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On the contrary, "cat" is a real category of animal. If not, then why do you assume that I know the thing to which you are referring?

I assume you do not know the thing to which I am referring. That's why I have to tell you about it.

You're assuming that I understand what you mean by the term, word or concept, "cat" when you tell me that Molly is a "cat."

(No, "cat," is a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept.)

The concept for that class of animals called cats.

Does this concept refer to a real class, or is this concept simply a subjective abstraction of your mind? If the latter then we have no basis for communication.

"Molly" is also a word, a word which can be written or spoken, but it represents a concept.

Again, does this concept refer to a real thing or is the concept purely subjective?

The cencept for one member of that class of animal called cats, one that happens to allow me to live with her. One word is no more "universal" than the other.

Then why, when you describe the furry thing at your elbow, do you describe it as a "cat," as if the abstract term has some real, explanatory value?

There are only particulars. If there were no cats, there would be no concept cat.

So the abstraction "cat," in your mind, doesn't refer to a real nature or essence? Then why do you expect me to understand the term "cat" when you use it to describe the thing at your elbow?

This is why you need to understand objectivity. It is it's very point. Objectivity rejects the subjective experience as being anything that can be shared. When I talk about a cat, or justice, or any other concept, it is the referrants that we can both objectively be conscious of, not the abstract form it takes in our consciousness.

This is nominalism or subjectivism, not realism.

This was not sufficiently clear for beginners, though we can see in it the basis of the Aristotlean solution of the problem. The early Scholastics faced the problem as proposed by Porphyry: limiting the controversy to genera and species, and its solutions to the altenatives suggested by the first question: Do objects of concepts (i.e., genera and species) exist in nature (subsistentia), or are they mere abstractions (nuda intelecta)? Are they, or are they not, things? Those who replied in the affirmative got the name of Reals or Realists; the others that of Nominals or Nominalists. The former or the Realist, more numerous in the early Middle Ages (Fredugisus, Rémy d'Auxerre, and John Scotus Eriugena in the ninth century, Gerbert and Odo of Tournai in the Tenth, and William of Chapeaux in the twelfth) attribute to each species a universal essence (subsistentia), to which all the subordinate individuals are tributary.
The Nominalists, who should be called rather the anti-Realists, assert on the contrary that the individual alone exists, and that the universals are not things realized in the universal state in nature, or subsistentia. And as they adopt the alternative of Porphyry, they conclude that the universals are nuda intellecta (that is, purely intellectual representations)...
In the thirteenth century all the great Scholastics solved the problem of the universals by the theory of Moderate Realism (Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus), and are thus in accord with Averroes and Avicenna, the great Arab commentators of Aristotle, whose works hasd recently passed into circulation by means of tranlations. St. Thomas formulates the doctrine of Moderate Realism in precise language, and for that reason alone we can give the name of Thomistic Realism to this doctrine (see below). With William of Occam and the Terminist School appear the strictly conceptualist solution of the problem. The abstract and universal concept is a sign (signum), also called a term (terminus; hence the name Terminism given to the system), but it has no real value, for the absract and the universl do not exist in any way in nature and have no fundamentum outside the mind. The universal concept (intentio secunda) has as it object internal representations, formed by the understanding, to which nothing external corresponding can be attributed. The role of the universals is to serve as a label, to hold the place (supponere) in the mind of multitude of things which it can be attributed. Occam's Conceptualism would be frankly subjectivistic, if, together with the abstract concepts which reach the individual thing, as it exists in nature.
III. THE CLAIMS OF MODERATE REALISM
This system reconciles the characteristics of external objects (particularity) with those of our intellectual representations (universality), and explains why science, though made up of abstract notions, is valid for the world of reality. To understand this it suffices to grasp the real meaning of abstraction. When the mind apprehends the essence of a thing (quod quid est; tò tí en eînai), the external object is perceived without the particular notes which attach to it in nature (esse in singularibus), and it is not yet marked with the attribute of generality which reflection will bestow on it (esse in intellectu). The abstract reality is apprehended with perfect indifference as regards both the individual state without and the universal state within: abstrahit ab utroque esse, secundum quam considerationem considerattur natura lapidis vel cujus cumque alterius, quantum ad ea tantum quæ per se competunt illi naturæ (St Tomas, "Quodlibeta", Q. i, a. 1). Now, what is thus conceived in the absolute state (absolute considerando) is nothing else than the reality incarnate in any give individual: in truth, the reality, represented in my concept of man, is in Socrates or in Plato. There is nothing in the abstract concept that is not applicable to every individual; if the abstract concept is inadequate, because it does not contain the singular notes of each being, it is none the less faithful, or at least its abstract character does not prevent it from corresponding faithfully to the objects existing in nature. As to the universal form of the concept, a moment's consideration shows that it is subsequent to the abstraction and is the fruit of reflection: "ratio speciei accidit naturæ humanæ". Whence it follows that the universality of the concept as such is the work purely of the intellect: "unde intellectus est qui facit universalitatem in rebus" (St. Thomas, "De ente et essentia," iv). Concerning Nominalism, Conceptualism, and Exaggerated Realism, a few general considerations must suffice. Nominalism, which is irreconcilable with a spiritualistic philosophy and for that very reason with scholasticism as well, presupposes the ideological theory that the abstract concept does not differ essentially from sensation, of which it is only a transformation. The Nominalism of Hume, Stuart Mill, Spencer, Huxley, and Taine is of no greater value than their ideology. The confound essentially distinct logical operations--the simple decomposition of sensible or empirical representations with abstraction properly so called and sensible analogy with the process of universalization. The Aristotleans recognize both of these mental operations, but they distinguish carefully between them.