Nominalism

NOMINALISM. - A philosophical tendency that denies the existence of general concepts, or at least denies that a real content of their own corresponds to them. The term (Nominales) is connected with the first affirmation, in the 9th century, of the sententia vocum, but it appears explicitly only in the 13th century and becomes common, after Ockham (v.), to designate his school. In modern philosophy it refers principally to English empiricism. Historically, therefore, nominalism embraces different positions (including certain expressions of Greek philosophy) whose characteristics must be kept in mind when one attempts an essential definition of nominalism. In general it may be characterized as the affirmation of the absolute singularity and concreteness of the real: to general ideas, even granting that they exist, there corresponds therefore in actual reality nothing universal (the essence, the form), but only a collection or aggregate of individuals. Once a content of its own is denied to the general idea, nominalism, in its rigorous expression, arrives logically at the denial of the concept itself: the general idea is in reality an illusion; of general there is only the name, to which a more or less determinate sense-representation is bound in the mind, and which is referred to a whole aggregate of individuals similar in certain fundamental respects. One understands, consequently, the importance attributed by nominalism to language (v.), understood not merely as expression and manifestation, but as the reason and instrument of universal human knowledge. What is affirmed of the concept is extended to the proposition (judgment): "man is mortal" means "all human individuals are mortal."

The derivations of nominalism will be indicated further on. Here its extension to the epistemological field must first be noted. "Scientific" nominalism is the tendency to regard science not as objective and universal knowledge, but as a merely conventional or symbolic interpretation of reality, or else as an instrument of success in ordering reality to practical human ends: a therefore pragmatic, not theoretical, conception of science (scientific positivism; cf. H. Poincaré, La science et l'hypothèse, Paris 1902, Introd.).

Nominalism must be understood not as a purely gnoseological position, but also as a determinate conception of reality. It is the denial of ontological principles and values that transcend pure experience and stand, within the real, as grounds of the intelligibility, universality and constancy of experience itself. Nominalism, in its rigorous expression, is therefore bound to empiricism and positivism (v.).

In Greek philosophy nominalism is implicit in the Heraclitean doctrine of the essential becoming of reality (v. ERACLITO), and in the relativistic sensualism of the Sophists, which resolves reality, for man, into the subjective contents of his sensations; and it is accepted by the school of the Cynics (v.), who, in contrast with the teaching of Socrates, deny validity to conceptual knowledge. While the doctrine of the Stoics (v. STOICISMO) expresses itself properly in conceptualism ("the concept is a mental vision of the rational soul": N. Testa, I frammenti degli stoici antichi, I, III, Bari 1932, nos. 38-39, pp. 41-42), the school of Epicurus (v.) inclines instead toward nominalism, inasmuch as it recognizes no other source and criterion of true knowledge than sensation, and regards the concept as a conception of particular sensible images preserved in memory: "universalem intelligentiam... id est memoriam eius rei quae saepe extrinsecus apparuit" (Diog. Laert., X, 33: cf. 31, 36).

