DAMODARAM SANJIVAYYA NATIONAL LAW

UNIVERSITY
VISAKHAPATNAM, A.P., INDIA

PROJECT TITLE
William of Occam

SUBJECT
Jurisprudence

NAME OF THE FACULTY

Mr. Zain Saleh

Aakash Sharma
2016001
SEMESTER III
Chapterization:
Chapter I: Biography
Chapter II: Ockham on Logic and Semantics
Chapter III: Metaphysics, Theory of Knowledge
Chapter IV: Ethics and Political Philosophy
Chapter V: Conclusion
Literature of Index:
s. Author Title Link Publisher
No.
1. Brown The puzzle https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G The
of names in 1-188539/the-puzzle-of-names-in-ockham-
Debora review of
Ockham s s-theory-of-mental-language
h J. theory of metaphys
mental
ics
language
2. Dallav The logic https://www.questia.com/article/1G1- Theologi
alle, of the 3418189/the-logic-of-the-trinity-augustine-
cal
Nancy trinity: to-ockham
Augustine studies
to Ockham
3. Nold, William of https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3 The
Ockham.
Patrick -3315397221/william-of-ockham-dialogus Catholic
Dialogues
Historical
Review
4. DeCicc Ockhams https://www.questia.com/article/1G1- Childhoo
o, Razor d
55294118/ockham-s-razor-applied
Emily: Applied Educatio
Allison n
,
Jeanett
e
5. Patriqu Using https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G Military
Occams
in, 1-158735250/using-occam-s-razor-to- Review
Razor to
Travis Connect connect-the-dots-the-ba-ath
The Dots:
The baath
Party and
the
Insurgency
in Tal Afar
6. Etzkor Thom, Paul https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G The
n, the Logic of Review
Trinity: 1-348215905/thom-paul-the-logic-of-the-
Girard Augustine to
of
J. Ockham trinity-augustine-to Metaphys
ics
7. Marily Some Later https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3 Oxford
Medieval
n -3009895721/some-later-medieval-theories- Universit
Theories of
McCor the of-the-eucharist-thomas y Press
Eucharist:
d
Thomas
Aquinas,
 Adams Giles of
Rome,
Duns
Scotus and
William of
Ockham
8. Willia The https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
m J. Academic bridge-companion-to-ockham/academic- ge
Courte and and-intellectual-worlds-of- Universit
nay Intellectual ockham/59A2D5400AD3190EA908F6DC0 y Press
Worlds of A4A5737
Ockham
9. Calvin Some https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
Aspects of bridge-companion-to-ockham/some-aspects-
G. ge
Ockhams of-ockhams-
Normo Logic logic/BCC5206DCA1CB13892872C60AA Universit
C25FF1
re y Press
10. Marily Ockham on https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
n Will, bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockham-on-
ge
McCor Nature and will-nature-and-
d Morality morality/2F1C41EF52E7026C3642D04256 Universit
Adams F15AD0
y Press

11. Alfred Ockham on https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid

j. Faith and bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockham-on- ge
Freddo Reason faith-and- Universit
so reason/21F16CEA462863F4947B71587CC y Press
0244C
12. Rega Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
Repudiatio bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
Wood
n repudiation-of- Universit
Pelagianis pelagianism/B266ECEE4F57C42271D158B y Press
m F3F7285DC
13. Peter Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
Ethical bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
King
Theory ethical- Universit
theory/F795D025AD7C10D55BE5835AF8 y Press
911BD5
14. Elizabe Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
th Misunderst bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
Kargar ood Theory misunderstood-theory-of-intuitive-and- Universit
of Intuitive abstractive- y Press
and cognition/3EC15E61BA8FE41F7212D90F6
Abstractive 9F17D09
Cognition
15. Andre Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
Goddu Philosophy
philosophy-of- Universit
 of Nature nature/42E128D101F793DC0C2433683469 y Press
D42C
16. Gyula Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
Semantics bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
Klima
and semantics-and-ontology-of-the- Universit
Ontology categories/CC3DC90432EB920D50B40430 y Press
of the 78EA7377
Categories
17. Paul Ockhams https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cam Cambrid
Vincen Nominalist bridge-companion-to-ockham/ockhams- ge
t Spade Metaphysic nominalist- Universit
s metaphysics/4EFC2F60D404EA07886E1F y Press
CD70F9A8A2
18. CLAU Ockham on http://faculty.fordham.edu/klima/Nominalis Ashgate
DE Concepts m/Panaccio-Ockham-On-Concepts.pdf Publishin
PANA g Limited
CCIO
19. Arthur The https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/polit Cambrid
Stephe Political ical-thought-of-william- ge
n Thought of ockham/0E6A641D9E60E6E6FEC40A Universit
McGra William of y Press
de Occam
20. Lucan The Basis http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfpl Francisca
Freppe of Morality us/10.2307/28643 n Herald
rt according Press
to William
Ockham
Literature Review:

