Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Volume 71, Issue 3, November 2005

Universals as Sense-data

This paper concerns the structure of appearances. I argue that to be appeared to in a certain way is to be aware of one or more universals. Universals therefore function like the sense-data, once highly favoured but now out of fashion. For instance, to be appeared to treely, in a visual way, is to be aware of the complex relation, being treeshaped and tree-coloured and being in front of, a relation of a kind which could be instantiated by a material object and a perceiver, which is thus instantiated in the veridical case but not in the non-veridical.