Occam, or Ockham, William of, an English monk and scholastic philosopher of the 14th century, was a native of Ockham, in Surrey. He entered the Franciscan Order; was sent to study at Paris under the celebrated Duns Scotus; became a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and a renowned teacher of the Scholastic philosophy. He was the greatest dialectician of his age, and obtained the name of “the Invincible Doctor.” He asserted without reserve the rights of temporal sovereigns against the papal claims, and denied to the Pope any authority in secular affairs. He wrote against Pope John XXII., whom he treated as a heretic, and supported the anti-pope, Nicholas V., set up by the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. In the quarrel between the pope and the Franciscans, William of Ockham was the assertor of absolute poverty. His famous “Defence of Poverty” was condemned by the Pope, and he, with others, was arrested. But he escaped and took refuge at the Imperial Court. He was soon after excommunicated, and he died, at Munich, in 1347…. Among his most celebrated works are the “Disputatio super Potestate Ecclesiastica,” the “Defence of Poverty,” and the “Summa totius Logicæ.” It is said that Luther had the works of Ockham at his fingers’ ends, and that he was the only schoolman in his library whom he esteemed.
Our Ockham, flushed with success against John Scotus, undertook another John, of higher Power and Place, even Pope John the three-and-twentieth, (?) and gave a mortal wound to his Temporal Power over Princes. He got a good Guardian, viz. Lewis of Bavaria the Emperor, whose Court was his Sanctuary, so that we may call him a School-man-Courtier. But he was excommunicated by the Pope, and the Masters of Paris condemned him for a Heretick, and burnt his Books. This, I conceive, was the cause why Luther was so vers’d in his Works, which he had at his fingers’ ends, being the sole Schoolman in his Library whom he esteemed. However, at last the Pope took Wit in his Anger, finding it no policy to enrage so sharp a Pen; and though I find no Recantation or publick Submission of Ockham, yet he was restored to his state, and the repute of an acute School-man.
He did but sketch the principles of a philosophy afterwards completed; but his labours sufficed to withdraw the attention of his followers from the all-engrossing question of the principle of Individuality, and directed them rather to the acquirement of fresh knowledge.
Perhaps the hardest and severest intellectualist of all; a political fanatic, not like his visionary brethern, who brooded over the Apocalypse and their own prophets, but for the Imperial against the Papal Sovereignty…. In philosophy as intrepid and as revolutionary as in his political writings. He is a consummate schoolman in his mastery, as in his use of logic; a man who wears the armour of his age, engages in the spirit of his age, in the controversies of his age; but his philosophy is that of centuries later.
That Occam has exercised a great influence on Philosophy in the large sense of that word, cannot, we think, be doubted. Though he never meddled with physical studies, as such, he did much to break those logical fetters by which Physics as much as Theology, were bound. His Nominalism was the assertion that a science exists purely for Names; it was therefore a step towards the separation of Real sciences from this. Occam perceived that Theology had a real invisible object, not to be enslaved by men’s theories and conceptions. With a Roger Bacon at Oxford,—with all the new experience of Nature which the coming centuries were to bring forth,—how certain it was that in due time some method would be discovered of examining visible objects, as they are in themselves, not as we make them by the impressions of our senses, or the conclusions of our intellects. Englishmen have a right to claim Occam as one of the instruments in this mighty scientific revolution, which it was the especial privilege of her sons to accomplish.
No Schoolman since Abelard had devoted himself to the study of logic with such fondness as William.
Refused to logic the exalted station which his master Duns Scotus had claimed for it. But by excluding from the field of discussion the chief dogmas of theology, as beyond the province of reason, and thus, with the English prudence and common sense which marks him as a forerunner of Bacon and Locke, avoiding the aërial heights of metaphysics, he was enabled to study logic more thoroughly at the lower level to which he had brought it.
Occam’s influence was felt by Wyclif, and affected strongly the Gallican leaders in the reforming councils. It extended still later. His principles, and those of his disciples, were the maxims on which the resistance of Protestant princes to the authority of Rome was, to a considerable extent, based. Luther was a student of Occam, praises him as the most ingenious of the schoolmen, and derived from him his conception of the Lord’s Supper—a conception suggested by Occam as a reasonable view, yet as one that furnishes an instance of the possible inconsistency of faith and reason. Notwithstanding the revolutionary influence that went forth from Occam, he was a conscientious and orthodox believer in the dogmas of the Church. His whole method of discussion is scholastic, and, in theology, he added a third school, that of the Occamists, to the previously existing parties, the Thomists and the Scotists.
He was indeed strongest on the critical or negative side; and while he denied the “plenitudo potestatis” claimed for the papacy, he was not altogether disposed to place the emperor above the pope, nor was he happy in invoking, as was required by the controversy, the ultimate resort of a general council, even though formed alike of clergy and laymen, men and women. The infirmity of reason was with him the counterpart to the strength of the logician. He could criticise with freedom, but had scruples in reconstructing. He furnished invaluable weapons to those after him who opposed the authority of the pope, and even helped Luther in the elaboration of his doctrine concerning the sacrament; but his most enduring monument is found in the logical tradition which he established in the university of Paris.
