Abstract Entities

A return is made in this chapter to the subject of abstract entities. A number of different senses are distinguished in which an entity may be said to be ‘abstract’ and the nature and existence of certain important varieties of abstract entities are discussed, including universals, sets, and numbers. Natural numbers, it is argued, are not to be identified with sets but rather with kinds of sets: that is to say, we should think of numbers as universals which have as their particular instances, sets of appropriate cardinality.

A return is made in this chapter to the subject of abstract entities. A number of different senses are distinguished in which an entity may be said to be ‘abstract’ and the nature and existence of certain important varieties of abstract entities are discussed, including universals, sets, and numbers. Natural numbers, it is argued, are not to be identified with sets but rather with kinds of sets: that is to say, we should think of numbers as universals which have as their particular instances, sets of appropriate cardinality.