"All persons exist to society by some shining trait of beauty or utility, which they have."-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nominalist and RealistNominalist and Realist (1844), by Ralph Waldo Emerson, is an essay Emerson wrote specifically as part of Essays: Second Series and in order to explore the ideas that contributed to his formulation of the philosophy of transcendentalism. It contains the author's reflections on the platonic school of philosophy and its tendency toward excessive abstraction and overgeneralization.