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CHAPTER THREE

WILLIAM OF OCKHAM AND JOHN LOCKE ON UNIVERSALS AND INDIVIDUALS

I. A Summary of Each's Contribution to Understanding Universals and Individuals

Ockham

Ockham refutes the realist account of universals which, seeing universals as primary, locates them in individuals which follow from universals--a dynamic necessary to secure metaphysics and the deductive method in general. Emphasizing experience, Ockham feels it impossible not to consider individuals--the stuff of experience--as primary. This perspective must nonetheless address the issue of universals as somehow being induced, abstracted or generalized from the experience of individ-uals. Now let us review his two most important theories that concretize his innovation.

In his first theory, ficta or fictive entities in the mind account for our awareness of universals. Thus, a universal does not exist in re, but instead exists as the object of an act of understanding--esse obiectivum; universals are denied their extra-mental reality, an important component of realist thinking.

In his second theory, Ockham streamlines the former. That is to say, there is no need to posit ficta, since their representative quality can be found, in fact, in the act of understanding--the intellectio--itself which has mental or subjective existence. Such an intellectio is, as Mauer ex-plains, "indifferent and common to many individuals" in its natural signifi-cation. In this manner, William of Ockham reconfigures the relationship of universals and individuals. This is necessary to respond substantially to the realist claim of a primarily universal world which pales in the light of a perspective that respects the experience of a world of individuals.

Locke

John Locke's thinking reflects a proto-linguistic, as it were, theory of knowing universals within his generally empirical point of view. Within Enlightenment empiricism, the transition away from the view in which metaphysics is the locus is nearly complete; human sensed experience serves as the source of knowledge. As such, there is hardly any conten-tion about the primacy of the experienced world of individuals. Yet again, the dynamics of knowing the not-sensibly derived experience of univer-sals becomes contested. Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding offers a roughly-hewn understanding of language and thought that sheds light on how one comes to know universals.

Locke proposes that people have ideas of what they sense which exist mentally. Then, for the purpose of communication--the end of language--these ideas are shared among persons by using words agreed upon by convention. Locke emphasizes however that although words are shared, the ideas which correspond to such words belong ultimately to each speaker and thus are peculiar to each person. In the case of words that are general or universal, there is no particular individual in reality to which it corresponds since the universal word is, by its nature, indis-tinct. Universal words signify universal ideas which are composed of an abstraction of many things, leaving only the similar characteristics shared by a category of things. In this way, Locke accounts for universals as mental entities which assist us in categorizing the world of individuals around us.

II. The Theories of Ockham and Locke up against Each Other

With a sense of what each philosopher posits in the way of trying to understand universals and individuals, a treatment may ensue in which the similarities and differences between Ockham and Locke are considered. Moreover, it may become apparent that, although not directly, Ockham's thinking played a significant role in shaping the ideas which Locke would encounter.

Similar Emphases

Considering both philosophies in terms of their similarities, one notes that the shared nominalism of both men is indeed carved out deeply through many shared aspects of theory. From the onset, their shared evasion of a universal in re propels them into a pursuit of a mentally located universal. For Ockham, this is the fictum or the intellectio. Locke's linguistic exploration of knowledge leads him to find universals in ideas. In both cases, the approach used in rejecting universals which act through individuation is one of mental concepts. With intellectiones and Lockean ideas, one finds that both versions of universals exhibit the same ontological status, that of mental existence. These concepts are somehow related to the world of individuals.

In both of Ockham's theories and in Locke's theory, there is a concern to understand universals inductively. One of the tensions that arises is that there is a need for a substantive replacement of the principium individuationis. In other words, what dynamic relates individuals to these universal mental realities? Ockham's two types of universals are abstracted in a way that the universal has no more reference to one particular than to another. Moreover, Boehner notes that Ockham's universal "does not regard their [individual] differences." In the case of the intellectio theory, the process of abstraction ends in the act of the intellect itself whereas the fictum theory extends beyond the act terminating at the object of the act, a fictum.

Ockham's explanation of how one takes concepts of individuals and 'confuses' them is indeed very similar to Locke's. For Locke, the process of abstraction leads to partial representations of individual ideas. In effect, "what is common to them all" is kept, composing the idea of a universal that is blind to the differences in individuals of a kind or sort. The emphasis on abstraction and its results is shared in nearly the same way by both.

As mentioned above, both of these philosophers see the world as having only individuals; this view of reality is the locus of their examina-tions. That is to say that, given the rejection of universals in the world, the emphasis is placed on immediate knowledge of the world occurring through individual things. For Ockham, this was, as Leff explains, the foundation of his pursuit: "the central question was no longer to explain the individual by reference to the universal but rather to account for the universals in a world of individuals." Here one notes that Ockham was a major figure in the transition of the late Middle Ages during which philosophers were frustrated with metaphysical explanations of how uni-versal essences were individuated.

Locke encountered a significantly different world. The Enlighten-ment ennobled the ideas of humanity. Human experience of the sensible world became primary in the environment of Locke's empiricism. Locke had, in fact, initiated a school that taught that one encounters only individuals, or as he himself says, ". . . all things that exist are only particulars. . . ," Again, true to their nominalist inclination, but borne out of different circumstances, Ockham and Locke are in harmony.

