Metaphysical Methodology in Ockham's _Summa Logicae_: Against the Semantics-First Reading of Ockham's Nominalism

Ockham’s so-called nominalism consists of two distinct, but closely related, projects: namely, (i) securing a reductionist ontology, and (ii) developing a nominalist semantics. Ockham’s commentators have long supposed that Ockham’s ontological reductionism is achieved through the development and deployment of his nominalist semantics. In this chapter, I challenge this traditional, ‘semantics-first’, understanding of Ockham’s nominalism. In particular, I argue that a careful reading of Ockham’s elaborate treatment of terms in SL I shows that his semantics presupposes rather than establishes his reductionist ontology. Thus, far from being a semantics-first project in ontology, Ockham’s treatment of key semantic principles and distinctions in SL I reads much more like an ontology-first project in semantics. Having thus dispatched the semantics-first reading of Ockham’s nominalism, I concluded by sketching an alternative account of the principles that guide Ockham’s metaphysical methodology.