There is, however, also a case to made against classifying the problem of universals as a problem of metaphysics in the (liberalized) old sense. For there is more to the problem of universals than the question whether universals exist and the question whether, if they do exist, their existence is ante res or in rebus. For example, the problem of universals also includes questions about the relation between universals (if such there be) and the things that are not universals, the things usually called particulars. Aristotle did not consider these questions in the Metaphysics. One might therefore plausibly contend that only one part of the problem of universals (the part that pertains to the existence and nature of universals) belongs to metaphysics in the old sense. At one time, a philosopher might have said,