The explicit formulation of nominalism appears in medieval philosophy with the question of universals (v.). Boethius had affirmed with regard to the categories: "praedicatorum tractatus non de rebus sed de vocibus est" (In Categ. Aristotelis, I: PL 64, 162 A-D). The expression had in Boethius a correct sense (cf. C. Prantl, Storia della logica in Occidente. Età medievale, part 1, Italian trans. by F. Limentani, Florence 1937, p. 19 ff.); it nevertheless contributed to the formation, from the 9th century onward, of the sententia vocum, which held that universals are nothing other than voces and nomina. This tendency is already announced in Rabanus Maurus (v.; cf. Prantl, op. cit., pp. 68-69), and is then attributed explicitly by Otto of Freising (v.) and by John of Salisbury (v.) to Roscelin of Compiègne (v.; b. ca. 1050): "primus nostris temporibus in logica sententiam vocum instituit" (Otto of Fr., De gestis Friderici I, I, 47, in MGH, Scriptores, XX, p. 376); "Fuerunt et qui voces ipsas genera dicerent esse et species; sed eorum iam explosa sententia est et facile cum auctore suo (Rocelino) evanuit" (John of Salisbury, Polycraticus, VII, 12: PL 199, 665; cf. Metalogicus, II, 17: ibid., 874). In turn St. Anselm condemns "illi utique nostri temporis dialectici, immo dialecticae haeretici, qui nonnisi flatum vocis putant esse universales substantias" (De fide Trin., ch. 2: PL 158, 265). St. Anselm's condemnation proceeded mainly from theological reasons, inasmuch as, once the reality of the universal was denied, the possibility of understanding the existence of the three Persons in the one divine essence and the unity of person in Christ seemed to him compromised: if man cannot be conceived outside individuality, every real human nature will be a person (ibid.). Regarding Roscelin's nominalism, however, the judgment of De Wulf must be kept in mind: Roscelin is perhaps rather an anti-realist than a nominalist in the modern sense; he affirms that universals are not res but voces, yet he does not seem to deny to the intellect the power to form abstract notions endowed with universality, nor to universal terms a relation of correspondence with things (M. De Wulf, Storia della filosofia medievale, I, Italian trans. by V. Miano, Florence 1944, p. 152). Even less is it possible to speak of a true nominalism in Abelard (v.; "in hac autem opinione deprehensus est peripateticus palatinus Abaelardus noster": John of Salisbury, Metalogicus, II, 17: PL 199, 874). The nominalism of Abelard and his school "has a very special sense," in that it limits itself to affirming, against realism (Odo of Tournai, William of Champeaux, Remigius of Auxerre, Gilbert de la Porrée [v.]), that the universal name, since it is said of many, cannot be a res or substance. But Abelard admits that to the universal nomen there corresponds a natura rei communis, and he is therefore very close to moderate realism, as certain of his significant expressions show: Socrates and Plato "conveniunt in eo quod homines sunt: non dico in homine, cum res nulla sit homo nisi discreta" (cf. M. de Wulf, op. cit., I, p. 197). The scholastic nominalism of the 11th century can therefore be considered as a preparation, even if not fully conscious, for moderate realism. A negation of this, on the other hand, is presented, in the 14th century, by the nominalism of Ockham (v.). For Ockham genera and species are nuda intellecta. Every individual thing is completely by itself, singular through itself ("qualibet res singularis seipsa est singularis": I Sent., dist. 2, q. 6 Q), distinct from every other; and if it resembles other individuals, it resembles them by its own individual reality, not by a common universal form or essence. The opinion of realism that one and the same reality is multiplied in many "est simpliciter falsa et absurda" (ibid., q. 4 D). Universals are only intentiones animae, and the intentio is a signum or symbol that sums up all individuals and can be referred to them (Summa totius logicae, I, chs. 12-15); but such a sign is nothing but an abstraction and production of the mind ("abstractio quae non est nisi fictio quaedam," II Sent., dist. 2, q. 8 E): it is "natura sua" expressive of individuals (grasped immediately by noticia intuitiva), but without meaning on the ontological plane of reality: "non sunt universalia de essentia rerum nec partes rerum ad extra" (Summa totius logicae, I, ch. 25; II Sent., dist. 2, q. 8 Q). Ockham's position presents itself, in conclusion, as a conceptualism (v.), although, because of its radical denial of the metaphysical-real value of the universal, it has been qualified, from the 14th century onward, as nominalism. Here too De Wulf warns that Ockham's nominalism, just as it must not be confused with the nominalism or "verbalism" of the 11th century, must also be distinguished from modern empiricist nominalism, since Ockham preserves the substantial distinction between thought and sensation (De Wulf, op. cit., III, p. 39; cf. I, p. 143). And yet Ockham's position foreshadowed modern nominalism, in that it was no longer merely a logical solution to the problem of universals, but tended, through the overvaluation of individual reality and of intuitive knowledge, to deny the value of abstract knowledge in general. The venerabilis Inceptor of the invictissima secta nominalium in reality went beyond the denial of the species, of the principium individuationis, of the "agent intellect" and of other analogous metaphysical values defended by the scholastics of the 13th century. For once concepts are posited as fictiones, there followed their invalidity and constitutional incapacity to take hold of the structure of the real. If the concept of cause is a figmentum, it serves neither to demonstrate the existence of God (Quod., I, q. 1; II, q. 1, and I Sent., dist. 2, q. 5), nor the freedom and immortality of the soul. And if the ethico-juridical concepts are also fictiones, it follows that the entire moral order, no longer able to be founded on the metaphysical values of being, depends on the will of God, known through Revelation (voluntarism, fideism). In the strictly theological field, the denied distinction of "habitus," of accidents, of relations from the concrete substantial reality of the individual became particularly dangerous in the doctrine of Grace and in the Trinitarian doctrine; and the absolute identity of God's individuality excluded every possible distinction in him of perfections, attributes and relations, and consequently also a valid conceptual cognition of the divine being.

