The Problem of Universals

If you think about it, many of the things we say every day involve universals. So chomping on a cigar or loping across a savanna are universals. They can be and are realized in many particular instances. Then there are sentences where no particulars appear at all,. This explains why philosophers still worry about the problem of universals today. Until we sort out the status of universals, we cannot really say how our language gets hold of the world.