William Ockham on Metaphysics

Download or read book William Ockham on Metaphysics written by Jenny Pelletier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In William Ockham on Metaphysics, Jenny Pelletier offers an account of Ockham's concept of metaphysics as it emerges throughout his philosophical and theological work. She argues that Ockham (c. 1287-1347) believed metaphysics to be a fruitful branch of philosophy and gives a preliminary description of its distinctive subject-matter. Metaphysics is the science that studies all beings and their most general properties. Ockham was considered by some to be profoundly skeptical of metaphysics. Recent scholarship tends to focus on regional metaphysical issues (e.g. universals, relations), logic or semantics, theory of cognition, concepts, mental language. Jenny Pelletier provides a positive interpretation of Ockham on metaphysics as such that enriches our current understanding of this seminal medieval thinker.