Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:33:25.336Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

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.

References

Aristotle, . 1963. The Categories and De Interpretatione. Ed. and trans. John L. Ackrill. Oxford.Google Scholar
Biard, Joël and Vescovini, Graziella F.. 2001. “Introduction.” In Biagio da Parma, Questiones super Tractatus Logice Magistri Petri Hispani, eds. Joël Biard and Graziella F. Vescovini, 7-36. Paris.Google Scholar
Blanchard, W. Scott. 2000. “The negative dialectic of Lorenzo Valla: a study in the pathology of opposition.” Renaissance Studies 14:149-89.10.1111/j.1477-4658.2000.tb00332.xGoogle Scholar
Brown, Stephen F. 1981. “A Modern Prologue to Ockham's Natural Philosophy.” In Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter, ed. Jan P. Beckmann et al., 107-29. Berlin and New York.Google Scholar
The Cambridge Companion to Ockham. 1999. Ed. Paul V. Spade. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Camporeale, Salvatore I. 1972. Lorenzo Valla. Umanesimo e Teologia. Florence.Google Scholar
Connell, William J. 1996. “Lorenzo Valla: A Symposium. Introduction.” Journal of the History of Ideas 57:1–7.10.1353/jhi.1996.0003Google Scholar
Conti, Alessandro D. 1996. Esistenza e Verita. Forme e strutture del reale in Paolo Veneto e nelpensiero filosofico del tardo medioevo. Rome.Google Scholar
Ebbesen, Sten. 1998. “Language, Medieval Theories of.” In The Routlegde Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, 5:389–404. London.Google Scholar
Fubini, Riccardo. 1999. “Contributo per l'interpretazione della ‘Dialectica’ di Lorenzo Valla.” In Filosofia e scienza classica, araho-latina medievale e I'eta moderna, ed. Graziella F. Vescovini, 289–316. Louvain-la-Neuve.10.1484/M.TEMA-EB.4.00619Google Scholar
Goddu, Andre. 1999. “Ockham's Natural Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion, 143-67.Google Scholar
Grendler, Paul F. 2002. The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore and London.Google Scholar
Kelley, Donald R. 1970. Foundations of modern historical scholarship: language, law, and history in the French Renaissance. New York.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard. 1981. “De significatione verborum. Spätscholastische Sprachtheorie und Humanistische Grammatik.” Res publica litterarum 4:285–313.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard. 1987. “Einleitung.” In Lorenzo Valla, Uber den freien Willen/De libero arbitrio, 9–49. Munich.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard. 1988. “Die Transformation des aristotelischen Organon durch Lorenzo Valla.” In Aristotelismus und Renaissance. In memoriam Charles B. Schmitt, ed. Eckhard Kessler, et al., 53–74. Wiesbaden.Google Scholar
Kessler, Eckhard. 1990. “Die verborgene Gegenwart Ockhams in der Sprachphilosophie der Renaissance.” In Die Gegenwart Ockhams, ed. Wilhelm Vossenkuhl and Rolf Schonberger, 147-64. Weinheim.Google Scholar
Laffranchi, Marco. 1999. Dialettica e filosofia in Lorenzo Valla. Milan.Google Scholar
Leff, Gordon. 1975. William of Ockham. The metamorphosis of scholastic discourse. Manchester.Google Scholar
Loux, Michael J. 1974. “The Ontology of William of Ockham.” In Ockham, 1974b, 1-21.Google Scholar
Mack, Peter. 1993. Renaissance Argument. Valla and Agricola in the Traditions of Rhetoric and Dialectic. Leiden.Google Scholar
McCord Adams, Marilyn. 1987. William of Ockham. 2 vols. Notre Dame, IN.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 1984. Rev. of Lorenzo Valla, Repastinatio dialectice et philosophic Ed. Gianni Zippel. Rivista di letteratura italiana 2:177-94. Rpt. Monfasani. 1994, VI.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 1987. Rev. of Lorenzo Valla, De professione religiosorum. Ed. Mariarosa Cortesi. Rivista di letteratura italiana 5:351-65. Rpt. Monfasani. 1994, VII.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 1990. “Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola.” Journal ofthe History ofIdeas 28:181–200. Rpt. Monfasani. 1994, V.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 1993. “Aristotelians, Platonists, and the Missing Ockhamists: Philosophical Liberty in Pre-Reformation Italy. “ Renaissance Quarterly 46:247-76.10.2307/3039061Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 1994. Language and Learning in Renaissance Italy. Selected Articles. Aldershot.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 2000. “The theology of Lorenzo Valla.” In Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Jill Kraye and Martin W. Stone, 1-23. London.Google Scholar
