¹ Boehner, P. O.F.M., ‘The Notitia Intuitiva of Non-Existents according to William Ockham,’ Traditio 1 (1943) 223–275, especially 223.Google Scholar

² Day, S. O.F.M., Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the Significance of the Later Scholastics (St. Bonaventure, N. Y. 1947) especially 145.Google Scholar

³ Gilson, E., ‘The Road to Scepticism,’ in The Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York 1937) 61–91.Google Scholar

⁴ Pegis, A. C., ‘Concerning William of Ockham,’ Traditio 2 (1944) 465–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Art. cit. (supra n. 1) 231–240. See also Boehner, P., O.F.M., ‘In propria causa: a Reply to Professor Pegis,’ Franciscan Studies 5 (1945) 37–54.Google Scholar

⁶ Op. cit. (supra n. 2) 174–179.Google Scholar

⁷ The Ordinatio is published in Guillelmi de Ockham Scriptum in librum primum Sententiarum I (ed. Gál, G. and Brown, S.; St. Bonaventure, N. Y. 1967); the questions 14–15 of the Reportatio II by Boehner, P. in art. cit. (supra n. 1) 245–275; the Quodlibeta V q. 15 in Quodlibeta septem; Tractatus de sacramento altaris et de corpore Christi (Strasbourg 1491; repr. Louvain 1962). Page references are to these editions. Other citations of Ockham's Sentence-commentary are to Opera plurima III–IV (Lyons 1494–96; repr. Westmead 1962).Google Scholar

⁸ Thus Ockham's remark in Prologus p. 38: ‘Ideo dico quod notitia intuitiva et abstractiva se ipsis differunt et non penes objecta nec causas suas quascumque,’ can be misleading, if the se ipsis is stressed out of context (as it appears to be in Gilson's discussion in his History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages [New York 1955] 490 and 784 note 8). For five pages prior to the above remark (Prologus pp. 33–38) Ockham has been attacking Scotus' attempt to distinguish intuitive from abstractive cognition. Ockham thinks that Scotus is mistaken in making it a logically necessary condition of a cognition being intuitive that its object is existing and present, and that its cause is its existing and present object; and in defining abstractive cognition as one that fails to meet one or both of these conditions. When Ockham says in the above remarks that intuitive and abstractive cognitions differ ‘in themselves,’ this claim is to be contrasted with the claim that they differ as regards their objects and what causes them. He does not mean that there is no difference between intuitive and abstractive cognitions as regards the causal relations into which they can enter. For, on Ockham's full account, intuitive cognitions differ from abstractive cognitions precisely in the fact they cannot be the cause of any false judgments, while abstractive cognitions can.Google Scholar

⁹ Op. cit. (supra n. 3) at 80–81.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Art. cit. (supra n. 4) 476.Google Scholar

¹¹ The crucial passages are Ockham's replies to two objections in Quodlibeta V q. 5. The reply to the first objection is as follows: 'Ad primum istorum dico, quod Deus non potest causare in nobis cognitionem talem, per quam evidenter appareat nobis res esse presens, quando est absens. Quia hoc includit contradictionem, quia cognitio talis evidens importat, quod ita sit in re, sicut denotatur per propositionem, cui fit assensus. Et per consequens, cum cognitio evidens huius propositionis: ‘Res est presens,’ importat rem esse presentem, oportet, quod sit presens. Aliter non esset cognitio evidens. Et tu ponis, quod sit absens. Et ita ex illa positione, cum cognitione evidenti, sequitur manifesta contractio, scilicet quod res sit presens et quod non sit presens. Et ideo Deus non potest causare talem cognitionem evidentem. Tamen Deus potest causare actum creditivum, per quam credo rem esse presentem, quae est absens. Et dico, quod illa notitia creditiva erit abstractiva, non intuitiva. Per talem actum fidei potest apparere res esse presens, quando est absens; non tamen per actum evidentem.‘ The reply to the fourth objection is as follows: ’Ad ultimum dico, quod Deus non potest facere assensum evidentem huius contingentis: ‘Hec albedo est,’ quando albedo non est, propter contradictionem que sequitur. Quia assensus evidens denotat sic esse in re, sicut denotatur per propositionem, cui fit assensus. Sed per istam propositionem: ‘Hec albedo est,’ importatur, quod albedo sit. Et per consequens, si sit assensus evidens: ‘Hec albedo est,’ et positum est, quod hec albedo non sit. Et sic illa hypothesis, cum notitia evidenti [text: evidente], includit manifeste contradictionem, scilicet quod albedo sit et non sit. Et concedo tamen, quod Deus potest facere assensum eiusdem speciei cum illo assensu evidenti [text: evidente] respectu illius contingentis: ‘Hec albedo est,’ quando non est. Sed ille assensus non est evidens, quia non est ita in re, sicut importatur per propositionem, cui fit assensus.' Google Scholar

¹² Gilson, , op. cit. (supra n. 3) 82, fixes on this passage, too. But he confuses, among other things, the claim that it is logically impossible that God should cause in me an intuitive cognition of a non-existent object, and bring it about that I judge the object to exist, with the claim that it is logically possible that God should cause in me an act of (abstractive) apprehension of a non-existent object, and bring it about that I judge the object to exist. Accordingly, he mistakenly takes the passage as evidence that Ockham's assertion of the logical possibility of intuitive cognition of non-existents leads to scepticism. But, as argued by Boehner and Day and pointed out in Part I above, that part of Ockham's doctrine cannot have sceptical consequences.Google Scholar

¹³ Boehner, , art cit. (supra n. 1) 244.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid. 234–235.Google Scholar

¹⁵ II Sent. q. 5 H: ‘… quia malum nihil aliud est quam facere aliquid cuius oppositum faciendum aliquis obligatur.’ Google Scholar

¹⁶ II Sent. q. 19 O; III Sent. q. 12 AAA; IV Sent. q. 9 E-F.Google Scholar

¹⁷ II Sent. q. 5 H.Google Scholar