![]() Ockham refutes the idea that the soul is the form of Man. Furthermore, he even oversteps his own nominalism at one point, having first stated that "whiteness = white is false", yet later on claiming that "blind = blindness". Ockham, too, had the strange idea that one could infer God's existence from ours, not really providing any proper explanation why His being wouldn't be different from that of Mankind. Well, later on, he justifies a certain argument by stating: "Sin is sinful because it's voluntary." Tut. Here, the problem lies in how he hurriedly proceeds to save God's skin by explaining that He doesn't sin because he is not bound to the opposite of sin, and is no one's debtor. "Omnis res quae est peccatum, esto a Deo, tamen Deus non peccat, quia non tenetur ad oppositum, cum nullius debitor sit". The good thing about Ockham is that he actually pointed out that sin comes from God. I like seeing wise minds at it, but I don't like seeing such brilliant thinkers make such pathetic cock-ups they wouldn't otherwise do, were they freed of their dogma. A fascinating topic, yet it seems to me that it's the more fascinating the less people try to employ normal, secular reasoning for that particular conundrum. I'm naturally talking about God and his existence. We have find and sharp minds trying to wrestle with problems they can't solve without cheating a bit in their argumentation. ![]() With his fine logic and knowledge, it's a shame that Ockham, too, resorted to Aristotlean mysticism that seemed to be all the rage in the Middle Ages. Once again, a very simple yet a very sobering thought. The thing itself remains the same most likely, yet the way you perceive it and how you take in the intuition is obviously altered, making the world a great place for exploration if one can put the concepts aside for a short while.įurthermore, perhaps the greatest thing he pointed out was that the words describe things secondarily, mental concepts primarily. Ockham also expressed a very Proustian thing in supposing that the object of, say, sight is actually different if you change your angle or proximity in relation to it. ![]() As we all know, Ockham was adamant about the need to slim propositions down to their essentials, using his razor to cut off all superfluous matter where fewer things suffice. Ockham clearly had a knack for logical thought, and his points about interdisciplinarity (that is, pointing out how useless it's to assign but "one" subject of research for different fields of research) and how sciences, at the end of the day, deal with mental concepts (without resorting to solipsism in any way - it's actually common sense: whenever we perform a mental act of forming a concept, we abstract from our particular intuitions, thus forming mental images of more general nature: that is how scientific hypotheses are made, and how we form ideas about forms of life, particles, numbers etc.), and how things are different in themselves (not by virtue of the differences we assign them), were inspiring in their ostensible simplicity. ![]() ![]() Not because they were hugely groundbreaking for me personally, but because they were expressed so very clearly and ingeniously. The most interesting bits of this compilation were the chapters on logic and mental acts. When one thinks about it, Ockham seemed to be paving the way for Kant's own psychological disquisitions and, more obviously, Wittgenstein's linguistic world-building and his propositional truths – a nice gesture of relevance to an obscure medieval Franciscan. First of all, his introduction of nominalism was a great feat of intelligence, refuting the strange idea about understanding and forms of Aristotle & co., instead coming up with the plausible explanation that us humans merely combine our intuitions into concepts, wherewith we discuss, propose and research. Ockham seems to bring some common sense and keen perspicacity where Aquinas pontificated about all kinds of towering systems and endless subdivisions. ![]()
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