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Two thinkers, side by side

Life

Duns Scotus

c. 1266 CE – 1308 CE

ScholasticMedieval

Born Duns

The Subtle Doctor, who argued that being means the same of God and creatures, and that each thing has its own thisness.

William of Ockham

c. 1287 CE – c. 1347 CE

MedievalScholastic

Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. His razor cut through centuries of metaphysical overgrowth and cleared the ground for modern science.

Connection

Duns Scotus the subtle doctor pared back William of Ockham — Ockham worked through Scotus closely and cut away what he judged needless machinery, the formal distinction and common natures, leaving only individuals and the names we give them.

Shared Ideas

The Problem of Universals

Shared Places

Oxford

Ideas

Being The Problem of Universals

Reason The Problem of Universals Ockham's Razor

Words

“Being is said in one and the same sense of God and of creatures, or we could not speak of God at all.”
— Duns Scotus

“Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.”
— William of Ockham

Key Moments

c. 1266 CE

Born in Scotland

c. 1300 CE

Thisness

c. 1302 CE

Lecturing at Paris

1308 CE

Death at Cologne

c. 1309 CE

Studies at Oxford

1324 CE

Summoned to Avignon for Heresy Trial

1328 CE

Flees to Munich

c. 1347 CE

Dies in Munich

Works

Ordinatio

Summa Logicae