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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: William of Ockham</title><script src="https://dtyry4ejybx0.cloudfront.net/js/cmp/cleanmediacmp.js?ver=0104" async="true"></script><script defer data-domain="newadvent.org" src="https://plausible.io/js/script.js"></script><link rel="canonical" href="https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15636a.htm"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="description" content="Biographical article on the fourteenth-century Franciscan philosopher"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://feeds.newadvent.org/bestoftheweb?format=xml"><link rel="icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><link rel="shortcut icon" href="../images/icon1.ico" type="image/x-icon"><meta name="robots" content="noodp"><link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="../utility/screen6.css" media="screen"></head> <body class="cathen" id="15636a.htm">  <br/> <div id="capitalcity"><table summary="Logo" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr valign="bottom"><td align="left"><a href="../"><img height=36 width=153 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></td><td align="right"> <form id="searchbox_000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0" action="../utility/search.htm">  <input type="hidden" name="safe" value="active"> <input type="hidden" name="cx" value="000299817191393086628:ifmbhlr-8x0"/> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="FORID:9"/>  <label for="searchQuery" id="searchQueryLabel">Search:</label> <input id="searchQuery" name="q" type="text" size="25" aria-labelledby="searchQueryLabel"/>  <label for="submitButton" id="submitButtonLabel" class="visually-hidden">Submit Search</label> <input id="submitButton" type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" aria-labelledby="submitButtonLabel"/> </form> <table summary="Spacer" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td height="2"></td></tr></table> <table summary="Tabs" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr> <td bgcolor="#ffffff"></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../"> Home </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_white_on_color" href="../cathen/index.html"> Encyclopedia </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../summa/index.html"> Summa </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../fathers/index.html"> Fathers </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../bible/gen001.htm"> Bible </a></td> <td class="tab"><a class="tab_color_on_beige" href="../library/index.html"> Library </a></td> </tr></table> </td> </tr></table><table summary="Alphabetical index" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"> <a href="../cathen/a.htm"> A </a><a href="../cathen/b.htm"> B </a><a href="../cathen/c.htm"> C </a><a href="../cathen/d.htm"> D </a><a href="../cathen/e.htm"> E </a><a href="../cathen/f.htm"> F </a><a href="../cathen/g.htm"> G </a><a href="../cathen/h.htm"> H </a><a href="../cathen/i.htm"> I </a><a href="../cathen/j.htm"> J </a><a href="../cathen/k.htm"> K </a><a href="../cathen/l.htm"> L </a><a href="../cathen/m.htm"> M </a><a href="../cathen/n.htm"> N </a><a href="../cathen/o.htm"> O </a><a href="../cathen/p.htm"> P </a><a href="../cathen/q.htm"> Q </a><a href="../cathen/r.htm"> R </a><a href="../cathen/s.htm"> S </a><a href="../cathen/t.htm"> T </a><a href="../cathen/u.htm"> U </a><a href="../cathen/v.htm"> V </a><a href="../cathen/w.htm"> W </a><a href="../cathen/x.htm"> X </a><a href="../cathen/y.htm"> Y </a><a href="../cathen/z.htm"> Z </a> </td></tr></table></div> <div id="mobilecity" style="text-align: center; "><a href="../"><img height=24 width=102 border="0" alt="New Advent" src="../images/logo.gif"></a></div>  <div id="mi5"><span class="breadcrumbs"><a href="../">Home</a> > <a href="../cathen">Catholic Encyclopedia</a> > <a href="../cathen/w.htm">W</a> > William of Ockham</span></div> <div id="springfield2"> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-top' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <h1>William of Ockham</h1> <p><em><a href="https://gumroad.com/l/na2"><strong>Please help support the mission of New Advent</strong> and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99...</a></em></p> <p>Fourteenth-century <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic</a> <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosopher</a> and controversial writer, born at or near the village of Ockham in Surrey, <a href="../cathen/05445a.htm">England</a>, about 1280; died probably at <a href="../cathen/10631a.htm">Munich</a>, about 1349. He is said to have studied at Merton College, <a href="../cathen/11365b.htm">Oxford</a>, and to have had <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">John Duns Scotus</a> for teacher. At an early age he entered the Order of St. Francis. Towards 1310 he went to <a href="../cathen/11480c.htm">Paris</a>, where he may have had <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">Scotus</a> once more for a teacher. About 1320 he became a teacher <em>(magister)</em> at the <a href="../cathen/11495a.htm">University of Paris</a>. During this portion of his career he composed his works on <a href="../cathen/01713a.htm">Aristotelean</a> physics and on <a href="../cathen/09324a.htm">logic</a>. In 1323 he resigned his chair at the <a href="../cathen/15188a.htm">university</a> in order to devote himself to <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">ecclesiastical</a> politics. In the controversies which were waged at that time between the advocates of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">papacy</a> and those who supported the claims of the <a href="../cathen/02137c.htm">civil power</a>, he threw his lot with the imperial party, and contributed to the polemical literature of the day a number of pamphlets and treatises, of which the most important are "Opus nonaginta dierum", "Compendium errorum Joannis Papæ XXII", "Quæstiones octo de auctoritate summi pontificis". He was cited before the pontifical Court at <a href="../cathen/02158a.htm">Avignon</a> in 1328, but managed to escape and join John of Jandun and <a href="../cathen/09719c.htm">Marsilius of Padua</a>, who had taken refuge at the Court of Louis of <a href="../cathen/02353c.htm">Bavaria</a>. It was to Louis that he made the boastful offer, "Tu me defendas gladio; ego te defendam calamo".