How did William of Ockham argue against the independent existence of universals?

William of Ockham, a prominent nominalist, argued against the independent existence of universals by asserting that everything in the nonlinguistic world is strictly particular. He rejected the realist view that general terms imply the existence of corresponding general entities, maintaining that such entities are not required to explain reality.12

Ockham’s rejection of universals was deeply informed by his principle of parsimony, known as Occam’s razor, which dictates that plurality should not be posited without necessity. He argued that the human ability to think and speak in general terms does not require the existence of universal entities. Instead, he explained this capacity through:3425

• Resemblance: He held that things share features in common solely because objective relations of resemblance exist among them, denying that this requires anything "literally the same" to be present within those things.5
• Mental Signs: He proposed that general terms function as "natural signs" or mental concepts that represent many individual things, rather than referring to abstract, independent entities.5

By appealing to these mental intermediaries, Ockham sought to explain general knowledge while upholding the ontological priority of individual, particular things.15