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Western Philosophers
Medieval Philosophy
Name
William of Ockham
Birth c. Medieval philosophy is the Philosophy of Europe and the Middle East in the era now known as Medieval or the Middle Ages, the period roughly extending from 1288 (Ockham, England)
Death 1347 or 1348 (Munich, Germany)
School/tradition Scholasticism
Main interests Metaphysics, Epistemology, Theology, Logic, Ontology, Politics
Notable ideas Occam's Razor, Nominalism
Influenced by Aristotle, Aquinas, Scotus
Influenced Science

William of Ockham (also Occam, Hockham, or any of several other spellings, IPA: /ˈɒkəm/) (c. Scholasticism was the dominant form of theology and philosophy in the Latin West in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th 13th and 14th centuries Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English Logician and Franciscan Friar, Nominalism is a metaphysical view in Philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist but that either universals Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding 1288 - c. 1348) was an English Franciscan friar and scholastic philosopher, from Ockham, a small village in Surrey, near East Horsley. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland The term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic A Friar is a member of one of the Mendicant orders. Friars and monks Friars differ from Monks in that they are called to a life of poverty in service Scholasticism was the dominant form of theology and philosophy in the Latin West in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th 13th and 14th centuries Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Ockham (ˈɒkm̨ is a tiny English Village near East Horsley, in Surrey, England. Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. East Horsley is a Village in Surrey, England, on the A246 between Leatherhead and Guildford. He is considered, along with Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Averroes ( ibn Rushd in the Middle East) to be one of the major figures of medieval thought and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century. Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd (Arabicأبو الوليد محمد بن احمد بن رشد better known just as Ibn Rushd (ابن رشد and in European Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rushd (Arabicأبو الوليد محمد بن احمد بن رشد better known just as Ibn Rushd (ابن رشد and in European Although commonly known for Occam's Razor, the methodological principle that bears his name, William of Ockham also produced significant works on logic, physics, and theology. Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English Logician and Franciscan Friar, Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. Physics (Greek Physis - φύσις in everyday terms is the Science of Matter and its motion. Theology is the study of a god or the gods from a religious perspective In the Church of England, his day of commemoration is April 10. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Events 879 - Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks. 1407 - the lama [1]

Contents

Life

William of Ockham - Sketch labelled "frater Occham iste", from a manuscript of Ockham's Summa Logicae, 1341
William of Ockham - Sketch labelled "frater Occham iste", from a manuscript of Ockham's Summa Logicae, 1341

William of Ockham joined the Franciscan order at a young age. The term Franciscan is commonly used to refer to members of Catholic He is believed to have studied theology at the University of Oxford from 1309 to 1321, but never completed his master's degree. The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the [2] Because of this, he acquired the byname Venerabilis Inceptor, or "Worthy Beginner" (although he was also known as the Doctor Invincibilis or unconquerable Doctor).

His work in this period became the subject of controversy, and many scholars have thought that Ockham was summoned before the Papal court of Avignon in 1324 under charges of heresy, though an alternative theory recently proposed by G. Avignon (/aviɲɔ̃/ in French) ( Provençal: Avinhon in classical norm or Avignoun in Mistralian norm is a commune Heresy, as a blanket term describes a practice or belief that is labeled as unorthodox Knysh suggests that he was initially appointed there as professor of philosophy in the Franciscan school, and that his disciplinary difficulties did not begin until 1327. [3] It is generally believed that these charges were levied by Oxford chancellor John Lutterell. Chancellor or chancellour (archaic ( Latin: cancellarius) is an official Title used in countries whose civilization has arisen [4] A theological commission was asked to review his Commentary on the Sentences, during which, Ockham found himself entangled in a different debate. The Franciscan Minister General Michael of Cesena, summoned to Avignon in 1327 to answer charges of heresy, asked Ockham to review arguments surrounding Apostolic poverty. This is a list of the ministers general of the Order of Friars Minor. Michael of Cesena ( Michele di Cesena or Michele Fuschi) (c 1270 &ndash November 29 1342) was a Franciscan, general of that Order The Franciscan order believed that Jesus and his apostles owned no personal property, and survived by begging and accepting the gifts of others. Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) The Twelve Apostles (Greek apostolos, "someone sent out" e [5] This clashed directly with the beliefs of Pope John XXII. Pope John (numbering Pope John XXII (1249 &ndash December 4, 1334) born Jacques Duèze (or d'Euse) was Pope from 1316 to 1334

