In June 1318 Ockham was granted a licence to hear confessions and by 1320 he completed study for his bachelor's degree. The text was used as a framework for students to develop their own original positions and to debate with their teachers and fellow students. It was required that every student working for a higher degree in theology would lecture and comment on the Book of Sentences which is what Ockham did at Oxford in 1317- 1319. Peter Lombard, a conservative theologian, wrote the text as a reaction against some who at the time were applying Aristotle's logic to theology. Peter was a 12 th century Italian theologian who had written the work to state clearly the position found in the Scriptures and that of the Church fathers on Christian doctrine. He was then sent to Oxford to study for a theological degree.Īt Oxford Ockham lectured on the Book of Sentences of Peter Lombard. There is no direct evidence to support which of these alternatives Ockham followed but it must have one of them. After this some students were sent to Paris for further training, the rest taught at a convent. We do know that he was ordained a subdeacon by the archbishop of Canterbury in Southwark, London, in 1306 which certainly supports him being trained in London. His education was in a Franciscan convent and it was almost certainly the London convent since it acted as the educational centre for the area in which he lived. Nothing is known of his parents or his early life before he entered the Franciscan order at the age of fourteen. He is also known as the "More than Subtle Doctor" or the "Venerable Inceptor". He remains a seminal thinker: his denial of common essences, his emphasis on language in philosophical discourse, all anticipate significant developments in modern philosophy.Biography William of Ockham's name is sometimes written William Occam. Ockham takes his place among the great philosophers because, like them, he drew out all the implications of his insight. Indeed, an individual thing can no longer be said to have an essence it is an essence. A being is radically diverse and incommunicable, differing from every other being not only in number but in essence. The concept of being is univocal, standing for and signifying individuals. With Ockham the traditional conjugations of being come to signify the thing itself in its ineluctable unity. The original and focal point of Ockham's thought is the singular or individual thing (res singularis), as common nature (natura communis) is the central conception of Scotism, and the act of existing (esse) is of Thomism. Martin Heidegger once declared, 'Every thinker thinks but one single thought'. Over and again he sets each principle to powerful use, but allows no single one ot dominate, or to yield all its consequences. Yet it is precisely in confrontation with the views of his predecessors and contemporaries such as Scotus, Henry of Gent, Aquinas and Chatton that the particular force and character of his thought are revealed. These principles are not unique to Ockham but were common to all the scholastics. Many of his conclusions on matters as diverse as God's knowledge, will and power, on creation and the causality of natural things, and on human intuition and morality are reducible to them. The principles of the divine omnipotence and the rule of parsimony of thought known as 'Ockham's razor', and others like the principle of non-contradiction, help to shape the entire range of his thought. Every philosophy is sustained by a number of elemental principles that give it cohesion and unity.
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