Nominalism

Nominalism is the view that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names. Nominalism has also been defined as a philosophical position that claims that various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name. In this view, it is only actual physical particulars that can be said to be real and universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things (Feibleman 1962).

Nominalism is best understood in contrast to philosophical or ontological realism. Philosophical realism holds that when people use general terms such as "cat" or "green," those concepts really exist in some sense of "exist," either independently of the world in an abstract realm—as was held by Plato, for instance, in his Theory of Forms, or they are part of the real existence of individual things in some way (as in Aristotle's theory of hylomorphism), or they exist by nature as examples of natural kinds, or they exist as concepts in the mind (conceptualism). Conceptualism is a midway position between strong nominalism and strong realism. Nominalism, by contrast with realism and conceptualism, holds that whatever is represented by general words has no real existence beyond being names in the imagination.

Historically, some of the most important nominalists have been William of Ockham, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Nelson Goodman, and (at one time) W.V. Quine.

A History of the Medieval Controversy

In the Middle Ages there was a controversy over universals. It arose from a passage in Boethius' translation of Porphyry's Isagoge sive quinque voces ("Introduction to Aristotle's Categories"), which raised the problem of genera and species: 1) as to whether they exist in nature or only in the mind; 2) whether, if they exist in nature, they are corporeal or incorporeal; and 3) whether they exist outside sensible particular things or are realized in them. Realists such as Bernard of Chartres (d. c. 1130), St. Anselm (1033-1109), and William of Champeaux (1070-1121) held, like Palto, that universlas alone have substantial reality, existing ante res (prior to particular things). Nominalists such as Berengar of Tours (c. 1010-1080) and Roscellinus (1050-1125), however, objected that universals are mere names, existing post res (subsequent to particular things) without any reality. The controversy was prominent in the late eleventh and twelveth centuries, and the issue was not only philosophical but also theological because it was quite evident that while realism represented a more spiritual type of worldview, nominalism showed a more anti-spiritual view. Realism, which recognized the substantial reality of universals separable from this world, was favorable to the theological teachings of the Church on God, heaven, soul, afterlife, etc. Realsim was also favorable to the Church's other teachings such as the Trinity, the Eucharist, and original sin, which presupposed the substantial existence of universals. By contrast, nominalism turned out to be less favorable to the teachings of the Church. For example, the nominalist Roscellinus argued that "God" is no more than a name, and the divine reality is only found in the three different individuals called Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In 1092, Roscellinus was condemned for being a trithesit.

In order to mediate between realism and nominalism, Peter Abelard (1079-1142) suggested a position called conceptualism. It rejects realism in favor of nominalism, when it says that universals have no substantial reality separable from the world of sensible things. However, it disagrees with nominalism, by maintaining that universals still exist as "concepts" in our minds, i.e., more than as mere names, thus being able to express real similarities in individual things themselves. But this position of conceptualism seems to be letting us come back to the same debate over the relationship of universals and individuals albeit at at a level, instead of answering it.

In the thirteenth century, great Scholastics such as St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), St. Bonaventure (c. 1217-1274), and Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308) dealt with the problem of universals from the viewpoint of what is usually called "moderate realism," in accordance with Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes through whom the philosophy of of Aristotle was reintroduced to the West. Moderate realism locates universals in the mind like conceptualism and at the same time admits of their real basis in in rebus (in particular things). This was part of the so-called "medieval synthesis," and it was considered to be a best solution, but then in the forteenth century nominalism was revived by the English Franciscan William of Ockham (c. 1285-1347), who had a impulse towards direct ovservation of the world rather than toward abstractions. He prepared the way for various modern nominalistic positions including empiricism, pragmatism, and logical positivism.

The Problem of Universals

The problem of universals arises from the question of how to account for the fact that some things are of the same type. For example, Fluffy and Kitzler are both cats, but what is this "catness" that both seem to have? Also, the grass, the shirt, and Kermit the Frog are green, but what is this quality of "green" that they all seem to have? There is the fact that certain properties are repeatable. Philosophers want to know in virtue of what are Fluffy and Kitzler both cats, and what makes the grass, the shirt, and Kermit green.

The answer of realism is that all the cats are cats in virtue of the existence of a universal, a single abstract thing, in this case, that is a part of all the cats. With respect to being cats, for Fluffy, Kitzler, and even the lion in the jungle, one of their parts is identical. In this respect, the three parts are literally one. "Catness" is repeatable because there is one thing that manifests itself, wherever there is a cat. This is the realism of Plato, who famously held that there is a realm of abstract forms or universals apart from the physical world, and that particular physical objects merely exemplify, instantiate, or "participate" in, the universals.

