ABSTRACT
This chapter recalls four characteristic – and nontrivial – theses of Ockham about nominal definitions. They are: Thesis 1: Some nominal definitions irreducibly contain connotative terms; Thesis 2: A nominal definition is not always synonymous with the defined term; Thesis 3: Each connotative term has only one nominal definition; and Thesis 4: The nominal definition of a connotative term is a complex phrase one component of which normally is a term 'in recto' and at least one other component a term 'in obliquo'. The chapter explains the function of these definitions to be and shows how the four theses fit with this conception. It outlines a number of interesting consequences about Ockham's epistemology and metaphysics. A nominal definition, according to Ockham, is a grammatically structured phrase that normally contains one categorematic term which is not, in this very phrase, playing the role of a grammatical complement, and at least one term which is.
