 To be sure, there still are universals in this picture. But these universals are neither common natures “contracted” to individuals by some really or merely formally distinct principle of individuation, nor some universal objects of the mind, which exist in a “diminished” manner, as beings of reason. Ockham’s universals, at least in his mature  theory,[49]  are just our common terms and our common concepts. Our common terms, which are just singular utterances or inscriptions, are common in virtue of being subordinated to our common concepts. Our common concepts, on the other hand, are just singular acts of our singular minds. Their universality consists simply in the universality of their representative function. For example, the common term ‘man’ is a spoken or written universal term of English, because it is subordinated to that concept of our minds by which we conceive of each man indifferently. (See Klima, 2011) It is this indifference in its representative function that enables the singular act of my mind to conceive of each man in a universal manner, and the same goes for the singular act of your mind. Accordingly, there is no need to assume that there is anything in the individual humans, distinct from these humans themselves, a common yet individualized nature waiting to be abstracted by the mind. All we need to assume is that two humans are more similar to each other than either of them to a brute animal, and all animals are more similar to each other than any of them to a plant, etc., and that the mind, being able to recognize this similarity, is able to represent the humans by means of a common specific concept, the animals by means of a common generic concept, all living things by means of a more general generic concept,  etc.[50]  In this way, then, the common terms subordinated to these concepts need not signify some abstract common nature in the mind, and consequently its individualized instances in the singulars, for they directly signify the singulars themselves, just as they are directly conceived by the universally representative acts of the mind. So, what these common terms signify are just the singulars themselves, which are also the things referred to by these terms when they are used in propositions. Using the customary rendering of the medieval logical terminology, the things ultimately signified by a common term are its significata, while the things referred to by the same term when it is used in a proposition are their (personal)  supposita.[51]