What are the characteristics of nominalism?

Nominalism is a philosophical viewpoint asserting that universals and abstract concepts do not have independent existence but are merely names or labels for groups of individual objects. It rejects the notion that universals exist as separate entities or forms, emphasizing that only particular, tangible objects are real. Nominalists argue that language and categorization are tools for understanding the world rather than reflections of an underlying reality. This perspective has significant implications in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language.