Metaphysics and Nominalism

Metaphysics shares a breadth of problems concerning ‘universals’. One view that addresses these problems is nominalism. Nominalism is the position that universals do not exist outside the mind. There are different sects of nominalism that expresses various stances about the problem at hand. Austere nominalism, metalinguistic nominalism, and trope theory are the various types of nominalism that refute the claim of realism. Each of these types of nominalism contain their own respective views towards universals and have their own strengths and weaknesses. Austere nominalism, metalinguistic nominalism, and trope theory have many similarities and differences as well as strong points that support the nominalist perspective. Austere nominalism takes the stance that the only things that exist are concrete particulars. These concrete particulars are a category of individuals like individual persons, individual objects, individual animals, or various other individual materials. “What the austere nominalist wants to claim is that an ontology of concrete particulars provides the resources for dealing with all the phenomena the metaphysical realist claims presuppose an ontology of multiply exemplifiable entities” (Loux 53). The austere nominalist refutes the realist claim that universals are necessary and serve as handling the phenomena of attribute agreement. Rather the austere nominalist’ claim is that the issue needn’t be explained at all. Nominalists believe that realism does not contain more explanatory power than nominalism. Thus, it is much wiser to adopt nominalism because it is much simpler without universals. The leading issue with austere nominalism is that the proponent of universals and attribute agreement are to be ignored without much explanation. The notion that they are unnecessary complications may not seem like a sufficient enough explanation to combat the ideals of realists. However, the benefit to the austere nominalist theory