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This volume presents three sets of papers discussing the medieval problem of singular cognition, nominalist epistemology, and the metaphysics of the great medieval nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. The first group of essays concerns issues surrounding the possibility of singular cognition in light of the cognitive psychology of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, as well as the latter's “argument from indifference” as developed by William Ockham to support his own, nominalist epistemology. However, Ockham's epistemology, worked out in detail by John Buridan, seems to have implications concerning the possibility of “Demon Skepticism” (later popularized by Descartes), which in turn poses a threat to the consistency of the nominalist cognitive psychology in general, as discussed in the second group of essays. Finally, the third group of essays explores some intriguing, but “weird” implications of the nominalist approach to epistemology in the metaphysics of John Buridan.

There is broad agreement in the medieval tradition that we conceive things in the world owing to the transmission of intelligible content through various media that culminates in the concept by which something in the world is cognitively present for us. Yet how the intelligible content is transmitted along with the nature of the ultimate object of cognition provoked ceaseless debate. The first three essays in Universal Representation, and the Ontology of Individuation consider these issues as they play out in the metaphysics and natural philosophy of Avicenna, Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Ockham and others.The last three essays turn to the metaphysical problem of the nature of the principle of individuation. Moderate realists believe in the existence of immanent general natures such as humanity and equinity, whereby individuals are members of diverse natural kinds. Accordingly, moderate realists such as Aquinas, Henry of Ghent and Duns Scotus need to investigate the nature of the individuating principle by which members of one and the same natural kind differ from one another. Nominalists, for their part, need not concern themselves with any principle of individuation as, for them, all reality is individual, there being no immanent universals; but this release comes at the cost of a new set of epistemological problems.