1. Ockham on Will, Nature and Morality

In addition to other things, Ockham is famous for his teaching of the freedom of lack
of concern: the idea that made self-discipline is energy to will, to nill, or to do nothing
regarding any protest. By appear differently in relation to his awesome medieval
ancestors, many gauge, Ockham has staked out a position laden with impediments. In
the first place, it cuts will off from nature. The freedom of apathy transforms made
wills into nonpartisan potencies unshaped by regular slants. Second, it "liberates" will
from reason's administer: regardless of what reason manages, made self control can
rebel.

To a few, such outcomes have appeared to be earth shattering for morals since they
are conflicting with a sort of naturalism. For instance, Maurer composes that

the scholastics before Ockham looked upon goodness as a property of being. Holy
person Thomas, for instance, talks about goodness as the flawlessness of being that
renders it alluring. Since God is all-immaculate and especially attractive, he is
remarkably great. An animal regards the degree that it accomplishes the flawlessness
requested by its temperament. Moral goodness comprises in man's acting as per his
inclination, with a view to achieving his last end (joy), which is indistinguishable with
the flawlessness of his being. For Saint Thomas, accordingly, ethical quality has a
magical establishment, and it joins man with God, giving him an offer in the heavenly
goodness and flawlessness.

Ockham, then again, separates the security amongst transcendentalism and morals and
bases ethical quality not upon the flawlessness of human instinct (whose reality he
denies), nor upon the teleological connection amongst man and God, however upon
man's commitment to take after the laws openly set down for him by God.

2. Ockhams Ethical Theory

William of Ockham introduces his moral hypothesis not methodically but rather in
comments and dialogs scattered all through his compositions, a reality that has
darkened the structure of his perspectives. He worked inside a convention of good
rationality that took the essential standardizing standards to be given in the Bible and
the reasonable devices of good hypothesis to be given by Aristotle; with these
materials he set forward a unique, capable, and unpretentious hypothesis. Ockham
holds the rightness or misleading quality of a demonstration to depend not on any
component or normal for the demonstration itself or its results however on the
operator's aims and character (explained in Ockham's hypothesis of the will and of the
ethics individually). The decency or disagreeableness of the specialist's will, thusly,
relies upon its adjustment to the directs of right reason in the main stage and to God's
will in the last stage.

3. Ockham on Faith and Reason

Investigative rationalists represent considerable authority in medieval logic have

tended to concentrate on those parts of Catholic medieval imagined that appear to be
important to inquire about projects as of now solidly settled inside the standard of
contemporary scholarly logic. Thusly they have endeavored to persuade different
logicians that the Catholic medieval masterminds, in spite of their religious
presuppositions, have something helpful to add to current talks. The inclination being
referred to has been particularly articulated on account of William of Ockham since
he is getting it done while doing metaphysics and philosophical semantics, two ranges
that have figured noticeably in late explanatory logic and that appear to be securely
expelled from unmistakably Catholic convictions.

4. Some Aspects of Ockhams Logic

Medieval rationale starts for most purposes with crafted by Boethius, who endeavored
a Latin rendering of the standard late-antique Greek rationale course. As the Boethian
treatises was all the more generally examined in the ninth and tenth hundreds of years,
an indigenous Latin custom in rationale built up that achieved its apex amid the
twelfth century in crafted by figures like Peter Abelard. It was inside this indigenous
convention that the real advancements in the medieval hypothesis of surmising
occurred and that the establishments of later pictures of significance were laid. As
crafted by the Byzantine grammarian Priscian wound up noticeably known in Western
Europe, the syntactic and semantic hypothesis exemplified in it melded with the
indigenous custom. The subsequent picture was then changed by a surge of new
interpretations of writings of Aristotle, of Greek discourses, and of Islamic analyses
and treatises. The thirteenth and fourteenth hundreds of years saw the processing of
this material and its coordination into the effectively existing convention. A few
results of this were new speculations of the semantic properties of terms (counting
hypotheses of the investigation of sentences), the improvement of propositional
rationale pretty much as we probably am aware it today, the working out of the
hypothesis of the clear cut syllogism (counting its modular expansions), the
blossoming of modular rationale for the most part, and the advancement of a general
hypothesis of deduction. By the mid-fourteenth century these improvements were
pretty much total. William Ockham is one of the best of the figures who finished
them. He is in some ways a particular philosopher, however his significance can
barely be overestimated.