</p> <div class="CMtag_300x250" style="display: flex; height: 300px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; "></div> <p>In his controversial writings William of Ockham appears as the advocate of secular absolutism. He denies the right of the <a href="../cathen/12260a.htm">popes</a> to exercise temporal power, or to interfere in any way whatever in the affairs of the Empire. He even went so far as to advocate the validity of the adulterous marriage of Louis's son, on the grounds of political expediency, and the absolute power of the State in such matters. In philosophy William advocated a reform of <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> both in method and in content. The aim of this reformation movement in general was simplification. This aim he formulated in the celebrated "Law of Parsimony", commonly called "Ockham's Razor": "Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate". With this tendency towards simplification was united a very marked tendency towards skepticism a distrust, namely, of the ability of the <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mind</a> to reach certitude in the most important problems of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a>. Thus, in the process of simplification he denied the existence of intentional species, rejected the distinction between essence and existence, and protested against the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomistic</a> <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> of active and passive <a href="../cathen/08066a.htm">intellect</a>. His skepticism appears in his <a href="../cathen/05075b.htm">doctrine</a> that <a href="../cathen/09580c.htm">human</a> <a href="../cathen/12673b.htm">reason</a> can prove neither the <a href="../cathen/07687a.htm">immortality</a> of the <a href="../cathen/14153a.htm">soul</a> nor the existence, unity, and <a href="../cathen/08004a.htm">infinity</a> of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. These <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a>, he teaches, are known to us by Revelation alone. In ethics he is a voluntarist, maintaining that all distinction between right and wrong depends on the will of <a href="../cathen/06608a.htm">God</a>. William's best known contribution to <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastic philosophy</a> is his theory of <a href="../cathen/15182a.htm">universals</a>, which is a modified form of <a href="../cathen/11090c.htm">Nominalism</a>, more closely allied to <a href="../cathen/11090c.htm">Conceptualism</a> than to <a href="../cathen/11090c.htm">Nominalism</a> of the extreme type. The universal, he says, has no existence in the world of reality. Real things are known to us by <a href="../cathen/08082b.htm">intuitive</a> <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>, and not by abstraction. The universal is the object of abstractive <a href="../cathen/08673a.htm">knowledge</a>. 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 <a href="../cathen/13189c.htm">Roscelin</a> taught, nor a <em>sermo,</em> as <a href="../cathen/01036b.htm">Abelard</a> held, namely the word as used in the sentence, but the <a href="../cathen/10321a.htm">mental</a> 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 href="../cathen/11090c.htm">Nominalists and Conceptualists</a>.</p> <p>Ockham's attitude towards the established order in the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> and towards the recognized system of <a href="../cathen/12025c.htm">philosophy</a> in the academic world of his day was one of protest. He has, indeed, been called "the first <a href="../cathen/12495a.htm">Protestant</a>". Nevertheless, he recognized in his polemical writings the authority of the <a href="../cathen/03744a.htm">Church</a> in spiritual matters, and did not diminish that authority in any respect. Similarly, although he rejected the rational demonstration of several <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> which are fundamental in the <a href="../cathen/14580a.htm">Christian system of theology</a>, he held firmly to the same <a href="../cathen/15073a.htm">truths</a> as matters of <a href="../cathen/05752c.htm">faith</a>. His effort to simplify <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> was no doubt well-intentioned, and the fact that simplification was the fashion in those days would seem to indicate that a reform was needed. The over-refined subtleties of discussion among the <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholastics</a> themselves, the multiplication of "formalities" by the followers of <a href="../cathen/05194a.htm">Scotus</a>, the undue importance attached by some of the <a href="../cathen/14698b.htm">Thomists</a> to their interpretation of the intentional species, and the introduction of the abstruse system of terminology which exceeded the bounds of good taste and moderation--all these indicated that the period of decay of <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> had set in. On the other hand, it must be said that, while his purpose may have been the best, and while his effort was directed towards correcting an abuse that really existed, Ockham carried his process of simplification too far, and sacrificed much that was essential in <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> while trying to rid <a href="../cathen/13548a.htm">Scholasticism</a> of faults which were incidental.</p> <div class='catholicadnet-728x90' id='cathen-728x90-bottom' style='display: flex; height: 100px; align-items: center; justify-content: center; '></div> <div class="pub"><h2>About this page</h2><p id="apa"><strong>APA citation.</strong> <span id="apaauthor">Turner, W.</span> <span id="apayear">(1912).</span> <span id="apaarticle">William of Ockham.</span> In <span id="apawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="apapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company.</span> <span id="apaurl">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15636a.htm</span></p><p id="mla"><strong>MLA citation.</strong> <span id="mlaauthor">Turner, William.</span> <span id="mlaarticle">"William of Ockham."</span> <span id="mlawork">The Catholic Encyclopedia.</span> <span id="mlavolume">Vol. 15.</span> <span id="mlapublisher">New York: Robert Appleton Company,</span> <span id="mlayear">1912.</span> <span id="mlaurl"><http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15636a.htm>.</span></p><p id="transcription"><strong>Transcription.</strong> <span id="transcriber">This article was transcribed for New Advent by Rick McCarty.</span> <span id="dedication"></span></p><p id="approbation"><strong>Ecclesiastical approbation.</strong> <span id="nihil"><em>Nihil Obstat.</em> October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.</span> <span id="imprimatur"><em>Imprimatur.</em> +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.</span></p><p id="contactus"><strong>Contact information.</strong> The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is webmaster <em>at</em> newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads.</p></div> </div> <div id="ogdenville"><table summary="Bottom bar" width="100%" cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td class="bar_white_on_color"><center><strong>Copyright © 2023 by <a href="../utility/contactus.htm">New Advent LLC</a>. 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