It includes the following major philosophers:

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980 - 1037) Persian Anselm, St. (1033 - 1109) Italian Abelard, Peter (1079 - 1142) French Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (1126 - 1198) Spanish-Arabic Maimonides (1135 - 1204) Spanish-Jewish

Albertus Magnus (c. 1206 - 1280) German Bacon, Roger (c. 1214 - 1294) English Aquinas, St. Thomas (1225 - 1274) Italian Scotus, John Duns (c. 1266 - 1308) Scottish Ockham (Occam), William of (c. 1285 - 1348) English

William of Ockham (1285-1349), born in Surrey not far from London, was perhaps the most radical and original of the medieval philosophers and theologians. He studied at Oxford, but before receiving his licence as a professor, he was summoned to the Papal court at Avignon to face charges of heresy and the like. Later he migrated to Bavaria, where he received the protection of King Ludwig. He died in Munich of the Black Death (it is surmised). The latter scourge carried away many leading European intellectuals of the time.

The radicalism of his views came from his sweeping challenge to realism and the whole Aristotelian scheme of essences. The whole apparatus of thinking of a term like “falcon” as standing somehow for a form which inheres in particular birds was challenged by him. Scientific generalizations about the world are to be confirmed on the basis of empirical observations, that is by intuitive cognitions of individual instances. They are at best hypothetical, since they depend on the prior assumption of the uniformity of nature.

From his empiricist perspective it follows that theology is not a science. Science should be based on what is evidently known: this would be something which is a necessary truth or which is known by immediate experience. Neither of these requirements can be met in regard to matters of faith. He made the highly important observation that the articles of faith are by no means evident to infidels and pagans, who are no less intelligent than Christians.

Ockham’s influence spread in Oxford and Paris, since his critical views offered an exciting alternative to traditional metaphysical approaches. His empiricism offered avenues for the critique of Aristotle and helped prepare the way for later scientific developments.

Probably the most important contribution of the Ockhamist stream of thought to the ongoing development of thought, including science, was its skepticism towards Aristotle. The grip of his physics upon the medieval imagination was slackened somewhat, and so the way was prepared for the scientific revolutions of the Renaissance and beyond.

Argumentation on the Universals. Nominalists and realists.

The conflict between matter and spirit was manifested most acutely in the mediaeval controversy between the realists (fr. L. realis “material”) and nominalists (fr. L. nomen “name”). The debate was concerned with the nature of universals, or general concepts. The realists (Johannes Scotus Erigena, and mostly Thomas Aquinas), relying on Aristotle’s proposition that the general exists as indivisibly linked with the individual, being its form, developed the theory of the three kinds of the existence of universals: “before things” —in divine reason; “in the things themselves”, of which universals are the essences or forms; and “after things” —in the human mind, as results of abstraction. This position is known in the history of philosophy as a”moderate realism”, distinct from an”extreme realism” insisting that the general exists only outside things. The extreme realism of the Platonian variety, despite all its apparent suita­bility to idealist scholasticism, could not be accepted by the Orthodox Church since matter was partially justified in Christianity as one of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

The nominalists, like Roscelin, were much more materialistically minded than even the moderate realists; they carried the idea of negation of the objective existence of the general to the logical end, believing that universals only exist in the human mind, in thought; in other words, they rejected not only the presence of the general in a concrete individual thing but also its existence “before the thing”, and that was tantamount to the materialist view of the primacy of matter. Universals, Roscelin said, are nothing but the names of things, and their existence is reducible to the vibrations of the vocal chords. Only the individual exists, and only the individual can be the object of knowledge.