The role of metaphysics in relation to other disciplines, whether philosophical or not and including the natural sciences, is thus a foundational role. Lack of clarity in the concepts of metaphysics implies lack of clarity in other disciplines - both theoretical and practical disciplines - employing those concepts or employing concepts that depend on those of metaphysics.

I do not believe in the bundle theory anyway. The bundle theory postulates universals and I do not believe in them; so I do not believe in the bundle theory.

There are different interpretations of the problem of universals. I understand it as the problem of giving the truthmakers of propositions to the effect that a certain particular is such and such, e.g. propositions like 'this rose is red'. Others have interpreted it as a problem about the ontological commitments of such propositions or a problem about what those propositions mean.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I became for a while fixated on the question whether there could be two 'identical' stones. This is, of course, the question whether the principle of identity of indiscernibles is true and, as I formulated it then, I was bound to fall into confusion about it.

The difference between resemblance nominalism and class nominalism is that the former, but not the latter, brings in resemblance to account for the truthmakers of the propositions in question.

Although I felt I was quite good at criticising a philosophical position, I was not very good at defending and making a case for a philosophical position.

The problem of how to characterise the properties that would trivialise the principle is one of the hardest problems concerning the principle of identity of indiscernibles and one the problems to which least attention has been paid of.