5. The logic of the trinity: Augustine to Ockham

This philosophical investigation peels back the surface of medieval records of the
teaching of the Trinity to uncover the dynamism and assortment of medieval idea, as
it carried Aristotelian rationale into inventive engagement with the regulation's
ontological cases. Progressive parts treat Augustine, Boethius, Abelard, Gilbert of
Poitiers, Peter Lombard, Bonaventure, Albert, Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham,
however simply in the wake of helping us to remember the requirement for accuracy
in the utilization of relational words (and the principles of operahon for legitimate
sequencing that these undergird) and additionally the formal definitions suggested by
the transaction of such terms as "universals," "mischances," "substances," and
"people." Thom's own particular diagnostic system gives a supportive purpose of
correlation all through.
1. Biography

William of Ockham (c. 12871347) is, along with Thomas Aquinas and John Duns
Scotus, among the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy during the
High Middle Ages. He is probably best known today for his espousal of metaphysical
nominalism; indeed, the methodological principle known as Ockham's Razor is
named after him. But Ockham held important, often influential views not only in
metaphysics but also in all other major areas of medieval philosophylogic, physics
or natural philosophy, theory of knowledge, ethics, and political philosophyas well
as in theology.

William of Ockham was born in Ockham, Surrey in 1285 and joined

the Franciscan order at an early age. It is believed that he studied theology at
the University of Oxford from 1309 to 1321, but while he completed all the
requirements for a master's degree in theology he was never made regent
master. Because of this, he acquired the honorific title Venerabilis Inceptor, or
"Venerable Beginner".

During the Middle Ages, theologian Peter Lombard's Sentences had become a
standard work of theology, and many ambitious theological scholars wrote
commentaries on it. William of Ockham was among these scholarly commentators.
However, Ockham's commentary was not well received by his colleagues, or by the
Church authorities. In 1324, his commentary was condemned as unorthodox by
a synod of bishop, and he was ordered to Avignon, France, to defend himself before
a papal court.

2. Ockham on Logic and Semantics

Ockham is rightly regarded as one of the most significant logicians of the Middle
Ages. Nevertheless, his originality and influence should not be exaggerated. For all
his deserved reputation, his logical views are sometimes derivative and occasionally
very idiosyncratic.

Logic, for Ockham, is crucial to the advancement of knowledge. In the "Prefatory

Letter" to his Summa of Logic, for example, he praises it in striking language:
For logic is the most useful tool of all the arts. Without it no science can be fully
known. It is not worn out by repeated use, after the manner of material tools, but
rather admits of continual growth through the diligent exercise of any other science.
For just as a mechanic who lacks a complete knowledge of his tool gains a fuller by
using it, so one who is educated in the firm principles of logic, while he painstakingly
devotes his labor to the other sciences, acquires at the same time a greater skill at this
art.
Ockham's main logical writings consist of a series of commentaries on Aristotle's and
Porphyry's own logical works, plus his own Summa of Logic, his major work in the
field. His Treatise on Predestination contains an influential theory on the logic of
future contingent propositions, and other works as well include occasional discussions
of logical topics, notably his Quodlibets.

3. Metaphysics &Theory of Knowledge

3.1 Metaphysics

Ockham was a nominalist, indeed he is the person whose name is perhaps most
famously associated with nominalism. But nominalism means many different things:

A denial of metaphysical universals. Ockham was emphatically a nominalist

in this sense.

An emphasis on reducing one's ontology to a bare minimum, on paring down

the supply of fundamental ontological categories. Ockham was likewise a
nominalist in this sense.

A denial of abstract entities. Depending on what one means, Ockham was or

was not a nominalist in this sense. He believed in abstractions such
as whiteness and humanity, for instance, although he did not believe they were
universals. He certainly believed in immaterial entities such as God and
angels. He did not believe in mathematical entities of any kind.

