In this episode of pplpod, we sharpen our focus on William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), the English Franciscan friar and "Venerable Beginner" whose radical ideas dismantled medieval metaphysics and challenged the highest powers of the Church,. While he is most famous today for Occam’s razor—the principle of parsimony urging us not to multiply entities beyond necessity—we discover how this tool was actually part of a theological argument that viewed God as the only true ontological necessity.

Join us as we explore:

• The Roots of Empiricism: How Ockham’s "Nominalism" argued that universals (like "humanity") are merely names or mental concepts rather than existing realities, making him a pioneer of modern epistemology.
• A Friar on the Run: The dramatic story of O ...