Nominalism denies the existence of universals in this sense of the term. The motivation to deny universals in this sense flows from several concerns. The first one is the question of where they exist. As Plato believed, are they located outside of space and time? Some assert that nothing is outside of space and time, though. In addition, what did Plato mean when he held that the several cows we see in the pasture, for example, all "participate" in the form of cow? What is "participation"? Didn't Plato, famously in his dialogue Parmenides, get tangled in confusion and unanswered questions, when he tried to specify just what or how a sensed thing (e.g., the individual cow) participates in a form (e.g., "cowness"). Plato also got into what seemed to him to be ethical and aesthetic problems, when he realized that the same arguments that would require that there be forms for noble things would also require that there be forms for ignoble things such as dirt or dung. To complicate things, what is the nature of the instantiation or exemplification of the logic of relation(s)? Also, nominalism considers it unusual that there could be a single thing that exists in multiple places simultaneously. The realist maintains that all the instances of "catness" are held together by the exemplification relation, but this relation cannot be explained.

Moderate realists hold that there is no independent realm in which universals exist. They rather hold that universals are located in space and time, wherever they are manifest.

Today, however, some philosophers who delve into the workings of the human brain, such as Daniel Dennett, reject the idea that there is some "catness" in the real world. They believe that there are only circumstances that cause the brain to react with the judgment "cat." This nominalist tendency can also be seen amongst many philosophers who prefer simpler ontologies populated with only the bare minimum of types of entities, thus having "a taste for desert landscapes" in the words of W.V. Quine. They attempt to express everything that they want to explain without using universals such as "catness" or "chairness."

Varieties of Nominalism

There are various forms of nominalism ranging from extreme to almost-realist. One extreme is "predicate" nominalism. Fluffy and Kitzler are both cats simply because the predicate "cat" applies to both of them. However, the realist will object as to what the predicate applies to.

"Resemblance" nominalism believes that "cat" applies to both cats because Fluffy and Kitzler resemble an exemplar cat closely enough to be classed together with it as members of its natural kind, or that they differ from each other (and other cats) quite less than they differ from other things, and this warrants classing them together. Some resemblance nominalists will concede that the resemblance relation is itself a universal, but is the only universal necessary. This betrays the spirit of nominalism. Others argue that each resemblance relation is a particular, and is a resemblance relation simply in virtue of its resemblance to other resemblance relations. This generates an infinite regress, but many argue that it is not vicious.

Another form of nominalism is "trope" nominalism that attempts to build a theory of resemblance nominalism on a "theory of tropes." A trope is a particular instance of a property, like the specific greenness of a shirt. One might argue that there is a primitive objective resemblance relation that holds among tropes that are like each other. Others argue that all apparent tropes are constructed out of more primitive tropes and that the most primitive tropes are the entities of physics. Primitive trope resemblance may thus be accounted for in terms of causal indiscernibility. Two tropes are exactly resembling if substituting one for the other would make no difference to the events in which they are taking part. Varying degrees of resemblance at the macro level can be explained by varying degrees of resemblance at the micro level, and micro-level resemblance is explained in terms of something no less robustly physical than causal power. D.M. Armstrong, a prominent contemporary realist, argues that such a trope-based variant of nominalism has promise, although it may be unable to account for the laws of nature in the way his own theory of universals can.

Ian Hacking has also argued that much of what is called social constructionism of science in contemporary times is actually motivated by an unstated nominalist metaphysical view. For this reason, he claims, scientists and constructionists tend to "shout past each other."

Nominalism in Islamic philosophy

Some modern Arabic philosophers have claimed in their studies of the history of Islamic philosophy that realist universals and the metaphysics related to the realist school of philosophy are incompatible with the Islamic worldview, and by trying to solve this problem they developed the concept of the nominalist universals.

Two exponents of Nominalism in Medieval Philosophy were the Islamic philosophers Ibn Khaldoun and Ibn Taymiya.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Armstrong, D.M. A Materialist Theory of the Mind, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York: Humanities Press, 1968.
• Armstrong, D.M. "Properties." In Properties, edited by D. H. Mellor and Alex Oliver, 160-72. Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0198751761
• Feibleman, James K. "Nominalism," p. 211 in Runes (1962).
• Goodman, Nelson, and W. V. Quine (1947), "Steps Toward a Constructive Nominalism," in Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 12.
• Runes, Dagobert D. (ed., 1962), Dictionary of Philosophy, Totowa NJ: Littlefield, Adams, and Company.
• Woozley, A.D. (1967), "Universals," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards, Ed., Vol. 8, pp. 194-206, New York & London: Macmillan, Inc.

External links

• Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism, from The Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• Nominalism, from the BELIEVE Religious Information Collection. Retrieved April 17, 2007.

General Philosophy Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• Guide to Philosophy on the Internet Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• Paideia Project Online Retrieved April 17, 2007.
• Project Gutenberg Retrieved April 17, 2007.

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