一、引论唯名论是一个关于抽象实体的存在的论题——大体上说,这些实体是在时间和空间之外的,因而它们自身之间或者与其它类型的实体之间不能有因果联系。非常简单,唯名论者否认存在任何这样的实体。这里我不想深入探讨这种否认的原因。一些唯名论者声称他们发现抽象实体的观念神秘得令人失望,因此认为它们是无法理解的,从而拒绝谈论它们。另一些唯名论者似乎觉得谈论抽象实体完全是可以理解的,但是却认为任何有健全意识的人都不能 I. INTRODUCTION Nominalism is a thesis about the existence of abstract entities - in general, these entities are outside of time and space, so there can be no causal connection between themselves or with other types of entities . Quite simply, namingists deny the existence of any such entity. Here I do not want to dig deeper into the reasons for this denial. Some naming activists claim they have found the mystery of abstract entities disappointing and therefore consider them incomprehensible and thus refuse to talk about them. Other nominalists seem to think it is perfectly understandable to talk about abstract entities, but to think that no conscious individual can