Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on concepts – conceptus in Ockham's vocabulary – taken by him as the basic units of mental representation. Several discussions have been going on around Ockham's theory of concepts in the aftermath of the remarkable critical edition of his philosophical and theological writings completed at St. Bonaventure University in the late 1980s, and of the publication in 1987 of Marilyn Adams's landmark synthetical study, William Ockham. The book proposes a thorough presentation and defence of how Ockham's positions on the matter in the light of these recent developments. It deals with the basics of Ockham's approach. The book describes one salient and far-reaching debate in Ockhamistic studies, in which the very viability of the theory turned out to be at stake.