Is Nominalism For Real?

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Today, nominalism is the prevailing philosophy in whatever is left of the Western tradition. According to a few statistics I read, most philosophers surveyed described themselves as nominalists.

Nominalism holds that Universals, like woman, don’t exist, that these are just names that we give particulars. Like banana doesn’t exist, Banana is just a name we give to particular yellow things that are tricky to open but oh so rewarding if you can figure out how.

Nominalism denies that the essence of a particular thing exists and says that when you say dog, or tree, or banana, you aren’t really saying anything about objective reality, just your own mind’s way of organizing things into categories and articulating them with names.

But if we’re being honest, I don’t think anyone actually believes what they say about nominalism because it refutes itself in practice if not also in principle. It refutes the utility of using names to describe things.

Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

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