nominalism
[nom-uh-nl-iz-uh m]
- (in medieval philosophy) the doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them.Compare conceptualism, realism(def 5a).
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Origin of nominalism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for nominalism
Historical Examples
There is more, however, in Hobbes, than the paradox of nominalism.
Yet what could nominalism do for theology, or for clerical schools?
Science and Medieval ThoughtSir Thomas Clifford Allbutt
But Anselm did not rest with combating the Nominalism of Roscelin.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume VJohn Lord
And these ideas, which constitute reality, are names, as Nominalism showed.
Tragic Sense Of LifeMiguel de Unamuno
It is the first protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an extreme Realism.
nominalism
- the philosophical theory that the variety of objects to which a single general word, such as dog, applies have nothing in common but the nameCompare conceptualism, realism
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for nominalism
n.
1820, "view that treats abstract concepts as names only, not realities," from French nominalisme (1752), from nominal, from Latin nominalis (see nominal). Related: Nominalist.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper