![]() Here, in 1327, he met the chief administrative officer of the Franciscans, Michael of Cesena, who was in dispute with Pope John over the issue of property. While in Avignon, Ockham resided at the local Franciscan priory. 3 Ockham vs Pope John XXII “Nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.” However, his Ordinatio was never officially declared to be heretical. Church authorities also disapproved of his views, and in 1324 Pope John XXII summonsed Ockham to the papal court at Avignon in France to appear before a commission of six theologians there. Ockham’s opinions on this subject (known as the Ordinatio) were deemed to be insufficiently orthodox by the university theological faculty, so that he left the university without obtaining his master’s degree in theology. Indeed, in all the disputes he came to be involved in, “logic was destined to serve as his chief weapon against adversaries.” 3 Ockham on trialĪt Oxford, students were required to write a commentary on the official textbook of theology, the Sentences of Peter Lombard. His education included the study of logic, which he regarded as indispensable for evaluating all assertions. ![]() It is believed that Ockham was born in the English village of Ockham in Surrey, and that as a youngster he entered and received his early schooling at the Order of St Francis in London (the Franciscans), followed by theological studies at the University of Oxford. Rather, he was stating his belief in the overriding authority of the Word of God, while advocating the use of reason and perception in evaluating the cause of anything. ![]() But Ockham was not giving the world a 14 th-century equivalent of ‘Keep it simple, stupid’. For example, atheists like to claim their disbelief in God is superior to theism because it involves one less entity and so is simpler. Skeptics and atheists using Ockham’s razor today inevitably leave out the last bit, and in doing so they misuse the concept. He wrote (translated): “Nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.” 2 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy /ockham.It could thus well be that this principle became associated with ‘razor’ not because of its subject matter but because it was a corrective to thought-‘Ockham’s eraser’ as it were. Others point out that before erasers were in use, writing was corrected by scraping ink away with a razor. But that may be a modern-day explanation after the fact. 1 Some claim that it is called a ‘razor’ because it refers to the ‘shaving away’ of unnecessary explanations. The term ‘Ockham’s razor’ first occurred long after Ockham’s time, in 1852 in the work of British mathematician William Hamilton. Rather, he was advocating that one should not propose any more causes than are necessary to account for any phenomenon. This concept has been inappropriately restated as ‘All things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.’ 1 However, Ockham was not claiming that nature always follows the simplest course, nor that a simple explanation trumps a better, more complex one nor yet that simplicity should overrule the need to explain all the data. Ockham’s razor is a phrase that in Latin is usually rendered Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate, which translates as: ‘Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity’. Even though he did not invent this idea, he used it so effectively that it came to bear his name. However, he is better known today for the problem-solving logical principle known as ‘Ockham’s razor’. He opposed the church leadership of his day because they had abandoned clear Bible teaching and instead sought power, influence, and wealth. simply Ockham (sometimes spelled ‘Occam’), was a Bible-believing 14 th-century English philosopher. William of Ockham ‘ The first Protestant’
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