Guillaume d' Occam (v. 1285 - April 9th 1347), known as the “invincible doctor” and the “worthy initiator”, was a Franciscain Philosophe logician and Théologie N Scolastique English, considered as most eminent representing nominalist school , principal competitor of the schools thomist and scotist. Its doctrines were condemned because it led to the vulgarizing of the Holy Trinity.

Life and work

Until 1324

Guillaume d' Occam made of brilliant studies to the university convent of Oxford, then with Paris. As opposed to what affirmed Trithème, it does not seem that he was the pupil of Duns Scot (E. Aman). He teaches a few years with Oxford. Occam should have become doctor (studies crowned by the inceptio ), but having begun its studies about 1315, the papal convocation probably prevented some. This probably explains its nickname of venerabilis inceptor . In 1324, following the denunciation of John Lutterel, chancellor of the University, it is shown of Hérésie because of its positions radical metaphysics. It is convened to be explained to Avignon, where seat the pope Jean XXII. It should be noted that 1324 are also the year of revolt of Michel de Césène against papacy.

1324-1328: in Avignon

Occam lives in semi-freedom, in a convent of its Kind. “One includes/understands impatiences, rancours of the young monk, conscious of his value and decree in his career” (E. Aman, p. 869). This period is marked by the opposition of the pope to Franciscains. Jean XXII wishes that the brothers recognize being owners of the goods they have (in particular of their churches), which they cannot accept because of their wish of poverty. The most radical brothers link themselves within the current of the Spiritual ones. The quarrel of poverty begins. Occam is not really interested in this quarrel (which he believed regulated) only with the arrival of Michel de Césène in his convent of Avignon to the autumn 1327. Persuaded that the pope fell into the heresy, it joined the Spiritual ones then.

The Spirituels theses carry to debate. Some think today that they preached integral poverty for the Church as desired by Saint François d' Assise, others which they defended only the right of the monks franciscains to live out of the mode of the property. They take in any case the party of Louis of Bavaria. Occam flees with Munich in the night of August 25th, 1328. He would then have pronounced with the emperor these famous sayings: “ O imperator, defends to me gladio and ego defendam you verbo ”, “defend me by the sword, and I will defend you by the verb”.

After 1328

Louis of Bavaria proclaims the primacy of the temporal power on the spiritual power. It thus finds the formidable allied ones in the current of the Spiritual ones. The pope excommunicates Michel de Césène on April 20th, 1329. He also excommunicates Occam but the date is not certain. This last then devotes the remainder of its life to its theological work, philosophical, like with lampoons politico-monk against the pontifical authority. Guillaume d' Occam dies in 1347, perhaps of the epidemic of Black Death, but it is not proven.

Theses metaphysics and policies

One often associates Guillaume d' Occam with medieval nominalism. In fact, the term nominalism appeared only at the end of the 15th century. The franciscain philosopher and logician, as for him, are regarded as a terminist, i.e. practitioner the logic which analyzes the direction of the terms.

Guillaume d' Occam goes further than holy Thomas d' Aquin in the assertion from separation of the reason and the faith, while posing that there is no hierarchy between philosophy and theology, that the first cannot become the maidservant second, because it is not no relationship between them. Just as the Science and God do not meet, Guillaume d' Occam considers that the temporal power is of another kind that the spiritual power. He shows in his turn the pope of Avignon Jean XXII of Hérésie and to interfere itself what does not look at it for the election of the emperor of the Saint Worsens. Six centuries before a certain width the principle of the separation of the Church and the State does not start to take, Guillaume d' Occam will have been a precursor of the Laïcité and distinction of the religious field vis-a-vis the layman, to science and with crowned. In that it is placed as a continuator and regulator of the work of Marsile de Padoue

Guillaume d' Occam defends a nominalist Philosophie for which the Universals (universal and abstract concepts like humanity , animal , beauty …), are only words, conventional terms, representations of which he challenges the Réalisme , substantial reality. For him, knowledge is pressed on the sensitive and singular things, the use of the universals of the Métaphysique is necessary in semiology, but at all in ontology. The universals are simple words to make it possible the thought to constitute itself. It results from this the famous principle, known as of the razor of Occam, according to which one should not multiply the entities without need. This principle of parsimony of the thought, of the elegance of the solutions is one of the principles of the Logique and modern science and fact of Guillaume d' Occam a precursor of the Empirisme English.

