This friend had just read it and was blown away.  He knows how much I have written on this "dissolution of the West" idea, yet still suggested that I would find it worthwhile.  As I greatly value his perspective, I decided to read the book.

I will follow my usual pattern of writing more than one post as I go along.  I am not sure that this will result in the best treatment for the book, but this method has become so ingrained that I don't know if another approach even remains open to me.

It is in the introduction where Weaver points to what he sees as "the best representation of a change which came over man's conception of reality…."

It was William of Occam who propounded the fateful doctrine of nominalism, which denies that universals have a real existence.