiation

What is it, metaphysically, for a universal to be instantiated in a concrete particular, or for a concrete particular to instantiate a universal? Philosophical discussion around these questions has been ongoing since the beginning of philosophy itself, and the relevant literature is more than vast. I contribute to that literature a novel account of Aristotle’s account of instantiation – an account that departs from the mainstream interpretation according to which Aristotelian universals are instantiated by ‘combining’ somehow with matter, understood as a primitive bare particular. I show that Aristotle’s account of instantiation as I interpret it has its ‘roots’ in Plato’s metaphysics – but not where the reader might expect it, namely in the Timaeus, with Plato’s introduction of a ‘receptacle’ of properties; but rather in the Republic. 

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