Editing Nominalism (section)

===Ancient Greek philosophy===

[[Plato]] was perhaps the first writer in [[Western philosophy]] to clearly state a [[Realism (philosophy)|realist]], i.e., non-nominalist, position:
<blockquote>... We customarily hypothesize a single form in connection with each of the many things to which we apply the same name.&nbsp;... For example, there are many beds and tables.&nbsp;... But there are only two forms of such furniture, one of the bed and one of the table.  ([[The Republic (Plato)|''Republic'']] 596a–b, trans. Grube) </blockquote>

<blockquote>What about someone who believes in beautiful things, but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself&nbsp;...? Don't you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? (''Republic'' 476c)</blockquote>

The Platonic universals corresponding to the names "bed" and "beautiful" were the [[Theory of Forms|Form]] of the Bed and the Form of the Beautiful, or the ''Bed Itself'' and the ''Beautiful Itself''.  Platonic Forms were the first universals posited as such in philosophy.<ref name="Penner 1987, p. 24">Penner (1987), p. 24.</ref>

Our term "universal" is due to the English translation of [[Aristotle]]'s technical term ''katholou'' which he coined specially for the purpose of discussing the problem of universals.<ref>Peters (1967), p. 100.</ref>  ''Katholou'' is a contraction of the phrase ''kata holou'', meaning "on the whole".<ref>[http://archimedes.fas.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/dict?name=lsj&lang=el&word=kaqo%2flou&filter=GreekXlit "katholou"] in [[Harvard]]'s Archimedes Project online version of [[Henry Liddell|Liddell]] & [[Robert Scott (philologist)|Scott]]'s ''[[A Greek-English Lexicon]]''.</ref>

Aristotle famously rejected certain aspects of Plato's Theory of Forms, but he clearly rejected nominalism as well:

<blockquote>... 'Man', and indeed every general predicate, signifies not an individual, but some quality, or quantity or relation, or something of that sort.  (''[[Sophistical Refutations]]'' xxii, 178b37, trans. Pickard-Cambridge)</blockquote>

The first philosophers to explicitly describe nominalist arguments were the [[Stoics]], especially [[Chrysippus]].<ref>John Sellars, ''Stoicism'', Routledge, 2014, pp. 84–85: "[Stoics] have often been presented as the first nominalists, rejecting the existence of universal concepts altogether.&nbsp;... For Chrysippus there are no universal entities, whether they be conceived as substantial [[Platonic Forms]] or in some other manner."</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.iep.utm.edu/chrysipp/| title = Chrysippus (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)}}</ref>