![]() ![]() William Ockham constitutes an excellent initiation for philosophers into the problems and theoretical framework of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Although her primary focus is on Ockham, McAdams compares and contrasts his positions with those of Aquinas, Scotus, Henry of Ghent, among others. Likewise, Adams rejects the notion that Ockham's philosophical doctrines lead to heretical views in theology, or that his insistence on divine freedom leads to arbitrariness and caprice in ethics. Adams challenges the notions that Ockham's nominalism and ontological reductions lead to subjectivism in metaphysics, his epistemology to skepticism, his theory of causality to Humean constant conjunction or to occasionalism. According to Marilyn McCord Adams, Ockham emerges as a Franciscan Aristotelian, much more philosophically and religiously conservative than commonly supposed. It then shows how Ockham's theological disagreements with his most eminent predecessors are a logical consequence of underlying philosophical differences. ![]() This landmark study offers a clear and concise account of Ockham's philosophical positions (his ontology, logic, epistemology, and natural philosophy), along with the arguments for them. Yet, with Aquinas and Scotus, he remains among the three greatest philosophers of the period. Accused by John Lutterell, the former chancellor of Oxford University, of teaching heretical doctrines, Ockham was summoned to Avignon by Pope John XXII and eventually lived under the protection of Louis of Bavaria. This bibliography covers a renaissance of Ockham scholarship during a seventeen-year period in the middle of the 20th century, mostly works in English, French, and German.William Ockham is probably the most notorious and most widely misunderstood philosopher of the later Middle Ages. This bibliography covers the majority of the first half of the 20th century, mostly works in English, French, and German. This bibliography covers the majority of the 20th century, mostly works in English, French, and German. In chronological order, the first is Heynick 1950, then Reilly 1968, and last Beckmann 1992.īeckmann, Jan P. At the same time, however, he upheld the absolute omnipotence of God, which committed him to “divine command theory” in ethics-God can command individuals to do things that may ordinarily be wrong (such as disobey the pope), making them right through his command.īibliographies of the Secondary LiteratureĪ few bibliographies of works about Ockham cover most of the 20th-century scholarship. Against the scholastic mainstream, he insisted that theology is not a science and rejected all the alleged proofs of the existence of God. Throughout his career, Ockham remained a fideist, convinced that belief in God is a matter of faith alone. He never returned to finish his degree (hence his nickname, “Venerable Inceptor”) but, from exile in Germany, wrote political treatises that provide groundbreaking defense of individual rights, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech. After four years under house arrest, he escaped, claiming Pope John XXII was a heretic himself. Though Ockham’s dispute with church authority began with metaphysics, it soon became political. Consequently, he was summoned to the papal court in Avignon before he was able to finish his degree at Oxford University. Ockham’s ontological reduction was suspected of having unorthodox implications for the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which bread and wine is miraculously transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. For example, the universal term “man” refers to this or that man while grouping them with all the other men. His theory of mental language aimed to show how we can speak of universals without thereby presupposing that universals exist. He contended that human beings perceive objects directly through “intuitive cognition,” without the help of any universals. This helped him to advance a new version of nominalism, according to which universals, such as man, are not metaphysical realities but only concepts in the mind. Above all, Ockham used the Razor to interpret Aristotle in a more radically empiricist manner than did his predecessors, accepting into his ontology only individual substances and individual qualities. ![]() Although Ockham did not invent the Razor, he wielded it so systematically and with such striking effect that it came to bear his name. ![]() His claim to fame was “Ockham’s Razor,” the principle of parsimony, according to which plurality should not be posited without necessity. William of Ockham ( c. 1285/7– c. 1347) was an English Franciscan philosopher who challenged scholasticism and the papacy, thereby hastening the end of the medieval period. ![]()
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