it exists only in descriptions of things. Platonic extreme realism: beauty is a property that exists in an ideal form independently of any mind or thing. Aristotelian moderate realism or conceptualism: beauty is a property of things (fundamentum in re) that the mind abstracts from these beautiful things. Nominalism: there are no universals, only individuals. Taking a broader view, the main positions are generally considered classifiable as: extreme realism, nominalism (sometimes simply named "anti-realism" with regard to universals), moderate realism, and idealism. Extreme Realists posit the existence of independent, abstract universals to account for attribute agreement. Nominalists deny that universals exist, claiming that they are not necessary to explain attribute agreement. Conceptualists posit that universals exist only in the mind, or when conceptualized, denying the independent existence of universals, but accepting they have a fundamentum in re. Complications which arise include the implications of language use and the complexity of relating language to ontology. Particular A universal may have instances, known as its particulars. For example, the type dog (or doghood) is a universal, as are the property red (or redness) and the relation betweenness (or being between). Any particular dog, red thing, or object that is between other things is not a universal, however, but is an instance of a universal. That is, a universal type (doghood), property (redness), or relation (betweenness) inheres in a particular object (a specific dog, red thing, or object between other things). Platonic realism Platonic realism holds universals to be the referents of general terms, such as the abstract, nonphysical, non-mental entities to which words such as "sameness", "circularity", and "beauty" refer. Particulars are the referents of proper names, such as "Phaedo," or of definite descriptions that identify single objects, such as the phrase, "that hoe over there". Other metaphysical theories may use the terminology of universals to describe physical entities. Plato's examples of what we might today call universals included mathematical and geometrical ideas such as a circle and natural numbers as universals. Plato's views on universals did, however, vary across several different discussions. In some cases, Plato spoke as if the perfect circle functioned as the form or blueprint for all copies and for the word definition of circle. In other discussions, Plato describes particulars as "participating" in the associated universal. Contemporary realists agree with the thesis that universals are multiply-exemplifiable entities. Examples include by D. M. Armstrong, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reinhardt Grossmann,