Guillaume d' Occam was also interested in science. Thus, it is him which introduced, in 1323, the difference between what is called the dynamic movement (which we generate) and the kinetic movement (generated by interactions, of which collisions).

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One of the characters of the Name of the pink of Umberto Eco, the monk Franciscain Guillaume de Baskerville is, of the consent even of Eco, a wink with Guillaume d' Occam. First day, vespers: “one should not multiply the explanations and the causes without one having a strict need of it. ” (Entia not sunt multiplicanda, praeter necessitatem).

Great dates

Biography and bibliography (synthesis)

Birth (≈ 1285); studies in philosophy and theology in Oxford, the convent of the minor brothers, then at the university.

1318-9: the Comment of the Sentences (of Pierre Lombard).

1321-22: - Expositio aurea : comments of Isagogè de Porphyre and the Categories and interpretation of Aristote. - The Centiloquium theologicum .

1323: Summa totius logicae .

1321-23: Predestination, divine prescience and the future quotas (working to develop logical problems starting from the theological problems).

1323-24: Summulae in libros Physicorum (Exposure on the books of the physics of Aristote).

Arguments in Avignon (1324-28)

1324-25: the Quodlibetales (Questions about various subjects)

Escape of Avignon. Ockham is put at the service of Louis of Bavaria.

1332-33: Opus nonaginta dierum (theory subjective right).

Combat of Ockham against papacy

1333-34: Tractatus of dogmatibus papae Johannis XXII . 1334: Epistola AD fratres undervalue apud Assisium congregatos (where Ockham explains its rupture with papacy for the writings of the Holy See on the poverty of Christ). 1335: Countered Johannem XXII . 1335-37: Compendium errorum Johannis XXII . 1335-39: Defensorium countered errores Johannis XXII, papae . 1337: Tractatus ostendens quod Benedictus XII nonnullas Johannis XXII hereses amplexus is . 1338: Allegationes of potestate imperiali (written with several Masters in theology). 1338-40: Year rex Angliae pro succursu guerrae possit recipere bona Ecclesiarum .

1338-43: Dialogus inter magistrum and discipulum of imperatorum and pontificum potestate (Dialog between a Master and its disciple). The keystone of the Christian faith is freedom.

1339-40: Breviloquium of principatu tyrannico (Short treaty of the tyrannical capacity).

1339-1342: Super Potestate somni pontificis octo quaestionum decisiones

Died of Guillaume (April 9th, 1347)

