On the dominant interpretation, Ockham is an externalist about mental content. This reading is founded principally on his theory of intuitive cognition. Intuitive cognition plays a foundational role in Ockham’s account of concept formation and judgment, and Ockham insists that the content of intuitive states is determined by the causal relations such states bear to their objects. The aim of this paper is to challenge the externalist interpretation by situating Ockham’s account of intuitive cognition vis-à-vis his broader account of efficient (...) causation. While there can be no doubt that intuitive states are causally individuated, I argue that, given Ockham’s broader theory of efficient causation (on which causation turns out to be an internal relation), this very fact entails that the content of such states is determined by factors internal (rather than external) to the states themselves. (shrink)

The theory of frames has recently been proposed as a universal format for knowledge representation in language, cognition and science. Frames represent categories as well as individual objects and events in terms of recursive attribute-value structures. In this paper, we would like to explore the potential ontological commitments of frame-based knowledge representations, with particular emphasis on the ontological status of the possessors of quality attributes in individual object frames. While not strictly incompatible with nominalistic, bundle- or substratum-theoretic approaches to the (...) metaphysics of particular objects, it will be argued that representing objects in terms of attribute-value structures is more in accordance with a tradition that can be traced back to Aristotle’s doctrine of physical substances. Attributes appear to describe primary potentialities of objects, which, in the Aristotelian view, are the unchangeable nature or essence, hence substance, of any separate object. (shrink)

Peter Abelard and William of Ockham represent the two main figures of the nominalism of the Middle Ages. Both share the fundamental thesis of that doctrine, according to which only individual entities exist. The repercussions of nominalism are quite evident in relation to the question of universals, which constitutes a subject that, until now, won the attention of the majority of contemporary studies on the two most important logicians of their time. Nevertheless the nominalism of each of these two protagonists (...) apparently diverges in a significant manner, especially in respect to the role exercised by the mind in the semantic process. Ockham seems to distance himself definitely from his predecessors, including Abelard, when he transfers grammar and semantic functions of conventional language to the level of mental language. In the present article, the chief intention is to expound the theory of sign and signification of each of the authors under consideration. The ultimate objective is to compare their respective semantic positions and indicate the principal points of agreement and disagreement, keeping in mind the hypothesis according to which these two medieval nominalists should have more theoretical elements in common than not. (shrink)