Fraser MacBride is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Manchester and Editor of the Monist. He was previously Chair of Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow and a Reader in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He has also been the Visiting Bertrand Russell Professor at McMaster University where the Bertrand Russell Archive is held. He has published widely on metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of language as well as the history of analytic philosophy with an especial interest in the existence and nature of relations.

• Introduction 1: Kantian Prequel: "Idols of the Tribe" 2: Moore: "The Most Platonic System of Modern Times" 3: Moore: Neque Substantia Neque Accidens 4: Russell's Early Philosophy: "I Share Locke's Wonder" 5: The Birth of the Particular-Universal Distinction: "But a Sleep and a Forgetting" 6: Moore and Whitehead Towards Categorial Pluralism: "Predication is a Muddled Notion" 7: G. F. Stout: "So Sensible an Election for Oxford" 8: Russell's Higher-Order Judgment Relation: "A New Beast for Our Zoo" 9: Wittgenstein's Tractatus: "Die allgemeine Form des Satzes ist: Es verhält sich so und so" 10: Ramsey: "About the Forms of Atomic Propositions We Can Know Nothing Whatever"

Contemporary metaphysicians, whether they are aware of it or not, whether they credit their predecessors or not, frequently end up importing very problematic assumptions from historical debates previously enacted. Unless such assumptions are properly explored and questioned, we cannot feel confident that we are making any genuine progress in contemporary metaphysics rather than just repeating the same mistakes of our philosophical forebears. It is within this context that I find the work of historically minded philosophers to be particularly important. One such philosopher is Fraser MacBride.... an untold and surprising history of how the categories of particulars and universals have been understood in the history of early analytic philosophy