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William of Ockham and Lorenzo Valla: False Friends. Semantics and Ontological Reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Lodi Nauta
Lodi Nauta*
Affiliation:
University of Groningen
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Abstract

At first glance, Lorenzo Valla has much in common with William of Ockham. Both see language as the key to an understanding of the world, criticizing realist ontologies which admit of various abstract entities. Modern scholars have therefore often argued that Valla's transformation of medieval metaphysics and logic is nominalist in spirit and continues Ockhamist nominalism. The article criticizes this widely held interpretation. At closer inspection, Valla's views on ontology and semantics are very different from Ockham's. Apart from the obvious differences in cultural background, they show widely different approaches, methods, and arguments at a more philosophical level.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , Autumn 2003 , pp. 613 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2003

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Footnotes

*

A shorter version of this article was read at the RSA conference at Scottsdale, Arizona, April 2002.1 am grateful to John Monfasani, Paul Grendler, Robert Black, and an anonymous reader for their criticisms and helpful suggestions.

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