After studying the works of John XXII and previous papal statements, Ockham agreed with the Minister General. He believed that John XXII was himself guilty of heresy for refusing to accept the Franciscan claim. [2] Fearing imprisonment and possible execution, Ockham, Cesena, and other Franciscan sympathizers fled Avignon on 26 May1328, and eventually took refuge in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria, who was also engaged in dispute with the papacy. The Holy Roman Emperor (Römischer Kaiser or Römisch-Deutscher Kaiser Romanorum Imperator was the elected monarch ruling over the many varying numbers of states Louis IV ( 1 April[[ 282]] &ndash 11 October 1347) called the Bavarian, of the house of Wittelsbach, was the Duke of Bavaria Ockham was excommunicated for leaving Avignon, but his philosophy was never officially condemned. Excommunication is a religious Censure used to deprive or suspend membership in a religious community

He spent much of the remainder of his life writing about political issues, including the relative authority and rights of the spiritual and temporal powers. After Michael of Cesena's death in 1342, he became the leader of the small band of Franciscan dissidents living in exile with Louis IV. Michael of Cesena ( Michele di Cesena or Michele Fuschi) (c 1270 &ndash November 29 1342) was a Franciscan, general of that Order Ockham died (prior to the outbreak of the plague, or Black Death) either on April 10, 1347[6] or (more likely) on April 9, 1348 in the Franciscan convent at Munich in Bavaria[7] He was officially rehabilitated by Innocent VI in 1359. The Black Death, or the Black Plague, was one of the deadliest Pandemics in human history widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia Events 879 - Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks. 1407 - the lama Events 193 - Septimius Severus is proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum (in the Balkans) Munich (München; Minga is the capital city of Bavaria, Germany. Bavaria ( German:, with an area of 70553 Km² (27241 square miles and almost 12

Philosophical thought

In Scholasticism, Ockham advocated a reform both in method and in content, the aim of which was simplification. Scholasticism was the dominant form of theology and philosophy in the Latin West in the Middle Ages, particularly in the 12th 13th and 14th centuries Ockham incorporated much of the work of some previous theologians, especially John Duns Scotus. From Scotus, Ockham derived his view of divine omnipotence, his view of grace and justification, much of his epistemology and ethical convictions. However, he also reacted to and against Scotus in the areas of predestination, penance, his understanding of universals, his distinction ex parte rei (that is, "as applied to created things"), and his view of parsimony.

Nominalism

A pioneer of nominalism, some consider him the father of modern epistemology, because of his strongly argued position that only individuals exist, rather than supra-individual universals, essences, or forms, and that universals are the products of abstraction from individuals by the human mind and have no extra-mental existence. Nominalism is a metaphysical view in Philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist but that either universals Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge In Metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common namely characteristics or qualities He denied the real existence of metaphysical universals and advocated the reduction of ontology. In Philosophy, ontology (from the Greek, genitive: of being (part Ockham is sometimes considered an advocate of conceptualism rather than nominalism, for whereas nominalists held that universals were merely names, i. Conceptualism is a Doctrine in Philosophy intermediate between Nominalism and realism that says universals exist only within the e. words rather than existing realities, conceptualists held that they were mental concepts, i. e. the names were names of concepts, which do exist, although only in the mind. Therefore, the universal concept has for its object, not a reality existing in the world outside us, but an internal representation which is a product of the understanding itself and which "supposes" in the mind, for the things to which the mind attributes it; that is, it holds, for the time being, the place of the things which it represents. It is the term of the reflective act of the mind. Hence the universal is not a mere word, as Roscelin taught, nor a sermo, as Abélard held, namely the word as used in the sentence, but the mental substitute for real things, and the term of the reflective process. For this reason Ockham has been called a "Terminist", to distinguish him from a Nominalist or a Conceptualist. Nominalism is a metaphysical view in Philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist but that either universals

Over the course of his life, Ockham changed his view of what universal concepts are. To begin with, he believed that universals have no “real” existence at all in the Aristotelian categories, but instead are purely “intentional objects” more or less in the sense of modern phenomenology; they have only a kind of “thought”-reality. Such “fictive” objects were metaphysically universal; they just weren't real. Eventually, however, Ockham came to think this intentional realm of “fictive” entities was not needed, and by the time of his Summa logicae and the Quodlibets he adopted instead a so called intellectio-theory, according to which a universal concept is just the act of thinking about several objects at once; metaphysically it is quite singular, and is “universal” only in the sense of being predicable of many. The Summa Logicae is a textbook on Logic by William of Ockham.

