Russell (1961: 464):
Understanding is of things, not of forms produced by the mind; these are not what is understood, but that by which things are understood. Universals, in logic, are only terms or concepts predicable of many other terms or concepts. Universal, genus, species are terms of second intention, and therefore cannot mean things. … A universal is merely a sign of many things.
Blogger Comments:
The contrast here is between external things and internal forms in the mind, with the latter being the means by which the former are understood. This shares some common ground with the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, which contrasts outer experience with inner meaning, with the latter being the means by which the former is understood.
Through the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics, things and universals are both meanings — construed of experience — and the relation between them is one of class membership: carrier to attribute.
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