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CLASSICAL ESSAY |
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by William of Ockham
The universals and second intentions are caused naturally by the knowledge of simple terms without any activity of the intellect and the will. They come about in this manner: first, I apprehend in particular some singular objects intuitively or abstractly. This is caused by the object or by a predisposition from a former act. This act consummated, presently, if there is no obstacle, another act follows naturally, distinct from the first and terminating in something of the same kind of logical reality as was seen before in the psychological reality. This second act produces the universals and second intentions. Something not there before is left behind in the imaginative faculty mediated by the intuitive cognition of particular sensation; yet this is not the object of the act, but some kind of a predisposition inclined to imagine the previously sensed object. I am certain that I perceive a stone in virtue of the sight of the stone and in virtue of primary vision. I am certain that I understand by experience because I see the image of the stone. The certainty of understanding the stone, however, comes by reasoning from effect to cause. I know fire by smoke when I see smoke alone, because I have on other occasions seen smoke caused by the presence of fire. In the same manner, I know the stone because on other occasions I have perceived intellectually the production of such an image in me. Every universal is one singular thing and is universal only by the signification of many things. The universal is one and a single intention of the soul meant to be predicated of many things; in so far, however, as it is a single form subsisting really in the intellect, it is called singular. The universal is twofold: natural and conventional. The first is a natural sign predicable of many things, as smoke naturally signifies fire, and a groan the pain of the sick man, and laughter a certain interior joy. Such a universal is nothing else than such an intention of the soul that no substance outside of the soul, nor any accident outside of the soul, is a counterpart of it. The conventional universal is one by voluntary institution. Such is the spoken word, which is an actual quality, numerically one, and universal because of its being a voluntarily instituted sign for the signification of many things. Therefore as the word is called common, the same also may be called universal, adding that this is not by the nature of the thing but only by the agreement of users. Of a universal that is such by discretion, I do not speak, but I do speak of that one which has whatever is universal in it by its very nature. I am inquiring, now, whether this universal and univocally common entity is something real from the part of the thing which is outside of the soul. All of whom I meet agree by saying that the entity which is somehow universal is really in the individual, although some say that it is distinguished really, others that it is distinguished only formally, and some that it is not distinguished at all according to the nature of the thing, but only according to reason or by the consideration of the intellect. All these opinions coincide in that the universals are allowed to exist somehow from the side of the thing, so that their universality is held to be really present in the singular objects themselves. This latter opinion is simply false and absurd. Against it this is my case. There is no unitary, unvaried or simple thing in a multiplicity of singular things nor in any kind of created individuals, together and at the same time. If such a thing were allowed, it would be numerically one; therefore, it would not be in many singular objects nor would it be of their essence. But the singular and the universal thing are by themselves two things, really distinct and equally simple; therefore, if the singular thing is numerically one, the universal thing will be numerically one also, and one does not include a greater plurality intrinsic to things than does the other. |
Philosophical Writings: A Selection
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