Ockham or Occam, William of, nicknamed the Venerable Inceptor c.1285-c.1349
English philosopher, theologian and political writer

Born in Ockham, Surrey, he entered the Franciscan order, studied theology at Oxford as an 'inceptor' (beginner), but never obtained a higher degree - hence his nickname. He was summoned to Avignon by Pope John XXII to answer charges of heresy, and became involved in a dispute about Franciscan poverty which the Pope had denounced on doctrinal grounds. He fled to Bavaria (1328), was excommunicated, and remained under the protection of Emperor Louis of Bavaria until 1347. He died in Munich, probably of the Black Death. He published many works on logic while at Oxford and Avignon, notably the Summa Logicae, Quodlibeta Septem and commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and on Aristotle. He also published several important political treatises in the period 1333-47, generally directed against the papal claims to civil authority, including the Dialogus de potestate Papae et Imperatoris and the Opus nonaginta dierum ('Work of 90 Days'). His best-known philosophical contributions are his successful defence of nominalism against realism, and the philosophical principle of 'Ockham's razor', a rule of ontological economy to the effect that 'entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity', ie a theory should not propose the existence of anything more than is needed for its explanation. He was perhaps the most influential of later medieval philosophers.

Bibliography: Gordon Leff, William of Ockham: The Metamorphosis of Scholastic Discourse (1975)