Moderate realism

Nominalists deny the existence of universals altogether, even as particularised and multiplied within particulars.

[1] Aristotle espoused a form of moderate realism as did Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus (cf.

[4] A more recent and influential version of immanent realism has been advanced by Willard Van Orman Quine, in works such as "Posits and Reality" (1955),[5] and D. M. Armstrong, in works such as his Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (1989, p. 8).

For Quine, any object proposed by theory is considered real, stressing that "everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process", considering the idea that the theory withstood rigorous testing.

[6] According to Armstrong, universals are independent of the mind, and this is critical in accounting for causation and nomic connection.