Ontological parsimony

One important contribution that he made to modern science and modern intellectual culture was through the principle of parsimony in explanation and theory building that came to be known as Occam's Razor. Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English Logician and Franciscan Friar, This maxim, as interpreted by Bertrand Russell,[8] states that if one can explain a phenomenon without assuming this or that hypothetical entity, there is no ground for assuming it, i. Bertrand Arthur William Russell 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970 was a British Philosopher, Historian e. that one should always opt for an explanation in terms of the fewest possible number of causes, factors, or variables. He turned this into a concern for ontological parsimony; the principle says that one should not multiply entities beyond necessity - Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate - although this well-known formulation of the principle is not to be found in any of Ockham's extant writings. [9] He formulates it as: “For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture. ” For Ockham, the only truly necessary entity is God; everything else is contingent. He thus accepts the Principle of Sufficient Reason, rejects the distinction between essence and existence, and advocates against the Thomistic doctrine of active and passive intellect. The principle of sufficient reason (also called the Causal Doctrine) states that anything that happens does so for a definite Reason. Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas. His skepticism to which his ontological parsimony request leads appears in his doctrine that human reason can prove neither the immortality of the soul nor the existence, unity, and infinity of God. These truths, he teaches, are known to us by Revelation alone.

Natural philosophy

Ockham wrote a great deal on natural philosophy, including a long commentary on Aristotle's physics. For the current in the 19th century German idealism see Naturphilosophie Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature (from Physics (or "Physica" or "Physicae Auscultationes" meaning "lessons" is a key text in the philosophy of Aristotle. According to the principle of ontological parsimony, he holds that we do not need to allow entities in all ten of Aristotle's categories; we thus do not need the category of quantity, as the mathematical entities are not "real". Mathematics must be applied to other categories, such as the categories of substance or qualities, thus anticipating modern scientific renaissance while violating Aristotelian prohibition of metabasis.

Ockham was arguably important in physics for his view, apparently an application of his razor, that motion is essentially self-conserving in itself without need of any causal force. This was contrary to the contemporary impetus theory of Jean Buridan that its perpetuation requires an internal force of impetus, and indeed also to Aquinas' novel theory that all bodies have an inherent resistance to motion in proportion to their mass, subsequently dubbed 'inertia' by Kepler, and also contrary to the much later view of Newton, partly derived from Parisian scholastic impetus theory, that the continuation of uniform straight motion in the absence of any resistance would be caused by an internal inherent force of inertia (vis inertiae). The theory of impetus was an antiquated auxiliary or secondary theory of Aristotelian dynamics, put forth initially to explain Projectile motion against Gravity Jean Buridan (in Latin, Johannes Buridanus; ca 1295 &ndash 1358 was a French Priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution Johannes Kepler (ˈkɛplɚ ( December 27 1571 &ndash November 15 1630) was a German Mathematician, Astronomer Sir Isaac Newton, FRS (ˈnjuːtən 4 January 1643 31 March 1727) Biography Early years See also Isaac Newton's early life and achievements But it was apparently in agreement with Aristotle's view in Physics 4. 8 215a19-22 that in the absence of any resistance locomotion would be interminable, apparently without need of any internal (nor external) force whatever, and arguably also with Descartes' principle of the conservation of motion without need of any causal force, so vehemently rejected by Newton as relativism in his De Gravitatione. In the late 19th century, the view that the continuation of unresisted uniform straight motion would not require any force whatever became popular amongst positivist philosophers and physicists such as Mach and Whitehead, who sought to abolish Newton's inherent force of inertia (vis inertiae) as an independent force of bodies/matter. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is Ernst Mach (max ( February 18, 1838 &ndash February 19, 1916) was an Austrian Physicist and Philosopher and Alfred North Whitehead, OM ( February 15 1861, Ramsgate, Kent, England &ndash December 30 1947, (Mach sought to reduce it to the combined gravitational attractions of all the fixed stars, but even if so, uniform straight motion would still be caused by force in Newtonian dynamics. ) But in 1878 in his book The Art of Scientific Discovery, the President of the Birmingham Scientific Society, George Gore, had (correctly) held that Newton explained planetary orbits as the resultant of the action of two forces, namely a centripetal impressed force and a transverse force of inertia inherent in each planet. Arguably Ockham's view only came to be accepted in Einstein's anti-Newtonian Cartesian relativistic geometrico-kinematical science of motion that eliminates all forces and reduces dynamics to Minkowskian geometrico-kinematics. Albert Einstein ( German: ˈalbɐt ˈaɪ̯nʃtaɪ̯n; English: ˈælbɝt ˈaɪnstaɪn (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955 was a German -born theoretical Hermann Minkowski ( June 22 1864 – January 12 1909) was a Russian born German Mathematician, of Jewish