Occamism spread, contested with varying fortunes, throughout the 14th-15th centuries. It was particularly fought in Paris, until the Edict of Louis XI (1474) which prohibited the teaching in that University of the philosophy of the Nominales or Terministas; when the Edict was repealed in 1481, the nominalist school took on new vigor. Among the followers of Occam, mention should be made of an anonymous writer of the second half of the 14th century, who in the Quaestio de universali secundum viam et doctrinam G. de Ockam affirmed: « Universalia... sunt tantum quidam termini mentales seu intentiones vel conceptus si sunt in mente, vel sunt termini vocales et prolati si sunt in voce, vel sunt termini scripti si scribantur » (ed. M. Grabmann, Münster 1930, p. 27). Among the other principal representatives of terminism are John of Mirecourt (1st half of the 14th century), Adam Wodham (d. 1358), Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358), Walter of Bamberg (lecturer in the Univ. of Vienna in 1397), Marsilius of Inghen (d. 1396), John Brammart (d. 1407), Peter of Ailly (1350-1420), John Buridan (d. c. 1360), Nicole Oresme (d. 1382), Albert of Saxony (d. 1390; v. these entries). The last of the authors indicated nevertheless had predominantly scientific aims, preluding, with their original speculations and physical theories, to some of the most important discoveries of science in the 16th century. In the more strictly theological-religious field, Occamism was not without influence on the rise of Protestantism (v.). The nominalist tendency in fact, though obedient to the teaching of the Church, was in force, particularly with the doctrines of Gabriel Biel (c. 1415-1495), at the University of Erfurt where Luther (v.) was formed, as well as in the general study of the Augustinian Order (cf. H. Grisar, M. Luther, Freiburg im Br. 1927, ch. 1, § 3; P. Vigneaux, Luther commentateur des Sent., Paris 1935, pp. 45-86).

Occamism was thus linked in its double meaning, scientific-philosophical and theological, with modern thought, of which the nominalist tendency, strengthened by the new methodology of the sciences (Bacon, Galileo) and by other historical circumstances, became one of the fundamental directives. The first rigorous expression of modern n. is found in English empiricism. For Berkeley (v.) « the opinion that the mind has the power to fashion for itself abstract ideas or notions of things has had a great part in entangling and confounding speculation... and has given rise to innumerable errors and difficulties in almost all parts of knowledge » (Treatise on the principles of human knowledge, Ital. trans. by G. Papini, Bari 1925, Introd., p. 7). The idea is always particular and « becomes general when it is made to represent — that is, is put in the place of —

all the other particular ideas of the same kind » (ibid., p. 13). Consequently, « general ideas are fictions and inventions of the mind » (ibid.) and their source must be sought in language: « if there had been no language or universal signs, abstraction would never have been thought of » (ibid., pp. 16-17). In Berkeley, who protested that he did not absolutely deny general ideas, but only abstract ideas (ibid., p. 12), n. was contained, in its logical consequences, by a spiritualistic conception, moreover not critically founded, of man and of God. In Hume, who expressly refers to Berkeley (Treatise on human nature, part 1, sec. 7), once every spiritualistic presupposition had fallen, n. is led to its sceptical-antimetaphysical conclusion. The general idea is excluded already by the fundamental affirmation of Humean gnoseology that « all ideas are derived from impressions and are nothing other than copies and representations of them » (op. cit., part 1, sec. 7, Ital. trans. by A. Carlini, Bari 1926, p. 37). The sense impression is in fact necessarily individual, « determined in its degrees both of quantity and of quality » (ibid., pp. 36-37). Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves individual and « become general by being united to a general term, that is, to a term which by habitual association is found in relation to many other particular ideas and promptly recalls them to the imagination » (ibid., p. 41). The concept is therefore, in Hume, completely resolved into the sense image: there are in the mind only individual representations (the general idea is absurd, as is the general reality: ibid., p. 37), extrinsically connected by a term and by a psychological habit; « the word awakens an individual idea, and together with it a certain habit; and this habit produces every other individual idea, according as the occasion requires » (ibid., p. 39). Once the unity and autonomy of the concept had been dissolved into the phenomenal-empirical multiplicity of sensations, every basis of consistency was removed from the theoretical constructions of thought. Hume does not hesitate to conclude that the certainty of human knowledge is restricted within the limits of experience (empiricism).

