William of Ockham

Abstract

William of Ockham (b. c. 1287–d. 1347) is one of the giants of medieval philosophy. He was an innovative and controversial thinker who lived an extraordinarily eventful life. He entered the Franciscan order as a young boy and then studied in Oxford and London, where he composed an extensive body of work on logic, natural philosophy, and theology in accordance with the academic requirements of the time. While waiting to incept as a magister with the right to teach in the faculty of theology at Oxford, he was summoned to the papal court at Avignon in 1324, where some of his doctrines were suspected of being heretical. There, he was drawn into the current political crisis of the day between Pope John XXII and the Franciscan order on the question of who owned the property that the Franciscan order used (buildings, clothing, food, etc.). John XXII argued that use entailed ownership; the Franciscans argued that it did not. Ockham waded into the debate, inaugurating an interest in politics and political philosophy that would occupy him exclusively until his death. Eventually convinced that John XXII was a heretic, Ockham fled Avignon in 1328 in the company of Michael of Cesena and other Franciscan leaders, finding protection at the court of Ludwig of Bavaria, the Holy Roman Emperor. He composed a second body of work on property and property rights, heresy, and the nature, origin, and relationship of temporal and spiritual power. Ockham was excommunicated in 1328 but never officially charged with heresy. Ockham’s body of work is remarkable, and not only because of the abrupt shift in his intellectual and political pursuits. Despite the risk of oversimplification, we can identify certain pervasive tendencies in his thought. He exhibits a general preference for parsimony and privileges minimalism in metaphysics while developing a highly sophisticated analysis of language and logic. He insists on a firm foundation for knowledge in our direct experience of individual and contingent objects. He emphasizes divine omnipotence, simplicity, and freedom, and places human freedom and rationality at the heart of his ethics and politics. Ockham’s reputation as an enfant terrible of the late Middle Ages, whose doctrines were commonly represented as either calamitous or revolutionary, depending on the interpreter, has been substantially revised in the past three decades. A balanced and critical assessment of his thought and position in the history of medieval philosophy nevertheless remains an ongoing project.