William of Ockham and the Emergence of Critical Analysis and Empirical Thought in the Middle Ages

How Western thought did, seemingly, sprout out of nowhere in the 15^th century in Europe? What did cause the Enlightenment and the Renaissance in Europe?  

Frederick Copleston suggests that we look at the 13^th and 14^th centuries for an answer? It should be noted here that Copleston has written a monumental work of tracing the European philosophical thought from Ancient Greece to the 20th century.

A major achievement, in medieval philosophical thought, was reached when the Christian Scholars of the West discovered the works of Aristotle. This took place in the 12^th century and the early part of the 13^th century. The main view of Philosophy in the minds of 13^th century Christian Thinkers was a way of rationalizing Theology and the Christian Doctrines. They saw Philosophy as a subset of Theology and they went to great length to modify and synthesize with Christian Dogma through, what appeared to be, rational arguments. So we see St. Thomas “laboring” to integrate Aristotelian positions, like the “world was uncreated,” with the Christian view that the World was created by God.

The guiding principle for the theologians-philosophers of that time was that “the truth can be known only through revelation from God!” But as they started towards the path of rational thought and the ideas of philosophy, in their attempt to rationalize the Christian Doctrines, soon they started realizing the difficulties and the incompatibilities that existed between philosophy and theology. Furthermore, these incompatibilities and difficulties seeded doubts in many of the subsequent thinkers of the 14^th century in the belief of revelation as a source of truth and knowledge.

William of Ockham, a Franciscan priest born around 1280 to 1290 CE, challenged the prevailing thinking of the 13^th century Christian Thinkers, and he represents the modernists or nominalists as they came to be known. Ockham, utilizing critical analysis and Aristotelian logic, tore apart St. Thomas and Scotus’ metaphysical ideas and arguments on the existence of God. He maintained that

“…it cannot be demonstrated but only empirically established that one thing is the cause of another, would seem to rule out the causal argument in natural theology.”

While he didn’t reject all metaphysical arguments and ideas he posited that only probable arguments can be made about ideas such as the existence of God. Ockham thought that,

“….only probably arguments can be brought to show that this being is first or supreme in an absolute sense. For he did not think that it is possible to prove strictly the unicity of the world. The existence of other worlds is conceivable, even if improbable and so it is conceivable, even if not probable, that there is a plurality of first causes or conserves….as to the divine attributes, he maintained that it is impossible to demonstrate those attributes like omnipotence and omniscience which are peculiar to God, on the ground that there can be no middle term in the relevant syllogisms, if our philosophical knowledge of God must be based on experience of creatures.”

In other words, Ockham says that questions like the existence of God and any attributes we assign to him do not belong in philosophy and logic but in the realm of faith and theology. Theology and philosophy must be separated!

In essence, his position, “that no logical inference from the existence of one thing to the existence of another could amount to a demonstration of cogent proof,” tore apart the metaphysical system of the 13^th century.

We could argue that, William of Ockham (and his nominalist followers) represents the point in medieval history where philosophy begins to break apart from theology. The nominalists’ position is that “based on critical analysis we can’t prove or disprove the existence of God and these types of questions belong to the realm of faith and theology.” Ockham, in the absence of revelation, directly or indirectly, recognizes the importance of reason in reflecting on human nature, human society, and morality among others.

The other major influence of Ockham and the movement that followed him was the impact on the growth of the sciences. Ockham maintained that “real knowledge is ultimately founded in intuitive knowledge and causality should be based on empirical observation.” Arguably, there were many factors that planted the seeds for the growth of sciences in the Renaissance. But it is fair to say that scientists like Galileo were influenced by Ockham and his followers. For he,

“…insisted strongly on the primacy of intuition or the immediate perception of individual things. Nothing can be known naturally in itself unless it is known intuitively…..his insistence on the experiential foundation of knowledge about the world would naturally favors the growth of physical science, in the sense that its natural effect would be to concentrate attention on the observable facts.”