NOMINALISTS, a sect of the scholastic philosophers, so named on account of the particular tenet by which they were distinguished, and in opposition to the Realists, another scholastic sect. In order to understand the principal point of difference between these parties, which gave rise to long-continued and acrimonious disputation, it is necessary to advert to the doctrines of the ancient philosophy concern ing ideas or universals. According to Plato, who appears to have been indebted for his opinion to the Pythagorean school, universals, or, as he called them, ideas, by which are to be understood such things as we express by general terms, have, apart from the mere conception of them by the understanding, an actual and eternal existence in the Divine Mind ; and are the patterns or models according to which the individuals of every species are formed, and by which the constitution of each individual is determined. The separate existence of these essences was denied by Aristotle, who taught that forms—which word as employed by him has the same meaning with the ideas of Plato— were eternally united to matter ; that unconnected with It they have no existence, and that they are Inherent in their objects. Zeno and the Stoics generally ridiculed the belief In such universal natures altogether ; and held that the forms of the Stagyrite and the ideas of his preceptor were nothing if distinguished from the notions of them in the mind and the words by which they are designated. The doctrine of Aristotle was universally received among the schoolmen until after the com mencement of the 11th century. But with the revival of dialectic science, which about this time occurred, it began to be warmly contro verted. Those who adopted the Stoical doctrine, and affirmed that words or names only were universal, were termed Nominalists ; while those who adopted the Peripatetic opinion, and maintained the proper existence of universals, were termed Realists. The honour of forming the sect of the Nominalists is commonly assigned to Roscelin, canon of Compiegne; but its real founder appears rather to have been John, called the Sophist, and supposed by Du Boulay, the historian of the Parisian Academy, to have been chief physician to king Henry I. of France. Be this however as it may, to Roscelin unquestionably belongs the credit of having first raised the sect into eminence. The Nominalist doctrine was highly obnoxious to most of the divines as well as the philosophers of the period, chiefly perhaps, as Brucker sup poses (' Historia Critica Philosophize), on account of Roscelin having employed it in illustrating the mysterious constitution of the Divine Nature, and thereby laid himself open to the charge of heresy. Not withstanding the opposition originating in this source which it encountered, many converts were made ; and its advancement was greatly promoted by the genius and learning of the celebrated Abelard, who was one of the disciples of Roscelin. So successful was he in his disputes with William de Champeaux, styled the Venerable Doctor,' who flourished about the beginning of the 12th century, and was then the principal supporter of Realism, that the pupils of the latter in large numbers forsook their master, and became the followers of his more eloquent antagonist. Throughout the 'whole of the 12th century the contest between the rival sects continued to be waged. Both
parties, by various modifications of their leading doctrines, gradually became divided to a considerable extent among themselves, and a third sect arose, professing to a middle course between them, the adherents of which were distinguished by the name of Conceptualists, on account of their holding universality to be the attribute, not of names only, hut of conceptions. This sect however obtained but a small share of notice. At this period the Realists, both in number• and respectability, had the advantage of their opponents, and the erudition and subtlety of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and afterwards of Duns Scotus, gave them such a decided predominance, as to throw the Nominalists completely into the shade. In the 14th century William Occam, an English Franciscan friar, and a pupil of Scotus, becoming the advocate of Nominalism when it was seemingly about to expire, effected a revival, and brought it into greater repute than it had ever before enjoyed. The discussion of the question respecting universals was once more renewed, with the utmost virulence and animosity on both sides. Blows were resorted to when argument was exhausted ; and not unfrequently debates were terminated by bloodshed. Through out Germany the opinion of the Nominalists was soon almost universally received, while Realism, being supposed to be more consistent with the doctrines of the church, and patronised by suc cessive popes, prevailed in Italy and other countries where the influence of the Roman see was most powerfully felt. Although num bering among its defenders fewer persons of philosophical eminence than were to be found among the leaders of the opposite cause, it still maintained its wonted predominance. John, the twenty-third pope of that name, having finished his disputes with the Franciscans, who had zealously opposed him on certain matters affecting the privileges of their order, directed severe persecutions against the Nominalists. In the year 1339 the university of Paris published an edict, denouncing the philosophy of Oceam, the effect of which however does not seem to have been very hostile to its wider extension. Louis XI., of France, in 1473, likewise issued an edict against the Nominalists, in which it was ordered that their writings should be seized and secured in the libraries by iron chains, to prevent their being perused. The con sequence was, that the leaders of the sect fled to England and Germany. In the following year Louis mitigated his edict, which he had issued at the suggestion of the bishop of Avranches, and permitted the study of the Nominalist writings. Thereafter this sect obtained the ascendancy in the universities of France, as it had formerly obtained it in those of Germany. The Reformation, to which a long train of causes had been effectually conducting, put an end to the con troversy so long and so fiercely carried on between the two most memorable parties that have ever arisen among the schoolmen, and the contemporaneous revival of letters eventually gave the death-blow to the scholastic philosophy. Among the most eminent supporters of Nominalism, besides those already referred to, may be mentioned Suisset, Buridan, Marsilius tib Inghen, and Oresmius, in the 14th century, and Matthew of Cracow, Gabriel Biel, Gerson, &c., in the fifteenth.