Ockhamism
"Ockhamism" is a term used by some historians of medieval philosophy to characterize the critical and skeptical attitude toward natural theology and traditional metaphysics that became prevalent in the fourteenth century and is ascribed to the influence of William of Ockham (c. 1285–1349). There is little historical basis for speaking of an Ockhamist school, since Ockham had scarcely any avowed disciples; nor was the critical attitude toward natural theology initiated by him, although his logical criteria of demonstration and evidence undoubtedly gave it a powerful implementation. With these reservations one may, in a general sense, attach Ockham's name to the movement of thought that, in the fourteenth century, closed out the medieval enterprise of synthesizing Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology and initiated new lines of development that led toward the scientific empiricism of the seventeenth century. The Ockhamist or nominalist movement was known in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the "modern way" (via moderna), and was contrasted with the "old way" (via antiqua) associated with thirteenth-century Scholasticism.
One may distinguish two main phases of this movement of fourteenth-century thought. The first phase, occurring between 1330 and 1350, was marked by the rapid spread of Ockham's doctrines and method among the theologians and philosophers teaching at the universities of Oxford and Paris, where Ockham's logical techniques were used in criticism of the older scholastic tradition.
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