Thinker · TH-0436
William of Ockham
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar, logician and theologian who studied at Oxford, was summoned to the papal court at Avignon, and…
Also known as William of Occam, Gulielmus Occamus, the Venerable Inceptor
c. 1287 – 1347 · Ockham (Surrey), London, Oxford, Avignon, Munich
Traditions: Medieval Christian
Schools: Scholasticism
William of Ockham was an English Franciscan friar, logician and theologian who studied at Oxford, was summoned to the papal court at Avignon, and spent his last years in Munich after a dispute with Pope John XXII over Franciscan poverty. He was the leading nominalist of the Middle Ages: a universal is not a real thing shared by many but a singular sign, a concept or word, predicable of many. He stressed God's absolute power and freedom, which shaped his voluntarist view of morality, and the principle of parsimony bears his name.
Key ideas
- Only individuals exist; universals are signs predicable of many, not things shared by many.
- Entities should not be posited without necessity (Ockham's razor).
- Mental language underlies spoken and written language and has its own grammar.
- Moral obligation depends on God's will, which is free and not bound by created natures.
Major works
- Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (Ordinatio)
- Summa Logicae (c. 1323)
- Quodlibeta septem
- Dialogus (political treatise)
In the conversation
- Debate Species are drawn, not discovered: biology has already chosen nominalism
- Debate Scholastic reasoning was rigorous, but it was rigour inside a fence
- Debate Robert Adams’s modified divine command theory answers the ‘God could command cruelty’ objection
In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where William of Ockham takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 1.1.2 Universals and Particulars A tomato and a fire engine are both red. Is there something they share?
- 3.2.6 Divine Command Approaches How does a command create an obligation?