WILLIAM OF OCKHAM (1280?–1349?), English philosopher and theologian. William of Ockham was born between 1280 and 1285 at Ockham in Surrey, England. He entered the Franciscan order and studied at the Franciscan house in Oxford but without taking his doctorate; hence his title of "Venerable Inceptor," which indicated that he had not received a degree.

Ockham's career is divided into two phases. During the first phase he wrote his major theological, philosophical, and logical works; the most important were his Commentary on the Sentences and his Sum of Logic. The second phase began when in 1328 he fled from the papal court at Avignon with the general of the Franciscan order, Michael of Cesena, to the German emperor Ludwig of Bavaria, at Munich. Ludwig had become the adversary of John XXII, and Ockham joined the other Franciscan dissidents there who had quarreled with the pope over his denial...