In the above principal ways, one finds Ockham's theory to be well related to that of his nominalist scion, John Locke. Through their different points of similarity, one gets a sense that since both Locke and Ockham shared much in common, their thinking might be more specifically understood than the title 'nominalism' might convey. Both of them appeal to a mental location of universals, regardless of ontological issues. Ockham and Locke are similar in that they might be more accurately classified as conceptualists since they emphasize the universal concept. Conceptualism is, indeed, closely related to nominalism to which, it seems to add breadth: "[c]onceptualism. . . [builds on] nominalism in that it accepts not just common names, but also universal concepts."

In the case of each philosopher, their effort and attention to deny the existence of universals in reality places them among the most qualified in the ranks of nominalism.

In another way, both philosophers' thinking also share in deficiencies or shortcomings. Remember that Ockham's first theory postulated ficta as the objects of acts of understanding. He rejected the fictum theory because a fictum duplicated what was inherent in the act of the intellect itself. Recall also that Locke presents a universal idea as somehow distinct from the process of abstraction, an end, object, or product of abstraction, as it were. I believe that Locke did not acquiesce to the pressure that Ockham felt from his principle of parsimony. Ockham's resolution to explain the universal as the intellectio itself demonstrates a more dynamic understanding of the act of under-standing. By this I mean, the intellectio theory illustrates a universal concept as the understanding itself, not its result thereof; the act of abstraction is actively present in the universal concept and vice versa. Insofar as abstraction renders a concept universal, it preserves its universality. On the other hand, one notes that in Locke's theory, he does not strongly articulate how interrelated a universal idea is to abstraction. His is a more causal relationship. Although the noted dis-tinction is debatable, I feel it is the central factor--epistemologically--influencing Ockham's revision of theory in favor of the intellectio. Here one sees a way in which Ockham and Locke are not only similar but also in which Locke's theory subscribes to Ockham's more deficient usage of ficta.

Points of Divergence

As evident immediately above, it is impossible to discuss the similar-ities between William of Ockham and John Locke without betraying glimpses of their differences. While mutual in their aim, Locke's theory of ideas, when under scrutiny, is shown to be technically incompatible with Ockham's theory of intellectiones. As mentioned above, William applies his principle of parsimony to his theory and finds that it can, in fact, persist more effectively by collapsing the distinction between the cognition and the universal--it is a universal cognition. Locke, on the other hand, expounds his theory neglecting Ockham's Razor and preserving the differentiation between abstractive thought and universal idea. It is true that, in spite of their common epistemological priorities, one encounters contrasts between them that preserve the distinctiveness of each's presentation of the nominalist view.

Although Ockham and Locke agree on the ontological status ac-corded to intellectiones and ideas, they diverge when Locke's ideas confront the ficta. While similarities are discussed above between Locke's ideas and Ockham's fictive entities, in matters ontological, Ockham is characteristically medieval in his carefully qualified explanation of the degree of existence of ficta. Since a ficta is the object of an intellectio, it exists objectively--esse obiectivum. Though Locke's ideas agree ontologically with the intellectiones, they find no correspondence with William's objectively-existent fictive entities.

Given the luxury of comparing Locke's theory to both of Ockham's, one notes, from the onset, the intricate relationships of parity and disparity that exist between Locke's empirical theory and each of Ockham's theories.

Ockham discusses how a universal concept is superior to a universal word because it exists as a natural sign while the latter exists by means of convention. Here, one is acquainted with the nature/convention distinction and the valuations that Ockham places within it. Although John Locke discourses on how words are, in accord with William, conventionally-developed signs of ideas, he offers nothing in the way of the sign behavior of ideas--how they signify that which they represent naturally. Locke is more concerned with how language arises and, as a result, he is at the mercy of the limitations of his crude psycho-physiology which rarely go no further than the somewhat simplistic mechanics of how ideas are the impressions of sensation and the products of reflection. One might accurately posit that insofar as Locke relies on these natural processes, he is in accord with Ockham. Since, however, his theory is more oriented to language, Locke focuses on sign activity only between ideas and words. Although he ends the Essay with a call for a science of signs--semiotics--his concern is oriented not to the level of ideas and the things which they signify, but primarily to the level of language actually predicting and influencing the eventual development of semiotics. In any case, a legitimate rejoinder may, in fact, be that Ockham's reliance on sign-language as an illustration of the relationship between thing and concept is as weak as Locke's efforts since it falters equally in not addressing at all the natural processes, while instead addressing only the theoretical end of the matter. Suffice it to say that this treatment may not signal a disagreement per se, but rather, it does demonstrate an important way in which they diverge in articulating the shared theory of conceptual nominalism.

III. Conclusion

Clearly, one sees that a presentation of the similarities and differences in the thought of William of Ockham and John Locke as they struggle with the best way to articulate a conceptual approach to universals, having given the world over to the domain of particulars, binds them very closely and, simultaneously makes them strange bed fellows in their complex diversity. Such a comparison mostly serves to reveal how the thinking of Ockham and Locke opens broad vistas in philosophy, namely, epistemology, ontology, language-theory, and semiotics. With so much at stake, this thesis, in all its limitations, primarily helps one to appreciate (i) how prominent the topic of universals and individuals are in the study of nominalism and of philosophy in general, and (ii) that the contributions of Ockham and Locke in this field are truly far-reaching and foundational.

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