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Nominalists in philosophy are those who consider concrete things and individuals more real, rather than general concepts, classes, or ideas. Accordingly, nominalist scholastics argue that universals (general concepts) are not inherent in God and the world. Moreover, moderate nominalists recognize the existence of such things in people's minds, while extreme nominalists (for example, Roscelin) consider them illusory.
In a sense, the debate about universals is a debate about how God creates the world. From the point of view of nominalists, He does not need prototypes and images (universals), so every thing He creates in this world is individual. The nominalists ' argument is very orginal: God is the Absolute, which means that He can think of all things as unique, without resorting to generalizations. Therefore, general concepts are “crutches”, devices of the limited human mind. But do they reflect something significant in reality? Pierre Abelard and William Ockham recognize the value of concepts for cognition, Roscelin denies it, calling general concepts only sound (vox).