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Philosophy

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    The process is called "nominalization" in linguistics, but the quote has it exactly backwards, nominalizing some perceived commonality does not make it a thing. At best, it starts an inquiry into it, see Cocchiarella, On the Logic of Nominalized Predicates and Its Philosophical Interpretations. Scholastics, and later Perice, called what comes out of nominalization (under the right conditions) ens rationis, beings of reason, see Novotny's book.
    – Conifold
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 4:49
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    How can you give it a name if it isn't already a thing? What is the name being applied to?
    – David Gudeman
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 6:00
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    It depends of what is "a thing"... if we mean an existing object, the answer is no: humans are accustomed to speak of non existing objects.
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 6:53
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    "The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things." -TaoTeChing. The cognitive bias of 'chunking' phenomena is discussed here philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/70930/…
    – CriglCragl
    Commented Oct 24, 2022 at 23:34
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    Its called reification. Can be a fallacy. Can be the foundation of Platonism. The etymology of reification is exactly your question
    – Rushi
    Commented Jun 15 at 4:57