Philosopher · Medieval
William of Ockham
c. 1287–1347 · Nominalism (via moderna)
Excommunicated by John XXII (1328) after fleeing Avignon to the court of Louis of Bavaria; died unreconciled, though a formula of submission was drafted. Fifty-one propositions were censured by the Avignon commission (1326) without formal papal condemnation.
English Franciscan and logician, Ockham denied that universals exist in things: only individuals are real, and general terms are signs in the mind. He applied his “razor” against the apparatus of forms and species, held that the moral law rests on God's absolute will (so that God could command hatred of Himself), and in the poverty dispute wrote against papal power in temporal matters and in favor of imperial independence.
Why he matters: He is the hinge of the late medieval turn. Nominalism dissolved the realist foundation of natural law and sacramental theology, shaped Luther's teachers, and prepared the modern divorce of will from reason; yet his logic is brilliant and his defense of the Franciscan ideal sincere.
Where to be careful
His excommunication was for disobedience in the poverty dispute, not formally for his philosophy; but the Church has consistently warned against the nominalist and voluntarist positions he made famous (Aeterni Patris; Veritatis Splendor 35–53; Benedict XVI at Regensburg).
Reading
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Philosophical Writings: A SelectionWilliam of Ockham (ed. Philotheus Boehner) · The standard anthology; the universals texts are chs. 1–6.
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A Short Discourse on Tyrannical GovernmentWilliam of Ockham (ed. A. S. McGrade) · His political theory against papal plenitude of power.
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The Sources of Christian EthicsServais Pinckaers, OP · Chapter 10 on what Ockham did to moral theology.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.