Philosophy 35

Question 0

What did Ockham argue?

Answer 0

Nothing existed except individual beings, only concrete experience could serve as a basis for knowledge, universals existed not as entities external to the mind but only as mental concepts

Question 1

What would Ockham prove to be?

Answer 1

The pivotal thinker in the late medieval movement toward the modern outlook

Question 2

What was Ockham’s razor and what does it mean?

Answer 2

His principle that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity

Question 3

What are the two realities open to humankind?

Answer 3

The reality of God given by Revelation and the reality of the of the empirical world given by direct experience

Question 4

What did Ockham sever?

Answer 4

The unity so painstakingly constructed by Aquinas (between theology and philosophy)

Question 5

What did Aquinas leave room for that Ockham did not?

Answer 5

A rational knowledge that approached the divine mystery and enhanced theological understanding

Question 6

What do the terms “via moderna” and “via antiqua” refer to?

Answer 6

Via moderna: Ockham’s way of philosophy

Via antiqua: Aquinas’s and Scotus’s way of philosophy