I'm looking for a clarification. Do philosophers generally agree that the use of statements involving universals are meaningful, even if the specific ontological status of the universal is in dispute?
For example:
"Any square has four angles."
Regardless of whether or not there is a universal "square" that exists apart from the particulars or not... seems to me that it is pretty uncontroversial that this type of sentence is meaningful. For example nominalists, platonists, conceptualists would agree this is a perfectly meaningful sentence right?
So the "use" of universals in language is accepted as valid generally by all philosophers... it's just the detail of how/why/where the universal exists that is in contention?
Or are there philosophers that would say all use of universals is invalid? (I don't know if this even makes sense, but I'm taking it to mean something like eliminativism with regards to consciousness). In other words are there philosophers that would say, "Every square is a quadrilateral." does not really make any sense as a statement, but we just play some kind of game as if it does?
So generally... it seems like philosophers can agree whether a sentence is meaningful or not, even if we don't agree what specifically the terms in the sentence refer to? ie: platonists, conceptualists, nominalists may disagree on specifically what a "square" is, but there's no problem using it in language?