Monfasani, John. 2001. “Disputationes vallianae.” In Penser entre les lignes. Philologie et philosophic au Quattrocento, ed. Fosca Mariani Zini, 229-50. Villeneuve d'Ascq.Google Scholar
Moody, Ernest A. 1935. The Logic of William ofOckham. London.Google Scholar
Nauta, Lodi. 2003. “Lorenzo Valla's Critique of Aristotelian Psychology.” Vivarium 41 (in press).10.1163/156853403322502137Google Scholar
Nizolio, Mario. 1956. De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi contra pseudophilosophos. Ed. Quirinus Breen. 2 vols. Rome.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1930. De sacramento Altaris. Ed. T. Bruce Birch. Burlington, Iowa.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1944. Tractatus de successivis. Ed. Philotheus Boehner. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1974a. Summa Logicae (Opera Philosophica, I). Ed. Philotheus Boehner et al. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1974b. Ockham's Theory of Terms. Part L of the ‘Summa Logicae.‘ Trans. Michael J. Loux. Notre Dame, IN.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1978a. Expositionis in Libros Artis Logicae Prooemium et Expositio in Librum Porphyrii de Praedicabilibus (Opera Philosophica, II). Ed. Ernest A. Moody. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1978b. Expositio in Librum Praedicamentorum Aristotelis (Opera Philosophica, II). Ed. Gedeon Gal. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1978c. Expositio in Librum Perihermeneias (Opera Philosophica, II). Ed. Angelus Gambatese and Stephen F. Brown. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1984a. Brevis Summa Libri Physicorum (Opera Philosophica, VI). Ed. Stephen F. Brown. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1984b. Summula Philosophiae Naturalis (Opera Philosophica, VI). Ed. Stephen F. Brown. New York.Google Scholar
Ockham, William of. 1984c. Quaestiones in Libros Physicorum Aristotelis (Opera Philosophica, VI). Ed. Stephen F. Brown. New York.Google Scholar
Owens, Joseph. 1982. “Faith, ideas, illumination, and experience.” In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann et al., 440-59. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Panaccio, Claude. 1974. “Langage ordinaire et langage abstrait chez Guillaume d'Occam.” Philosophiques 1:37–60.10.7202/203012arGoogle Scholar
Panaccio, Claude, 1999. “Semantics and Mental Language.” In The Cambridge Companion, 53-75.10.1017/CCOL052158244X.004Google Scholar
Paul of Venice. 2002. Logica Parva. Ed. and commentary Alan R. Perreiah. Leiden.Google Scholar
Perreiah, Alan R. 1982. “Humanist Critiques of Scholastic Dialectic.” The Sixteenth Century Journal 13:3–22.10.2307/2539602Google Scholar
Quintilian, . 1958. Institutio oratoria. Trans. Harold E. Butler. 4 vols. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Seigel, Jerrold E. 1968. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism. The Union of Eloquence and Wisdom, Petrarch to Valla. Princeton.10.1515/9781400878826Google Scholar
Spade, Paul V. 1999. “Ockham's Nominalist Metaphysics: Some Main Themes.” In The Cambridge Companion, 100-17.Google Scholar
Tavoni, Mirko. 1984. Latino, grammatica, volgare. Padua.Google Scholar
Tavoni, Mirko. 1986. “Lorenzo Valla e il volgare.” In Lorenzo Valla e I'umanesimo Italiano, ed. Ottavio Besomi and Mariangela Regoliosi, 199–216. Padua.Google Scholar
Trinkaus, Charles. 1970. In Our Image and Likeness. 2 vols. Chicago.Google Scholar
Trinkaus, Charles. 1993. “Valla's Anti-Aristotelian Natural Philosophy.” I Tatti Studies 5:279–325.Google Scholar
Valla, Lorenzo. 1982. Repastinatio dialectice etphilosophie. Ed. Gianni Zippel. 2 vols. Padua.Google Scholar
Valla, Lorenzo. 1984. Epistole. Eds. Ottavio Besomi and Mariangela Regoliosi. Padua.Google Scholar
Zippel, Gianni. 1982. “Introduzione.” In Lorenzo Valla. 1982. Repastinatio dialectic, ix-cxxxii.Google Scholar