D. M. Armstrong In this short next, a distinguished philosopher turns his Amention to one of the oldiest and most fundamental philosophical problems of all How it is that we are able to son and classify different things as being of the same natural class. Professor Armstrong carefully sets out six major theories ancient, modern, and contemporary-and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each. Recognizing that there are no final victories or defeats in metaphysics, Armstrong nonetheless defends a traditional ac count of universals as the most satisfactory theory we have. This study is wrimen for advanced students, but as Armstrong goes considerably beyond his earlier work on this topic, it will innerest professional scholars as well. Carefully plotted and clearly wrimen, Universals is both a paradigm of exposition and a case study on the value of careful analysis of fundamental issues in phillosophy.