Nominalism is the designation usually applied to any philosophical system, ancient or modern, that denies all objectivity, whether actual or potential, to universals; in other words, nominalists grant no universality to mental concepts outside the mind. In this sense, the philosophical systems of Epicurus, William of Occam, George Berkeley, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, and of contemporary linguistic analysis may be called nominalistic in that they attribute universality only to words (nomina), mental habits, or concepts and maintain the objective existence only of the concrete, individual thing. Nominalism is simultaneously opposed to the philosophical idealism of Plato and to the moderate realism of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. The principal objection of nominalists is to the attribution of objective existence to ideas formally as they exist in the mind and fundamentally (or potentially) as they exist in particulars having some similarity to each other in any given class or species.

                                          Nominalism General Information.

Nominalism (Latin nominalis,"of or pertaining to names"), in medieval Scholastic philosophy, doctrine stating that abstractions, known as universals, are without essential or substantive reality, and that only individual objects have real existence. These universals, such as animal, nation, beauty, circle, were held to be mere names, hence the term nominalism. For example, the name circle is applied to things that are round and is thus a general designation; but no concrete identity with a separate essence of roundness exists corresponding to the name. The nominalistic doctrine is opposed to the philosophical theory called extreme realism (see Realism), according to which universals have a real and independent existence prior to and apart from particular objects.

Nominalism evolved from the thesis of Aristotle that all reality consists of individual things; the extreme theory of realism was first enunciated by Plato in his doctrine of universal archetypal ideas. The nominalist-realist controversy became prominent in the late 11th and 12th centuries, the nominalist position being expounded by the Scholastic Roscelin, and the realist by the Scholastics Bernard of Chartres and William of Champeaux.

The issue between nominalism and realism was not only philosophical but also theological, for Roscelin maintained that the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), conceived in the traditional theology of the church as constituting a unity of one divine nature, cannot be understood, according to the individualizing method of nominalism, except as three distinct and separate gods, a doctrine known as tritheism. The church was therefore irreconcilably opposed to nominalism. The implications for ethics were also far-reaching. If there is no common nature for all individuals, then there is no "natural law" that governs all people; actions are morally right or wrong only because they are commanded or forbidden by God.

A theory intermediate between nominalism and realism is that of conceptualism, in which universals, although they have no real or substantive existence in the external world, do exist as ideas or concepts in the mind and are thus something more than mere names. Another alternative theory is moderate realism, which locates universals in the mind but also admits a real basis in particular objects. The defense of nominalism undertaken by the 14th-century English Scholastic philosopher William of Ockham prepared the way for various modern nominalistic theories such as those of instrumentalism, pragmatism, semantics, and logical positivism.

Nominalism is the theory of knowledge that maintains that "universals" (general concepts representing the common elements belonging to individuals of the same genus or species) are empty concepts that have no reality independent of their existence in the thought of an individual. In contrast to Platonic realism, which held that universals had a separate existence apart from the individual object, nominalism insisted that reality was found only in the objects themselves. This debate on universals, found in Porphyry's Isagogue, caused great controversy during the Middle Ages. Roscellinus of Compiegne, a teacher and priest in Brittany in the eleventh century, has been called the father of nominalism because he argued that universals are derived from one's observation of individuals and that concepts of genus and species are just abstractions. This affected his theology, because it led him to the belief that "God" was no more than a word, an empty abstraction, and that the divine reality was actually found in the three individuals of the Godhead. He was condemned by the Synod of Soissons (1092) for holding to tritheism.

In the fourteenth century William of Ockham devised a nominalistic system of theology based on his belief that universals were only a convenience of the human mind. According to this view, the fact of a resemblance between two individuals does not necessitate a common attribute; the universals one forms in his mind more likely reflect one's own purposes rather than the character of reality. This led William to question scholastic arguments built upon such abstractions. As he argues in his Centilogium, systematization of theology must be rejected, for theology can ultimately be based only on faith and not on fact. Therefore, through grace and not knowledge, he accepted the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, bowed to the authority of the pope, and declared the authority of Scripture. His follower, Gabriel Biel, would carry his thought to its logical conclusion and declare that reason could neither demonstrate that God was the First Cause of the universe nor make a distinction between the attributes of God, including God's intellect and will. The reality of the Trinity, as well as any theological dogma, can be found only in the realm of faith, not in the realm of reason. This was diametrically opposed to the natural theology of medieval scholasticism.

Nominalism continued to have an effect on theology. Its influence can be discerned in the writings of David Hume and John Stuart Mill.



Bibliography:
Carre, Meyrick H., Realists and Nominalists (1961);
Field, Hartrey, Science without Numbers: Nominalism Revisited (1980);
Goodman, Nelson, and Bochenski, Innocentius, eds.,
The Problem of Universals, A Symposium (1956);
Van Iten, R., ed., The Problem of Universals (1970);
Veatch, H., Realism and Nominalism Revisited (1954)
D A Rausch(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)
D. M. Armstrong, Universals and Scientific Realism:
Nominalism and Realism,
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