Abstract

According to Alain de Libera, Boethius replies to Porphyry’s famous three questions about universals by using a theory of abstraction. Universals can exist only in thought, although they derive, through abstraction, from what is common in things. I contrast this “neutral abstractionism” with a “realist abstractionism” — the view that it is only by conceiving universals that humans are able properly to grasp the form or likeness according to which particulars belong to a given species or genus. I try to show that, in his second commentary on the Isagoge, Boethius is uncertain which sort of abstractionism to prefer, but in the Consolation he opts for realist abstractionism.