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William of Ockham eophil_W 10/28/05 3:37 PM Page 770 WILLIAM OF OCKHAM John Philoponus, and of the Elementatio Theologica and Ockham’s lectures on the Sentences made a profound other works of the Neoplatonist Proclus, the figure of the impression on the students of theology at Oxford, but his historical Aristotle stood out much more clearly than new way of treating philosophical and theological ques- before, and Western thinkers were enabled to distinguish tions aroused strong opposition by many members of the more precisely between the Platonic and Aristotelian theological faculty. Normally the completion of his lec- approaches to philosophy. William’s translation of Pro- tures on the Sentences, which gave Ockham the status of clus was especially important in this connection, showing a baccalaureus formatus or inceptor, would have been fol- as it did that the influential Liber de Causis, far from being lowed by award to him of a teaching chair in theology. a genuine work of Aristotle, was in fact derived from Pro- The granting of his teaching license was prevented by the clus’s Elementatio Theologica. chancellor of the university, John Lutterell, who in 1323 Through his translation of Proclus William also went to the papal court at Avignon to present charges influenced the development of medieval Neoplatonism. against Ockham of having upheld dangerous and hereti- The works that he translated gave a fresh stimulus to the cal doctrines. Because Ockham’s academic career was Neoplatonic school formed by Ulrich of Strasbourg and thus interrupted while he was an inceptor awaiting award other disciples of Albert the Great and through that of the teaching license, he came to be known as “the ven- school helped to shape the mystical doctrine of Meister erable inceptor”—a title later misconstrued as meaning Eckhart. “founder of nominalism” (inceptor scholae nominalium). Ockham was summoned to Avignon in 1324 to See also Albert the Great; Alexander of Aphrodisias; Aris- answer the charges against him, and he remained there totelianism; Aristotle; Eckhart, Meister; Liber de Cau- four years, awaiting the outcome. A commission of the- sis; Medieval Philosophy; Neoplatonism; Philoponus, ologians appointed by Pope John XXII to examine Ock- John; Proclus; Simplicius; Themistius; Thomas ham’s writings submitted two lists of suspect doctrines in Aquinas, St.; Ulrich (Engelbert) of Strasbourg. 1326, but there is no evidence of any final action having been taken on the charges that, in any case, were relatively Bibliography mild. Despite the lack of a teaching chair, Ockham was See Martin Grabmann, Guglielmo di Moerbeke, O.P., il extremely active during these years in developing his the- traduttore delle opere di Aristotele (Rome: Gregorianum, ological and philosophical positions, writing treatises and 1946). commentaries on logic and physics, a variety of treatises Eugene R. Fairweather (1967) on theological questions, and an important series of quodlibetal questions that, presumably, he debated orally at Oxford or at Avignon. william of ockham In 1327, while at Avignon, Ockham became involved in the dispute then raging over the question of apostolic (c. 1285–1349) poverty, in which the general of the Franciscan order, William of Ockham, the most influential philosopher of Michael of Cesena, took a position opposed by the pope. the fourteenth century, apparently was born sometime Asked to study the question, Ockham found that a previ- between 1280 and 1290 at the village of Ockham, in Sur- ous pope, Nicholas III, had made a pronouncement that rey, near London. Entering the Franciscan order at an fully supported the position of Cesena and of the major- early age, he commenced his course of theological study ity of the Franciscans. When this controversy reached a at Oxford in 1309 or 1310, and completed the require- critical stage in 1328, and it became evident that John ments for the degree of master of theology with the deliv- XXII was about to issue an official condemnation of the ery of his lectures on Peter Lombard’s Book of Sentences in position held by the Franciscans, Cesena and Ockham, 1318–1319, or, at the latest, 1319–1320. Although an old along with two other leaders of the Franciscan opposi- tradition indicated that he studied under John Duns Sco- tion, fled from Avignon and sought the protection of tus, it seems unlikely that he did so, since Duns Scotus left Emperor Louis of Bavaria, who had repudiated the Oxford at the beginning of the century and died in 1308. authority of the Avignon papacy in connection with the Ockham’s writings show intimate familiarity with the issue of succession to the imperial crown. Immediately teachings of Duns Scotus, but this is explained by the after their flight from Avignon, Ockham and his compan- dominant position Duns Scotus had acquired at Oxford, ions were excommunicated by the pope for their refusal particularly within the Franciscan order. to submit to his authority. ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY 770 • 2nd edition eophil_W 10/28/05 3:37 PM Page 771 WILLIAM OF OCKHAM Under the emperor’s protection Ockham took up several editions, beginning in 1495. In manuscript form residence in Munich and devoted his full energies to writ- only there is a work titled Quaestiones Super Libros Physi- ing a series of treatises on the issue of papal power and corum, which was probably one of his later writings; it civil sovereignty, in which he held that John XXII had for- covers, in the form of disputed questions, most of the feited his right to the papal office by reason of heresy. topics treated in his earlier literal commentary on the When John XXII died in 1334, Ockham continued his Physics but reflects some changes in his views that polemic against the succeeding Avignon popes until 1347, occurred after the earlier work had been written. Two when Louis of Bavaria died and the antipapal position short compendia of logic, each extant only in a single became a lost cause. There is evidence that Ockham at manuscript version, are believed to be authentic works of that time sought reconciliation with the papal authority Ockham, but they add nothing significant to the doc- and with the rest of his own order, but the outcome is trines of his Summa Logicae. unknown. It is believed that he died in 1349, a victim of Of Ockham’s theological writings the lectures on the the Black Plague that, in the middle of the fourteenth first book of the Sentences, known as the Ordinatio century, took the lives of most of the intellectual leaders because Ockham revised and edited them for circulation, of northern Europe and played a major part in bringing about the cultural decline that lasted for more than a cen- are of primary importance. Printed at Lyons in 1495, tury. along with Ockham’s lectures on the other three books of the Sentences, they are called the Reportatio because the writings text is derived from stenographic versions of the lectures as they were delivered. A modern critical edition of both Ockham’s writings fall into two distinct groups associated parts of these lectures on the Sentences is very much with the two different periods of his career. All of the needed. Of comparable importance for the understand- political and polemical treatises directed against the Avi- ing of Ockham’s philosophical and theological doctrines gnon papacy were written during his residence in are the quodlibetal questions, printed at Paris in 1487 and Munich, between 1333 and 1347. Of these treatises many again at Strasbourg in 1491 under the title Quodlibeta are solely of historical interest; but the lengthy Dialogus Septem. Three other certainly authentic theological trea- Inter Magistrum et Discipulum, written between 1334 and tises, composed during the Oxford-Avignon period, are 1338, the Octo Quaestiones Super Potestate ac Dignitate the Tractatus de Corpore Christi and Tractatus de Sacra- Papali, written in 1340, and the Tractatus de Imperatorum mento Altaris, which have been regularly printed together et Pontificum Potestate, composed around 1347, present under the second of these titles, and the Tractatus de Ockham’s philosophy of church and state and convey his Praedestinatione et de Praescientia Dei et de Futuris Con- deep-rooted convictions concerning the religious mission tingentibus, of which a modern edition, edited by of the church. Philotheus Boehner, was published in 1945. The 1495 The nonpolitical writings that embody Ockham’s Lyons edition of Ockham’s theological works includes distinctive contributions to philosophy and theology Centiloquium Theologicum, whose authenticity has been were probably all written while he was at Oxford and at questioned by many scholars but without decisive evi- Avignon, between 1317 and 1328. The earliest of these dence. In describing the philosophical doctrines of Ock- include the lectures on the Sentences, a lengthy exposition ham, use will be made chiefly of the Commentary on the of Aristotle’s Physics extant only in manuscript form, and Sentences, the Summa Logicae, and the Quodlibeta literal commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge and on Aris- Septem. totle’s Categoriae, De Interpretatione, and De Sophisticis Elenchis; the first three of the commentaries were pub- character of ockham’s lished at Bologna in 1496 under the title Expositio Aurea philosophy … Super Artem Veterem (Golden Exposition … of the Ancient Art). Ockham’s most important work on logic, Ockham’s major contributions to the development of late completed before he left Avignon, was a systematic trea- medieval and early modern philosophy were in the areas tise titled Summa Logicae, extant in several printed edi- of epistemology, logic, and metaphysics. His approach to tions. An incomplete Summulae in Libros Physicorum these problems and his concern with them were those of (also given the title Philosophia Naturalis) contains an a scholastic theologian, as had been the case with Thomas independent treatment of the subjects dealt with in the Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and other leading scholastic first four books of Aristotle’s Physics, and was printed in thinkers of the thirteenth century.
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