Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Ockham’s seemingly pessimistic epistemological assessments of what we can know about the human soul and its relation to the body reflect a sound appreciation of what is involved in the theoretical development of philosophy and natural science. In order to make my argument, I first undermine the idea that demonstration was a norm that scholastic disputation regularly expected to achieve; and second, I examine Ockham’s treatment of three major topics in psychology (thus illustrating how alternative intellectual standards were in play in scholastic disputation).