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  • Chapter 1 - Metaphysical Methodology in Ockham’s Summa Logicae I

  • Edited by Claude Panaccio, Université du Québec à Montréal, Jenny Pelletier, University of Leuven
  • Book:
    Ockham’s <i>Summa Logicae</i>
    Published online:
    04 September 2025
    Print publication:
    18 September 2025, pp 19-39

  • Summary

    Ockham’s so-called nominalism consists of two distinct, but closely related, projects: namely, (1) securing a reductionist ontology, and (2) developing a nominalist semantics. Ockham’s commentators have long supposed that Ockham’s ontological reductionism is achieved through the development and deployment of his nominalist semantics. In this chapter, I challenge this traditional, ‘semantics-first,’ understanding of Ockham’s nominalism. In particular, I argue that a careful reading of Ockham’s elaborate treatment of terms in SL I shows that his semantics presupposes rather than establishes his reductionist ontology. Thus, far from being a semantics-first project in ontology, Ockham’s treatment of key semantic principles and distinctions in SL I reads much more like an ontology-first project in semantics. Having thus dispatched the semantics-first reading of Ockham’s nominalism, I conclude by sketching an alternative account of the principles that guide Ockham’s metaphysical methodology.