Comprehensive information and links about William of Ockham

William of Ockham "William of Ockham - Sketch labelled "frater Occham iste", from a manuscipt of Ockham's Summa Logicae, 1341" or any of several other spellings) (c. 1285–1349) was an English Franciscan friar and philosopher, from Ockham, a small village in Surrey, near East Horsley. As a Franciscan, William was devoted to a life of extreme poverty. A pioneer of nominalism, some consider him the father of modern epistemology and modern philosophy in general, 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. Ockham is sometimes considered an advocate of conceptualism rather than nominalism, for whereas nominalists held that universals were merely names, i.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.

Ockham is also considered one of the greatest logicians of all time. 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 Ockham's razor, which states that one should always opt for an explanation in terms of the fewest possible number of causes, factors, or variables.

Summoned to Avignon in 1324 by Pope John XXII on accusation of heresy, Ockham spent four years there in effect under house arrest while his teaching and writing were investigated. During this period, at the request of Brother Michael of Cesena, head of the Franciscan order, he investigated the controversy between the Franciscans and the Papacy on the doctrine of apostolic poverty, which had become central to Franciscan doctrine, but which was considered highly dubious and possibly heretical by both the Papacy and the Dominican order. He concluded that Pope John XXII was a heretic, a position that he later put forth in writing.

Before a conclusion was reached about the heresy or orthodoxy of Ockham's philosophy, he fled Avignon on May 26, 1328 with Michael of Cesena and a few other friars. They sought the protection of Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria. After his declaration against the pope, Ockham is believed to have been excommunicated, although historical sources vary. 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.

He died in a convent in Munich, Bavaria (now Germany), possibly as a result of the Black Death.

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In fiction

William of Ockham served as an inspiration for the monastic detective William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco's