Ibn Taymiyya on Universals: Nominalism, Textual Hermeneutics, and the Question of Scientific Rationality
It is frequently asserted that Ibn Taymiyya's (d. 728/1328) denial of extramental universals commits him to an anti-abstractionist literalism and, ultimately, to hostility toward scientific rationality. This article argues that the assertion rests on a conflation of three logically independent theses — a metaphysical t...