SOURCE: "Ockham and the Birth of Individual Rights" in Authority and Power, edited by Brian Tierney and Peter Linehan, Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 149-65.

In the following essay, McGrade examines the relationship of Ockham's philosophy to his politics, particularly concerning rights and powers.

Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than the combination of politics and philosophy is their separation. The idea of a society dominated by philosophy epitomises rigidity, and certainly philosophy does not flourish when it is dominated by society. Yet a social order which cannot sustain deep critical examination of its institutions and values courts corruption, and a philosopher who can discuss profoundly everything in heaven and earth except the human world he lives in is alienated—he 'has problems'. The later Middle Ages afford abundant material for observing all of these frustrations, but there is no case in which they are presented more acutely than...