or William of Occam
born с 1285, Ockham, Surrey?, Eng.
died 1347/49, Munich, Bavaria
English Franciscan philosopher, theologian, and political writer.
A late Scholastic thinker, he is regarded as the founder of a form of nominalism, the school of thought that denies that Ockham's razor . He was excommunicated by Pope John XXII for his defense of the Franciscan notion of poverty and the rights of the empire against the papacy.