ABSTRACT
Armstrong once described certain proponents of nominalism as Ostrich Nominalists. These were to be so called because they simply ignored the realist’s one-over-many argument for universals, claiming that our application of a single predicate to many individuals is devoid of ontological significance. Other nominalists in Armstrong’s taxonomy recognize the force of the one-over-many argument and attempt to respond to it, for example, by appealing to resemblances, or to classes. Ostrich Nominalists simply stick their heads in the sand. Devitt (1980) took Quine to be the target of Armstrong’s attack, and replied that Quine is not an Ostrich Nominalist. He also added a new category to Armstrong’s taxonomy, that of Mirage Realist. While the Ostrich Nominalist fails to see what is really there in the desert landscape, the Mirage Realist sees what is not there. This creature is, on Devitt’s account, overly impressed by the one-over-many argument, seeing a need for ontological commitment where there is none.
