NOMINALISM. The Nominalist school of philosophy was founded by Roscellinus, who was born about 1050, and was Canon in Compiegne about 1090. According to Nominalism, Universals (nniversalia) are simply sub jective products of abstraction; they are not real things, but only names. Real existence belongs only to indi viduals (existentia est singulorum). The watchword of the Nominalist school was " Universalia post rem." When Roscellinus came to apply this doctrine to the dogma of the Trinity, he incurred the charge of tritheism. " The `person ' is in his view the substantla rationalis, and in application to God this notion can signify nothing else. The three persons are eternal, and therefore there are three eternal persons. There are accordingly three separate persons, although they are one in will and power " (Puenjer). To satisfy the ecclesiastical authori ties, Rosoellinus recanted at the Council of Soissons in 1092, but privately he continued to hold the same views.
Nominalism was revived by William of Occam (c. 1280 1349), who was a pupil of Duns Scotus (1274-130S).
" Only individuals, as individual things, have meaning. Universals as common conceptions are only abstractions made by our own understanding from these individual things (conceptus mentis significantes univoce plura singularta)." Puenjer points out that this teaching paved the way for " the empirical method of thought through observation of individual things and the deriva tion of universal principles from inductive experience." It at the same time excluded the approach to a Rational Theology. To faith is to be assigned all knowledge that transcends experience. " To faith also belong the pre cepts of morality; for, in virtue of his unlimited freedom, God could also sanction other precepts as good and just." The Nominalists included : Peter D'Ailly (1350-1425) and John Gerson (1363-1429), whose Nominalism developed into Mysticism, Gabriel Biel (d. 1495), Robert Holkot (d. 1349), and Raymond of Sabundi (c. 1430). See B. Puenjer: J. H. Blunt; C. J. Deter; Max B. Weinstein, and 1910.