William Of Ockham Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

William of Ockham (c. 1285 to c.1347) was a Franciscan friar and philosopher. He was born in the southern English town of Ockham, entered the Franciscan order, and later was educated at Oxford University, although he never received his theology degree. His early career yielded several significant philosophical works, including commentaries on Peter Lombard’s Sentences (1318) and Aristotle’s Physics (1322–1324), several theological treatises, and a major work on logic, Summa Logicae (c. 1323).

The effects of Ockham’s philosophical writings on political science are important but indirect, principally because his works are not fully understood or, until recently, were not widely accessible. The term Ockham’s razor, nonetheless, has remained a conventional reference to the principle of parsimonious theoretical construction reflecting Ockham’s work on logic, which advocates against the inclusion of unnecessary assumptions or explanatory components. Ockham’s novel philosophical arguments against the real existence and essence of universals, his consistent recognition only of particulars, and his emphasis on the autonomy of voluntaristic will ordered by reason and the common good are reflected in modernist commitments to the ideas of methodological individualism, personal liberty, and coercive minimalism. At the same time, Ockham’s metaphysics of particulars and his philosophic-theistic understanding of radical ontological contingency stand in stark contrast to the generalizing intentions and methodologies of modern political and social science. Regularly yet debatably referred to as a nominalist, Ockham argued that human knowledge was based on direct empirical experience of particulars and their attributes, and that observed generalities or group similarities are mental conceptualizations only. In addition, his philosophical deconstruction of public authority opens a pathway for the idea of individual rights, which for Ockham, however, are never divorced from their divine origin, or the individual’s responsibilities to the common good and moral accountability.

In 1323 Ockham was summoned to Avignon, France, to defend his theological writings before the papal court of Pope John XXII. The inquiry lasted for several years without any apparent resolution. While in Avignon, Ockham became involved in a controversy concerning recent papal pronouncements against Franciscan practices and views of poverty, a still radical Christian perspective against the right of private property. Ockham rejected the papal arguments as inconsistent with scriptural and previous papal teachings. In 1328 Ockham left Avignon with several Franciscans, including the order’s superior general, Michael of Cesena; the specific conditions prompting this departure remain unclear. Ockham and the others were excommunicated for their departure, and they accepted the protection of King Ludwig of Bavaria, who was involved in his own controversy with the pope and others over his disputed 1314 election to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire and his military occupation of Rome in 1328. Ludwig also protected Marsilius of Padua, author of Defensor pacis and a vigorous proponent of conciliar over papal authorization of imperial power. Ockham remained under Ludwig’s protection for the next twenty years, and his subsequent writings focused almost exclusively on political topics, although they continued to reflect his prior philosophical and theological commitments. In his Work of Ninety Days (c. 1332–1334) and a letter to the Franciscan Order at Assisi (1334), Ockham defended the Franciscan perspective on poverty and systematically identified the errors of the pope’s arguments. Over the next thirteen years, he wrote additional treatises and the massive but unfinished Dialogus in which he concluded that Pope John XXII and his successors heretically promoted false doctrines, thus disqualifying themselves from the office. Ockham argued for consequentialist ethics for public authorities and a separation and limitation of both papal and secular powers. However, he was not antipapist and he clearly rejected the practice of conciliar and theological majoritarianism, as well as the idea of representation employed by Marsilius of Padua.

Bibliography:

Kilcullen, John. “The Political Writings.” In The Cambridge Companion to Ockham, edited by Paul Vincent Spade, 302–325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Lagarde, Georges de. “L’idee de representation dans les oeuvres de Guillaume d’Ockham,” Bulletin of the International Committee for Historical Sciences 9 (1937): 425–451.
McCord, Marilyn. William Ockham. 2 vols. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987.
McGrade, Arthur Stephen. The Political Thought of William of Ockham: Personal and Institutional Principles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
Shogimen,Takashi. Ockham and Political Discourse in the Late Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
William of Ockham. A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government. Edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade, translated by John Kilcullen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
On the Power of Emperors and Popes. Edited and translated by Annabel S. Brett. Bristol, U.K.:Thoemmes, 1998.

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