ABSTRACT
Faithful to the Aristotelian tradition, Ockham holds that a concept is a likeness of whatever it represents, a similitude. This chapter focuses on Ockham's mature theory, where concepts are identified with mental acts. It shows that the notion of conceptual similitude is still importantly present in this phase of his thought, with significant philosophical roles to play. In the absence of explanations from Ockham himself about what this means exactly, the chapter proposes a tentative interpretation, and applies it to the main categories of general concepts countenanced by the actus-theory. The chapter discusses two intriguing puzzles recently raised about Ockham's theory of absolute concepts. Intentional similitude discusses two subtle difficulties that have been recently raised against Ockham's nominalistic theory of absolute concepts, one by Gyula Klima, and the other by Deborah Brown. Klima's puzzle pertains to the simplicity of absolute concepts, while Brown's concerns the purported absence of synonymy in Ockham's mental language.
