Ockham

William of Ockham insisted that no universal exists outside the mind. In his lecture on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Ockham presented his most thorough and sustained treatment of the subject (Ordinatio I, d. 2, qq. 4-7). Ockham engaged several realist positions, moving in descending order from what we might consider to be the most realist position - namely, that the universal is truly something outside the soul and really distinct from

U

Particulars (q. 4) - to the least realist position - namely, that the same thing under one concept is universal and under another concept is singular (q. 7).

Ockham singled out Scotus’ position for special consideration, painstakingly presenting Scotus’ views prior to attacking them (q. 6; cf. Summa logicae I, 16). Ockham pursued two strategies when attacking Scotus’ position. First, he attacked the notion of formal distinction, for if he could show that the formal distinction was incoherent, then Scotus would be forced back into a version of realism that Ockham though he had already dismantled. Second, Ockham argued that even if one granted for the sake of argument that created things can be formally distinct, Scotus’ position was internally inconsistent.

Ockham concluded from this sequence of attacks that ‘‘no thing outside the soul is universal, either through itself or through anything real or rational added on, no matter how it is considered or understood” (Ord. I, d. 2, q. 7, pp. 248-249, [Spade 1994:204]). There were univer-sals, but these universals were found only in the soul. In particular, Ockham thought that some mental terms (i. e., concepts) are signs for several things, and hence, universal. Uttered words (voces), which are conventional signs referring back to concepts, are derivatively universal (Summa logicae I, 14). Ockham changed his mind about whether any thing corresponded to these concepts (see Adams 1987, vol. 1:71-107). At first, it seems, he identified the mental word with a thing or quality in the mind. But he abandoned this theory for, first, the fictum theory, and finally, for the thesis that concepts are identical to mental acts, and not things.

Like all anti-realists in the medieval period, Ockham was eager to avoid the accusation that if there are no universals, then the way that we think about the world has no basis in reality. No matter what ontology of concepts he embraced, Ockham maintained that the universal concept was itself singular, but ‘‘naturally’’ capable of being a sign for many. Signification was ultimately based on real relations between things. Ockham did not think that a commitment to real relations forced him back into a realist position, for these real relations were themselves not things (Adams 1987, vol. 1:111-121).