Nominalism is primarily a position on the problem of universals, which dates back at least to Plato, and is opposed to realism — the view that universals do exist over and above particulars.

His metaphysical work, giving a remarkable effort of systematisation, is a real history of medieval thought, combining the three schools available at that time: Thomism, Scotism and Nominalism.

Nominalism is older than Scotus, but its revival in Occamism may be traced to the one-sided exaggeration of some propositions of Scotus.

Scotist Formalism is the direct opposite of Nominalism, and the Scotists were at one with the Thomists in combatting the latter ; Occam himself was a bitter opponent of Scotus.

It is a curious commentary on the theories of Duns Scotus that one pupil, Francis, should have taken this course, while another pupil, William of Occam, should have used his arguments in a diametrically opposite direction and ended in extreme Nominalism.

Intermediate between Nominalism and Realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical concept of universals from a perspective that denies their presence in particulars outside of the mind's perception of them.

Nominalism also undermines the concept of hierarchy, which depends entirely on fundamental truths about people.

According to Realism, and in contrast to Nominalism, things such as " green " and " big " were known as universals, which had a real existence in an abstract realm, as described by Plato.

His major books include The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism ( 1963 ), which articulated his program of bridging the gap between the later Middle Ages and Reformation era ( at least in the field of theology ), and an iconoclastic biography of Luther, translated from German as Luther: Man between God and the Devil ( 1989 ).

His approach largely followed Nominalism which was in tune with the growing emphasis on the absolutely unconstrained nature of God, which in turn emphasised his grace and the importance of individual belief and submission.

Nominalism arose in reaction to the problem of universals, specifically accounting for the fact that some things are of the same type.

Nominalism denies the existence of universals.

Nominalism and conceptualism are the main forms of anti-realism about universals.

# In the Middle Ages Roscellin of Compiegne, the founder of Nominalism, who argued like Philoponus that unless the Three Persons are tres res, the whole Trinity must have been incarnate, was refuted by St. Anselm.

Not less sharp was the separation over Nominalism and Realism.

Nominalism has been endorsed or defended by many, including William of Ockham, Peter Abelard, D. C. Williams ( 1953 ), David Lewis ( 1983 ), and arguably H. H. Price ( 1953 ) and W. V. O. Quine ( 1961 ).

Nominalism was first formulated as a philosophical theory in the Middle Ages.

" Logical Atomism, Nominalism, and Modal Logic ", Synthese.

" Nominalism in Metaphysics ", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta ( ed .).

" Nominalism in Metaphysics ", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta ( ed .).

* Richard Utz and Terry Barakat, " Medieval Nominalism and the Literary Questions: Selected Studies.

* Langer, Ullrich, " Charity and the Singular: The Object of Love in Rabelais ," in: Nominalism and Literary Discourse, ed.

* Gerald Seaman, " Signs of a New Literary Paradigm: The ' Christian ' Figures in Chrétien de Troyes ," in: Nominalism and Literary Discourse, ed.

Heiko Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001.

* Maurice De Wulf: " Nominalism, Realism, Conceptualism.

As Lipton puts it: `` The Eros is felt in the magic circle of marijuana with far greater force, as a unifying principle in human relationships, than at any other time except, perhaps, in the mutual metaphysical orgasms.

The magic circle is, in fact, a symbol of and preparation for the metaphysical orgasm ''.

Moreover its posture of stubborn but simple resistance is doomed to failure because of the metaphysical weakness of the existent form of order, once the activation of change has reached visible proportions.

While it is easy enough to ridicule Hawkins' pronouncement in Pleas Of The Crown from a metaphysical point of view, the concept of the `` oneness '' of a married couple may reflect an abiding belief that the communion between husband and wife is such that their actions are not always to be regarded by the criminal law as if there were no marriage.

It is simply revealing the state to which metaphysical thinking has fallen during this century.

The tenacity with which present metaphysical attitudes fetishize private intuition offers the strongest evidence that the gulf between scientific and delphic ways of philosophizing is built into the present conflict over the limits and purpose of science, religion and ideology.

If the fourth dimension is a physical concept and not purely metaphysical, through what medium does it extend??

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims — especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims — are unknown and ( so far as can be judged ) unknowable.

A further approach, elaborated by André Malraux in works such as The Voices of Silence, is that art is fundamentally a response to a metaphysical question (' Art ', he writes, ' is an ' anti-destiny ').

That is, when one sees these things for what they are, the idea of forming positions on such metaphysical questions simply does not occ.

Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on imagining direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind.

It held that empty space is a metaphysical impossibility because space is nothing other than the extension of matter, or, in other words, that when one speaks of the space between things one is actually making reference to the relationship that exists between those things and not to some entity that stands between them.

Consubstantiation is a theological doctrine that ( like Transubstantiation ) attempts to describe the nature of the Christian Eucharist in concrete metaphysical terms.

Kant, by contrast, pushed the employment of a priori metaphysical claims as requisite, for if anything is to be said to be knowable, it would have to be established upon abstractions distinct from perceivable phenomena.

Dianetics is a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body which was created by L. Ron Hubbard and is practiced by followers of Scientology.

The term ' dualism ' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages .— which is also uncreated — is an absolute one.

But the most noticeable of his productions is A Discourse of Wit ( 1685 ), which contains some of the most characteristic metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common sense.