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Thinker profile

William of Ockham

Questions real universals and limits metaphysical necessity through a sharper appeal to divine freedom.

Dates

c. 1287-1347

Tradition

Nominalist Scholastic

Core profile

Questions real universals and limits metaphysical necessity through a sharper appeal to divine freedom.

Concepts to watch

Nominalismuniversalsdivine freedom

How to study this thinker

  1. 1Start with the basic problem this thinker is trying to solve.
  2. 2Name the concepts Aquinas receives, corrects, or resists.
  3. 3Return to Aquinas and ask how the borrowed insight is reordered.

Aquinas connection

Later challenge

Nominalism challenges Thomistic realism about natures, forms, and stable intelligible order.

Possible Thomistic defense

Thomists defend moderate realism: universal concepts are in the mind, but they are grounded in real common natures found in things.

Adjacent profiles

Previous thinkerJohn Duns ScotusArgues for univocity of being, formal distinction, and a strong account of divine and human will.Next thinkerRene DescartesBegins from methodic doubt and treats mind and body through a sharply dualist framework.