Nominalism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A doctrine that universals do not have an existence except as names for classes of concrete objects. countable, uncountable

    "Blumenberg's thesis, which has since been reiterated by a number of philosophers and historians, is that nominalism, as it became widespread in Protestant theology, led to the Enlightenment, disenchantment, and the scientific revolution."

  2. 2
    (philosophy) the doctrine that the various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
atomismdifferentiationdifferentnessdistinctivenessegohoodhuman factor

Example

More examples

"Blumenberg's thesis, which has since been reiterated by a number of philosophers and historians, is that nominalism, as it became widespread in Protestant theology, led to the Enlightenment, disenchantment, and the scientific revolution."

Etymology

From French nominalisme. By surface analysis, nominal + -ism.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.