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Works

• Comment of the Sentences (1317-1319): The Sentences are a book of Pierre Lombard. Book I is a ordinatio . Books II, III and IV are reportationes . The Prolog is for Ockham the occasion to expose its theory of the demonstration. Its stake is theological and scientist. By reconsidering the theory of the demonstration on the basis of its metaphysics of the singular, Ockham endeavors to determine up to what point it is possible to apply the logical demonstration in theology.
• Small sum of natural philosophy (1319-1321)
• Expositio aurea (1321-1323): Exposure on the art books logical; comments on Categories and Of interpretation of Aristote, but also of the Isagogè of Porphyry.
• Treated on predestination and the divine prescience concerning the future quotas (1321-1323): Ockham develops logical problems starting from the theological problems.
• Exposure on the sophistical refutations (1321-1323)
• Short sum of the books of physics (1322-1323)
• Summa totius logicae (1323): Summon of any logic. A major work of Guillaume d' Ockham who thus strongly influences the constitution of the modern logic. Its theory of the suppositio in particular is of an major importance in its combat against realism.
• Exposure on the physics of Aristote (1322-1324)
• Questions about physics (1323-1324)
• Quodlibets (1324-1325): These “questions about anything, any subject” nourish arguments in Avignon.
• Opus nonaginta dierum (of which the completion date of drafting is 1332, perhaps at the beginning of 1333, but nonlater). Another key work of Guillaume in which it develops his concept of right. By affirming the separation of the use in fact and the property in the fungible things, Ockham defends its religious order in conflict with the pope (quarrel of poverty). Ockham discusses and refutes the large legal texts of the pope Jean XXII (AD conditorem canonum, Cum inter, Who quorumdam). Michel Villey sees the theoretical birth there, well before the traditional age of the concept of subjective right, and thus of the human rights.
• Tractatus of dogmatibus papae Johannis XXII (1333-1334): written text after Ockham learned (January 1333) the papal positions as for the time from the beatific vision. It is divided into two treaties: 1. Exposure of the errors of the pope. 2. Refutations of the evidence pled by Johannites. This work, rather short, became later on the 2nd part of the Dialog .
• Epistola AD fratres undervalue apud Assisium congregatos (1334): Ockham explains there its rupture with the pope following his remarks on the poverty of Christ. Text of a rare violence against the heretics whose Ockham considers that the “pseudo-pope” forms part.
• Countered Johannem XXII (1334-5): following the death of Jean XXII, Ockham affirms that its retractation, on its bed of death, relative to its errors as for the time of the beatific vision was insufficient and is consequently inoperative.
• Breviloquium of principatu tyrannico (1334-1343): Bréviloque on the power of the pope, also known under the name of “Short treaty of the tyrannical capacity”. Divided into nine chapters, it is a question for Ockham of showing that it is possible to criticize papacy (1), to criticize and circonsrcire this capacity papal (2), to expose the conditions of a legitimate existence of the temporal power (3), to question the base of the capacity via a debate on the Roman empire (4), to question the base of the capacity via the religious texts (5), to question the base of the capacity by the political texts (6), to show that the Writings are in agreement with its position (8), and finally to show that any capacity subjected to the law (9).
• Compendium errorum Johannis XXII (1335-1337 or 1334-38): the two major errors of the pope are to have wanted to subject the Roman empire and to have declared the profession of poverty of the minor brothers contrary to the right.
• Defensorium countered errores Johannis XXII, papae (1335-39)
• Tractatus ostendens quod Benedictus XII nonnullas Johannis XXII hereses amplexus is (1337)
• Allegationes of potestate imperiali (1338): writing in collaboration with several Masters in theology
• Year rex Angliae pro succursu guerrae possit recipere bona Ecclesiarum (1338-1340)
• Dialogus inter magistrum and discipulum of imperatorum and pontificum potestate (1338-1343 at the latest): Dialog between a Master and his disciple. This text affirms the character liberator of the Christian faith according to a method of exposure of the various theses without taking party openly (what is astonishing on behalf of the virulent contradictor who was Ockham). Part I: 7 books relating to the papal capacity (infallibility of the pope, the council, the Church). Part II: it is in fact Of dogmatibus of ≈ 1333. Part III would have to include/understand 9 treaties. The principal thesis of the book is that while recognizing the divine origin of the capacity, Ockham refuses to see a justification with an absolute papal capacity there.
• Octo quaestiones super potestate ac dignitate papali (1339-1342)
• Tractatus of jurisdictione imperatoris in causis matrimonialibus (1342): the first marriage of Marguerite Maultasche being null, the pope does not have any authority to assess the quality of this union. Ockham deploys at the time of this text of the extremely distinct ideas on the origin and the limits of the papal capacity. This text defends that only the civil authority can rule on the marriages between blood relations. The Church is thus not omnipotent as this key institution which is the marriage.
• Tractatus of electione Caroli IV (1348): Ockham is opposed to the new emperor whom he considers pledged with the pope. It defends on this occasion an unquestionable separation of the spiritual powers and temporal.
• Tractatus of imperatorum and pontificum potestate (1348/1349): defense of a coordination of the two capacities. Text of a rare violence against the hegemonic claims of papacy.