Theory of knowledge

In the theory of knowledge, Ockham rejected the scholastic theory of species, as unnecessary and not supported by experience, in favor of a theory of abstraction. This was an important development in late medieval epistemology. Epistemology (from Greek επιστήμη - episteme, "knowledge" + λόγος, " Logos " or theory of knowledge He also distinguished between intuitive and abstract cognition; intuitive cognition depends on the existence or non existence of the object, whereas abstractive cognition "abstracts" the object from the existence predicate. It is not yet decided among interpreters as to the role of this two types of cognitive activities.

Political theory

Ockham is also increasingly being recognized as an important contributor to the development of Western constitutional ideas, especially those of limited responsible government. He was one of the first medieval authors to advocate a form of church/state separation, and was important for the early development of the notion of property rights. His political ideas are regarded as "natural" or "secular", holding for a secular absolutism. The views on monarchial accountability espoused in his Dialogus (written between 1332 and 1348)[10] greatly influenced the Conciliar movement and assisted in the emergence of liberal democratic ideologies. Conciliarism, or the conciliar movement, was a reform movement in the 14th and 15th century Roman Catholic Church which held that final authority

Logic

In logic, Ockham worked towards what would later be called De Morgan's Laws and considered ternary logic, that is, a logical system with three truth values, a concept that would be taken up again in the mathematical logic of the 19th and 20th centuries. Logic is the study of the principles of valid demonstration and Inference. In Logic, De Morgan's laws or De Morgan's theorem are rules in Formal logic relating pairs of dual Logical operators in a systematic manner expressed A ternary, three-valued or trivalent logic (sometimes abbreviated 3VL) is a term to describe any of several Multi-valued logic systems in which In formal logic, a formal system (also called a logical system, a logistic system, or simply a logic Formal systems in mathematics consist In Logic and Mathematics, a logical value, also called a truth value, is a value indicating the extent to which a Proposition is true Mathematical logic is a subfield of Logic and Mathematics with close connections to Computer science and Philosophical logic.

Works

The standard edition is William of Ockham, 1967-88. Opera philosophica et theologica. Gedeon Gál, et al. , ed. 17 vols. St. Bonaventure, N. Y. : The Franciscan Institute.

Philosophical writings

Theological writings

Political writings

References in modern culture

References

  1. ^ Holy Days. Liturgical Calendar. Church of England. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 202 BC - Hannibal Barca, leader of the Carthaginians, is defeated by the Roman legions under Scipio Africanus
  2. ^ a b Spade, Paul Vincent. William of Ockham. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 202 BC - Hannibal Barca, leader of the Carthaginians, is defeated by the Roman legions under Scipio Africanus
  3. ^ Knysh, George, Biographical rectifications concerning Ockham's Avignon period. Franciscan Studies 46, pp. 61-91.
  4. ^ Hundersmarck, Lawerence (1992). Great Thinkers of the Western World. Harper Collins, 123-128. HarperCollins is a Publishing company owned by News Corporation. ISBN 0-06-270026-X.  
  5. ^ McGrade, Arthur (1974). The Political Thought of William of Ockham: Personal and Institutional Principles. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP is a Publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534 ISBN 0-521-20284-1.  
  6. ^ Gál, Gedeon, 1982. William of Ockham Died Impenitent in April 1347. Franciscan Studies 42, pp. 90-95
  7. ^ Knysh, George. Ockham Perspectives, Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Canada, Winnipeg, 1994, pp. 28-29.
  8. ^ Russell, Bertrand (2000). History of Western Philosophy. Allen & Unwin, 462-463. Allen & Unwin, formerly a major British publishing house is now an independent book publisher and distributor based in Australia. ISBN 0-415-22854-9.  
  9. ^ W. M. Thorburn. The Myth of Occam's Razor. Mind. Oxford University. Retrieved on 2006-10-25. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1147 - The Portuguese, under Afonso I, and Crusaders from England and Flanders conquer Lisbon after a
  10. ^ Cf. the online British Academy edition at http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/dialogus/ockdial.html


Bibliography

See also

External links


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