ABSTRACT
The nominalist denies that there are universals. Why? A survey of theliterature defending nominalism does not suggest a single answer to thisquestion; for nominalists attack metaphysical realism on a wide variety of fronts. Sometimes, the target of their criticisms is the notion of multiple exemplification. According to the nominalist, the claim that numerically different particulars exemplify one and the same universal leads to incoherence.1 Since the different particulars allegedly exemplifying a given universal at any one time occupy distinct and discontinuous or nonoverlapping regions of space at that time, the nominalist tells us that their jointly exemplifying the universal presupposes that numerically one and the same entity is wholly and completely present in nonoverlapping regions of space at a single time. The nominalist insists, however, that multiple localization of this sort is impossible; and toward showing this, he points out that were it possible, then it would be possible for claims like
(1) The color red is 15 miles away from itself and
(2) The shape of triangularity is both receding from and drawing closer to itself
to be true; but the nominalist assumes that we need no argument to be convinced that, if intelligible at all, such claims are necessarily false.
