nominalist
- noun
- /ˈnɑːmɪnəlɪst/
- Formal
:
nominalista
- In discussions about the nature of existence, many nominalists claim that only tangible objects can be considered real.
Examples
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A nominalist theory of "woman," therefore, is a matter of words, for the commonalities, such as they are exhibited by women, do not evidence the "essence" of women, but rather a conventional decision to apply a term, a word, to the common and recurrent within the particulars at any given time.
Academic text (2001) -
This kind of nominalist view begins to run into trouble when we start to think about more complicated numbers or numerical concepts.
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Now, what is the debate between Platonists and nominalists in mathematics?
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The nominalist philosopher argued that abstract concepts like justice are merely names without an underlying reality.
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During the lecture, the professor explained how nominalists view universals as labels that do not correspond to actual entities.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word nominalist comes from the Latin root nomen meaning 'name' and the ending -ist for a person. Think of the English word nominal, which can mean 'in name only'. A nominalist believes general ideas are only 'names' and not real things, so they say only individual things really exist.
