Relational Cuts — Paradox as a Lens on Meaning, Mind, and Reality: 2 The Problem of Universals: How Relational Ontology Dissolves the Realism/Nominalism Divide

The Problem of Universals is one of the oldest and most persistent debates in Western philosophy. For over two millennia, thinkers have asked:

• Do universals (e.g., redness, humanity, triangularity) exist independently of particular things?

• Or are they just convenient names we apply to collections of particulars?

Realism and nominalism have fought this metaphysical war on the assumption that there is something out there — an entity, an abstraction, a property — whose status must be adjudicated.

Relational ontology, however, reveals that the entire debate is founded on a category mistake.

“Universals” are not objects at all. They are systemic potentials within a relational meaning-space. The question of their metaphysical “existence” is therefore mis-posed.

This post reconstructs the problem — and dissolves it.

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1. The Classical Frame: Universals as Objects

The traditional debate presupposes:

1. Realists: Universals exist independently of particulars (as properties, Ideas, or abstract objects).

2. Nominalists: Universals do not exist; only particulars exist, and “universals” are mere labels.

Both positions assume that a universal is something whose metaphysical status must be located.

Even the “moderate realist” (Aristotle) — who insists that universals only exist in particulars — still treats them as entities that must be housed somewhere.

What is never questioned is the representational picture: that there are “things” whose identity must be accounted for, and universals are one class of such things.

Relational ontology begins by refusing this picture entirely.

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2. Systemic Potential vs Objecthood

Within relational ontology:

• A system is a structured potential: a landscape of possibilities.

• An instance is a perspectival actualisation: a cut across that potential.

• A construal is a first-order phenomenon: meaning lived, not represented.

In this framework, a “universal” is not an entity. It is:

A region of systemic potential that multiple instances may actualise in distinct but related ways.

In SFL terms, universals correspond not to objects but to paradigmatic sets — the resources that underlie possible construals. They are not “things shared across particulars” but possibilities that particular construals select from.

Thus:

• A particular red object is an instance.

• “Redness” is a systemic potential — the set of options available for colour construals.

The question “Does redness exist?” is therefore as misguided as asking “Does the past tense exist separately from verbs?”

Its “existence” is systemic, not objectual.

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3. Why the Realism/Nominalism Debate Cannot Succeed

Once universals are understood as potentials, the realism/nominalism dichotomy collapses:

• Realism mistakenly treats potentials as abstract objects, as if paradigmatic systems were entities in a metaphysical domain.

• Nominalism mistakenly denies the reality of systemic potency, treating paradigmatic resources as arbitrary labels.

Both positions misconstrue a system:

→ The realist objectifies it.

→ The nominalist trivialises it.

→ Both ignore the relational architecture in which potential and instance co-constitute meaning.

In relational ontology:

The “universal” is neither an object nor an illusion.

It is an aspect of the system that makes instances possible.

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4. Universals as Relational Capacities

The relational ontology allows a precise restatement:

A universal is a relational capacity of a system, not a property instantiated by objects.

For example:

• “Triangularity” is not a form stored in a Platonic heaven, nor a label we arbitrarily attach.

• It is a region of geometrical potential activated under particular perspectival conditions (cuts) that produce triangular phenomena.

The stability of the universal is a stability of systemic structuring, not metaphysical entityhood.

This aligns perfectly with SFL: systems constrain and organise possible meanings, but they do not exist as referents.

This shift eliminates the metaphysical drama entirely.

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5. Why Universals Appear Object-Like

Why have universals been mistaken for abstract objects for so long?

Because in representational epistemology:

• We conflate repeatability with objecthood.

• We mistake systemic availability for metaphysical existence.

• We treat relational pattern as if it were a “thing” shared across particulars.

Universal-like stability arises from:

• the systemic structuring of potential

• the constrained ways in which potential can be actualised

• the regularities of construal in a given semiotic community

Nothing in this picture warrants ontologising universals.

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6. The Relational Dissolution

The classical problem of universals dissolves as soon as the relational framework is applied:

• There is no “universal” object to locate.

• There is no need to choose between realism and nominalism.

• The supposed dichotomy is an artefact of representational thinking.

• The phenomenon is fully accounted for by the relation between system and instance.

Put succinctly:

Universals are systemic potentials; particulars are actualisations; the relationship is not one of instantiation of properties but of perspectival cutting across potential.

Once this is understood, the problem evaporates.

No metaphysics required.

Only relational architecture.