Long thought to be the most important medieval philosopher and theologian after Scotus and the founder of late medieval Nominalism, the meaning and influence of William of Ockham’s thought have become matters of intense debate in recent years. After a survey of the changing assessment of Nominalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and a new understanding of twelfth-century Nominalism with related elements in the thought of Augustine and Anselm, this book examines the reception of Ockham’s thought at Oxford and Paris, the crisis over Ockhamism at Paris in the 1335 to 1345 period, and concludes with an examination of the legacy of Ockhamist thought in the late medieval period.
William J. Courtenay, Ph.D. (1967) Harvard University, is C. H. Haskins Professor of Medieval History and Hilldale Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published numerous books and articles in medieval intellectual history and on medieval universities, among them
Adam Wodeham (Brill, 1978),
Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-Century England (Princeton, 1987),
Capacity and Volition (Lubrina, 1990), and
Parisian Scholars in the Early Fourteenth Century(Cambridge, 1999).
Abbreviations
Preface
1. In search of Nominalism: Two Centuries of Historical Debate
Part One Before Ockham
2. Augustine and Nominalism
3. On the Eve of Nominalism: Consignification in Anselm
4.
Nominales and Nominalism in the Twelfth Century
5.
Nominales and Rules of the Inference
Part Two Ockham's Thought in England and Paris
6. The Academic and Intellectual Worlds of Ockham
7. The Reception of Ockham's Thought in Fourteenth-Century England
8. The Reception of Ockham's Thoughts at the University of Paris
Part Three The Crisis over Ockham's Thought at Paris
9. Ockham, Ockhamists, and the English-German Nation at Paris, 1339-1341
10. Force of Words and Figures of Speech: The Crisis over
Virtus sermonis in the Fourteenth Century
11. The Registers of the University of Paris and the Statues against the
Scientia Occamica 12. The Debate over Oclham's Physical Theories at Paris
13. The
Quaestiones in Sententias of Michael de Massa, OESA. A Redating
14. Conrad of Megenberg: The Parisian Years
15. The Categories, Michael de Massa, and Natural Philosophy at PAris, 1335-1340
Part Four Aftermath
16. Ockhamism amng the Augustinians: the Case of Adam Wodeham
17.
Theologia Anglicana Modernorum at Cologne in the Fourteenth Century
18. Was There an Ockhamist School?
List of Manuscripts Cited
Index of Ancient and Medieval Names
Index of Modern Names
All those interested in medieval philosophy and theology, intellectual history, medieval universities, and church historians.