- Lived:
- c. 1287–1347 · Ockham (Surrey, England), Oxford, Avignon, Munich
- Tradition:
- Medieval scholasticism — Franciscan; the great nominalist, founder of the via moderna
- The Big Idea:
- Don't posit more things than you need. Reality is made of individuals; the "universals" philosophers had treated as real things for a thousand years are only signs — and a theory, a theology, or a papacy that multiplies entities and powers beyond necessity deserves the blade.
- In their words:
- "Plurality is never to be posited without necessity."
- If you remember one thing:
- The man behind "Ockham's razor" never wrote the slogan you know — and the razor was the least dramatic thing about him. Summoned to answer heresy charges, he ended up charging the pope with heresy, fled by night, and spent his last two decades inventing arguments for individual rights and the separation of church and state.