The Philosophy of William of Ockham

In this lesson from a TEACHER, we will briefly tell you, the philosophy of William of Ockham, (1295-1349), was born in the county of Ockham, south of London, and at a very young age he entered the Franciscan order. In the year 1323, in Avignon, he is accused of heresy, he flees and takes refuge in Bavaria, under the protection of Emperor Louis II. From this moment he begins to write political works. Do you want to know more about the life of this brilliant thinker? Well then, continue reading this lesson on William of Okcham and his contribution to philosophical thought.

William of Ockham breaks with scholastic philosophy and with the medieval idea of ​​the existence of a dependent relationship between reason and faith. He gives a complete turn to the thought of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, relegating theology to the realm of revelation and eliminating their competence in all questions other than faith. It is impossible to demonstrate, from the realm of reason, the existence of God, so let philosophy take care of its own, knowledge.

Ockham he is an empiricist that defends that the only source of knowledge is the sensible experience, and the intuitive method like way to arrive at the truth. Thus, he denies the existence of the universals. They are nothing more than names of things, opening the way to modern empiricism.

To better understand the philosophy of Guillermo de Ockham, below we are going to analyze the basic principles on which his thought hangs. They are as follows:

1. Principle of parsimony or principle of economy

The Principle of parsimony is, without a doubt, its best known principle and its most relevant contribution, both to biology, theology, linguistics, economics, statistics, music, medicine, or physics, and is known as the "Ockham's razor". According to this principle with extraordinary implications in the scientific field, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is almost always the correct one. That is, notcauses must be multiplied unnecessarilyTherefore, there is no need to multiply the entities.

In this way, Ockham eliminates everything that cannot be known empirically, from experience, by intuition, that is, everything superfluous and unnecessary to explain the world. Scholasticism had dedicated itself to multiplying entities unnecessarily, as Plato had done, thus hindering the development of science.

2. Nominalist principle

Ockham's nominalism is radical, stating that universals are just the names of things. The only thing that exists is the singular, the concrete, the particular, there is no need to postulate the need. There is no universal essence common to all individuals of the same species, but universal concepts or names that serve to designate things that share common characteristics.

3. Empiricist principle

We can say that Ockham is the father of modern empiricism, who understands that only particular things can be known, sensible objects, the singular, and can only be known empirically, through experience, that is, by intuitive, direct and immediate knowledge of reality, that is, of particular things.

4. Voluntary principle

Break away from the relationship dependence between reason and faith, and with the idea of ​​necessity. The world is contingent and it is so, by the will of God, but if it had wanted, it could have been otherwise, because God is omnipotent. This means that there are no a priori principles that govern the order of the world. We see, then, that Ockham disempowers reason, to defend the primacy of faith. The modern era begins.

His criticism of Plato Y Aristotle, that is to say, to all scholastic philosophy, it puts an end to the history of medieval thought and opens the way to modern philosophy. Thus, Ockham rejects all traditional metaphysics, thus denying the existence of universals, which expands the field of knowledge and ethics.

It is impossible to prove the existence of God and the soul by means of human reason, what is limited, since it is only possible to know from experience, breaking once and for all, the relationship of dependence between reason and faith. Likewise, there is no universal ethic founded on the principles of reason, but the only foundation of morality is the will of God.