Ok i'm going to try and clear the confusion on this post. Nominalism is a metapysical position not an epistlemological position e.g In epistlemology we have a realist and idealist. The realist asserts that the tree is a material entity, the idealist asserts the tree is an immaterial entity i.e an idea of a tree. It is about the substance of the tree, do we perceive a tree or a tree idea? The metaphysical or ontological position of nominalism questions the existence of abstract entitys of a certain kind that is Universals. (note; a realist on universals is not the same position as a epistlemological realist) Neither the realist or the nominalist question the existence of trees which they call particulars. the actual example of a tree is called a particular. A universal is bit more complex to understand and will try to explain. Say we have a dark-black cat and a light-black car. here we have two particulars a cat and a car, we also have two particular examples of the colour black. The light-black and the dark-black resemble each other as we would call them both black and only draw a distinction between the two when we contrast the two. What is in question is not the cat or the car or the two shades but the catagory "blackness". here we apparently have five types of thing, the cat and car, two shades of black and a category. The nominalist/realist debate is whet her there is an entity of this kind i.e. "categorys" that exist. The nominalist says no the realist yes. This is the confusing part, in between epistlemology and metaphysics the positons are somewhat reversed. The relevance of the argument may be expressed in another example... Do numbers exist? If I took a piece of chalk and drew the number 1 on the chalk board does the number 1 exist? in one sense no, what does exist is the numeral 1 exists and is written in chalk so where is this existent number 1. some say it belongs in another realm a platonic heaven coined after plato as it him who first formed the question. Can we imaging a world with out numbers? mathematics, computers etc seem indespensible without numbers. To reiterate, nominalism and realism on the ontological status of universals does no way question in any way or form physical objects but certain kinds of abstract objects. Regards Brendan WEB VIEW: http://tinyurl.com/ku7ga4 TODAY: http://alturl.com/whcf 3 DAYS: http://alturl.com/d9vz 1 WEEK: http://alturl.com/yeza GOOGLE: http://groups.google.com/group/Wittrs YAHOO: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/ FREELIST: //www.freelists.org/archive/wittrs/09-2009