Universals and Naturalness

Abstract

In this work we address two central questions in the metaphysics of universals and properties, as this topic is shaped by the work of D. Armstrong, D. Lewis, as well as by recent developments of their ideas. In particular, we focus on the question of how sparse universals are, and in the question of how to understand the perfect naturalness that some properties are credited with. We argue that the most stable position about these questions is to posit universals only for perfectly natural properties, and to take perfect naturalness as a primitive only partially characterized by its connections with the ideas of objective resemblance and of minimal supervenience base.