Abstract

Three distinct perspectives have emerged in the history of philosophy regarding the reality of universals and their relation to particulars: realism, nominalism and conceptualism. Nominalism, which renounces the objective reality of universals and considers them to be mere names, has prioritized particularity and hence opened up the way for scientific reasoning and gave rise to a rejection of abstract notions and metaphysics. Besides, nominalism, at least according to a certain viewpoint, rendered faith impossible and prepared the way for criticisizing religion