Contingency as such could not be
unexemplified. It is in this light that metaphysics can be seen as the theory of contingency as such.
Roughly, Husserl held to Platonism in one sense (universals are abstract entities that can exist unexemplified) and Aristotelianism in another (when exemplified, the universal forms a complex property-instance, it is nonspatially in that instance and, thus, the particular that has the instance).
In chapter two, Edwards seems to think that a Platonist must accept both unexemplified universals and a relational ontology (Armstrong thought this), but this is just a mistake.
In 'Particulars Have Their Properties of Necessity' Armstrong espouses an anti-Platonist, empiricist conception of universals, a conception by which he rejects disjunctive, negative and
unexemplified properties.
Nor is the attribute (a specific level of well-being) intrinsically valuable where it is
unexemplified. Rather, it is a state of affairs that is valuable because it contains the individual (Smith) exemplifying a level of well-being.
An unexemplified essence becomes a thisness when it is exemplified.
More specifically, what is it that stands in the "is the thisness of" relation to Socrateity that transforms an unexemplified essence into a thisness?
He focuses on arguments for realism from attribute agreement, predication, and abstract reference, discusses various qualifications of realism, and explores the problem of
unexemplified universals.
We have arrived at the ultimate question: What is an unexemplified set of relations?
For a materialist, the answer to the question, "What is, ontologically speaking, a set of unexemplified relations?" is "It is some particular set of relations physically exemplified in the brain." What is a universal?