Ockhamistn.adj.
/ˈɒkəmɪst/, U.S. /ˈɑkəməst/ A. n.
A follower or adherent of William of Ockham.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > scholasticism > [noun] > Occamism > adherent of
Occanistc1540
Ockhamist1579
Ockhamite1652
terminist1652
1579 W. Fulke Refut. Rastels Confut. in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 752 Brawlings between the Thomists, and Scotists, Albertists, Occamists.
1657 R. Baxter Winding-sheet for Popery §14 They differ in many hundred points, as the writings of the Schoolmen, the Thomists, and Scotists, and Ockamists..do declare.
1758 J. Jortin Life Erasmus I. 335 (note) The Terminists were Sectaries in the high Schools... They oppose the Thomists, the Scotists, and the Albertists: they are also called Occamists.
1898 W. S. Hough tr. J. E. Erdmann Hist. Philos. (ed. 3) I. 523 Gerson is an Occamist not only in his doctrine of the universals, but also in his complete separation of philososphy and theology.
1931 J. F. Scanlan tr. J. Maritain St. Thomas Aquinas iv. 174 The time has long gone by for [modern disciples]..to carp at Scotists and Occamists..on scholastic questions which must now be considered as having been settled for centuries.
1969 T. F. Torrance Theol. Sci. ii. 65 We must acknowledge the right of the realists against the Ockhamists and nominalists.
1993 Renaissance Q. 46 247 To understand the relatively wide freedom enjoyed by philosophers in pre-Reformation Italy, we have to understand as much what was there as what was not. The absent Ockhamists are critical to the tale.
B. adj.
Relating to, characteristic of, or designating the Ockhamists or their beliefs.
ΚΠ
1895 H. Rashdall Universities of Europe in Middle Ages II. xii. 525/1 Indeed the dictum was susceptible of a Scotist as well as of an Ockhamist development.
1921 Mind 30 378 A carefully documented study of the difficulties of the Occamist theory of relations.
1926 E. C. Messenger tr. M. de Wulf Hist. Mediæval Philos. II. iii. iii. 238 Applied to theological subjects,..three Ockamist doctrines led to the ruin or at least to the ridicule of the dogma.
1963 E. Gellner in J. Pitt-Rivers Mediterranean Countrymen 149 The genealogies are what I call ‘Occamist’ in type.
1992 J. M. Kelly Short Hist. Western Legal Theory v. 186 The interplay between Thomist and Occamist thinkers, the formulas thrown up by writers on both sides, were to have important effects on later political and legal (and even scientific) theory.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1579