The first two kinds of nominalism listed above are independent of one another.
Historically, there have been philosophers who denied metaphysical universals, but
allowed entities in more ontological categories than Ockham does. Conversely, one
might reduce the number of ontological categories, and yet hold that universal entities
are needed in the categories that remain.

3.2 Theory of knowledge:

1. The Rejection of Species: Ockham's theory of knowledge, like his natural
philosophy, is broadly Aristotelian in form, althoughagain, like his natural
philosophyit is Aristotelian in its own way. For most Aristotelians of the
day, knowledge involved the transmission of a species[39] between the object
and the mind. At the sensory level, this species may be compared to the more
recent notion of a sense impression. More generally, we can think of it as
the structure or configuration of the object, a structure or configuration that
can be encoded in different ways and found isomorphic ally in a variety of
contexts.
2. Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition: One of the more intriguing features of
late medieval epistemology in general, and of Ockham's view in particular, is
the development of a theory known as intuitive and abstractive cognition.
The theory is found in authors as diverse as Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol, Walter
Chatton, and Ockham. But their theories of intuitive and abstractive cognition
are so different that it is hard to see any one thing they are all supposed to be
theories of. Nevertheless, to a first approximation, intuitive cognition can be
thought of as perception, whereas abstractive cognition is closer to
imagination or remembering. The fit is not exact, however, since authors who
had a theory of intuitive and abstractive cognition usually also allowed the
distinction at the intellectual level as well.

4. Ethics & Political Phlosophy

4.1 Ethics
Ockham's ethics combines a number of themes. For one, it is a will-based ethics in
which intentions count for everything and external behavior or actions count for
nothing. In themselves, all actions are morally neutral.
Again, there is a strong dose of divine command theory in Ockham's ethics. Certain
things (i.e., in light of the previous point, certain intentions) becomes morally
obligatory, permitted or forbidden simply because God decrees so. Thus, in Exodus,
the Israelites' spoiling the Egyptians (or rather their intention to do so, which they
carried out) was not a matter of theft or plunder, but was morally permissible and
indeed obligatorybecause God had commanded it.

Nevertheless, despite the divine command themes in Ockham's ethics, it is also clear
that he wanted morality to be to some extent a matter of reason. There is even a sense
in which one can find a kind of natural law theory in Ockham's ethics; one way in
which God conveys his divine commands to us is by giving us the natures we
have.[47] Unlike Augustine, Ockham accepted the possibility of the virtuous pagan;
moral virtue for Ockham does not depend on having access to revelation.

4.2 Political Philosophy

The divine command themes so prominent in Ockham's ethics are much more muted
in his political theory, which on the contrary tends to be far more natural and
secular. As sketched above, Ockham's political writings began at Avignon with a
discussion of the issue of poverty. But later on the issues were generalized to include
church/state relations more broadly. 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.

The Franciscan Order at this time was divided into two parties, which came to be
known as the Conventuals and the Spirituals (or zealots). The Spirituals, among
whom were Ockham, Michael of Cesena, and the other exiles who joined them in
fleeing Avignon, tried to preserve the original ideal of austere poverty practiced and
advocated by St. Francis himself (c. 11811226). The Conventuals, on the other hand,
while recognizing this ideal, were prepared to compromise in order to accommodate
the practical needs of a large, organized religious order; they were by far the majority
of the order. The issue between the two parties was never one of doctrine; neither side
accused the other of heresy. Rather, the question was one of how to shape and run the
orderin particular, whether the Franciscans should (or even could) renounce all
property rights.
5. Conclusion

For Ockham, there are two kinds of definitions: real definitions

and nominal definitions. A real definition is somehow supposed to reveal the essential
metaphysical structure of what it defines; nominal definitions do not do that. As
Ockham sets it up, all connotative terms have nominal definitions, never real
definitions, and absolute terms have real definitions, never nominal definitions.

As an example of a real definition, consider: Man is a rational animal or Man is a

substance composed of a body and an intellective soul. Each of these traditional
definitions is correct, and each in its own way expresses the essential metaphysical
structure of a human being. But notice: the two definitions do not signify exactly the
same things. The first one makes us think of all rational things plus all animal. The
second definition makes us think of, among other things, all substances, whereas the
first one does not. It follows therefore that an absolute term can have several distinct
real definitions that don't always signify exactly the same things. They
will primarily signifybe truly predicable ofexactly the same things, since they
will primarily signify just what the term they define primarily signifies. But they can
also signify other things as well.