THE "COMMON" ON THE REALITY ACCORDING THOMAS AQUINAS

In the Middle Ages, there was a problem known as "Problem of Universals", with the discordance between realism, conceptualism and nominalism on ontological and epistemological status of the universals. Thomas Aquinas is a moderate realist because admits that the universal has to be on individuals, in reality and out of mind. When we speak of "a universal in reality", we are referring to what is common to more than one individual. After, the way of being of the universal concept of the intellect and the way of being of the common aspect need to be distinguished, because we have to clarify that the universal in the intellect is not exactly equal to the common in the reality, although the first is taken from the latter. Since the common aspect does not exist by itself, but only in individuals, we will make a brief analysis about the individuation as well.