Empiricist n. is taken up again by sensualism (Condillac) and by the representatives of classical positivism (A. Comte, H. Taine, H. Spencer, J. Stuart Mill). On psychological grounds it is defended by J. F. Fries, H. Helmholtz, W. Wundt, Th. Ziehen. Of nominalist inspiration is the materialism of Feuerbach (truly real is only the individual sensible; the universal, on the other hand, or the Hegelian idea, is illusion: nature in its otherness), the existentialism of the left (real is only the existent and its individual situation in time — concept and universality is loss of the individual), and finally neo-positivism (v.) which in some of its expressions reduces the value of the concept to pure verbal meaning. N. is therefore associated with some of the most powerful currents of present-day thought, at once expression and cause of the accentuated situation of crisis to which metaphysics has come.

N. has had, in the history of philosophical thought, a positive significance, as a call to a control of the abstractive activity of the intellect and to a consciousness of its limits and possible deviations, when it tends to attribute the meaning of reality to what is only a form or mode of being of thought. The emphasis placed on the individuality of the real has likewise an evident justification in the conditions of concreteness and ontological singularity that a pluralistic conception cannot fail to recognize in being and particularly in the person (v.). In this sense n., both that of the 14th century and the modern one, has contributed, as few other currents of thought, to a more valid knowledge of reality, both natural and spiritual. In its reaction to Scholastic abstractionism it sought the truth and the meaning of the concept, accentuating the value of intuition and of the immediacy of experience, thus favoring the new currents in mysticism, in politics (Giov. Gianduno,

Marsilio da Padova [v.] and in the sciences. The fruitful methodological norms of modern science — particularly of the physical sciences but also of the spiritual ones — are in fact in good part due to the theoretical demands of nominalism. But at the same time the negative aspect of nominalism cannot be ignored, evident in its denial of the value of the universal. «Nominalism is evidently a naturalistic and materialistic solution; which, resolving reality into individuals, tends to suppress their intelligibility, denying the absolute value of those universals whereby they are intelligible. And it therefore tends to deny all value to thought, which, set over against those individuals that alone are real, cannot be anything but nothing» (G. Gentile, Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro, 5th ed., Florence 1938, ch. 6, p. 69). The actualist condemnation moves, it is true, from the presupposition of the supreme unity and concreteness of thought, in whose dialectic individual singularities are posited and dissolved. From such a presupposition it is possible to prescind; but the critique is equally exact. The concept and universality are the very condition of thought: nominalism, which suppresses the concept, or, what is the same, deprives it of a content of its own, ultimately comes to deny thought in what is its essential value: its meaning as reason and expression of being. To the intellect is undoubtedly recognized, in nominalism, the function of systematizing the data of experience, of ordering individuals into classes and systems; but, since in the individuals themselves every value that transcends their empirical reality is excluded, it is also impossible for the intellect to understand them on a plane of absolute intelligibility. The individual, as it is given in human experience, is existence, fact, history; if there are not in individuals principles, reasons, moments of unity that insert them into the universal and the necessary, it is not possible to assign them a meaning: being is fragmented and dispersed into pure empirical multiplicity, without reason, unity, or end. Nominalism, even when it does not affirm it explicitly, precludes a metaphysical conception of the world and of being, and therefore also a conception of man and of life, that is not the surrender of thought and action to history as pure fact and becoming in time. It is clear that in the nominalistic perspective neither soul, nor good, nor finality, nor God are susceptible of a valid rational foundation: these values, when they are not simply denied, are to be abandoned to the sphere of sentiment and faith. Agnosticism, fideism, pragmatism (v.) in every order of values that tends to transcend experience — religious, ethical, juridical, pedagogical, social, political — are therefore the logical and historical terminus of nominalism.

Nominalism is wrong in not understanding that, if pure abstraction is the universal outside the particular, abstraction is also — because it is devoid of foundation and principle — the individual without the universal. Reality can only be a concreteness of individuality and universality: individuality which is the reason and bearer of existence and action; universality which is the reason of the ontological structure of every entity as degree and participation of Being and of intelligibility.

Ugo Viglino