Bacon distinguishes a twofold experience...

Bacon distinguishes a twofold experience: external perception, which brings us knowledge of the sensible world; and internal perception, by which is meant "illumination." Bacon combined Augustinian-Platonic philosophy with Arabic speculations and emphasized the need of observation. b. William of Ockham (1300 - 1349) For Ockham concepts do not have objective reality; they exist only in our intellect as a "term" or "sign" of the similarity of many experienced objects.

The denial of concepts as a reality bears within itself the denial of metaphysics. Moreover, Ockham defends an absolute predomination of the divine will: The Principle of contradiction is under the free will of God, and, if God wished, it would be a meritorious act to hate Him. Furthermore, the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are objects of faith and not of reason. Thus, when faith became weaker, these truths were denied, which is exactly what modern philosophy has done.

On the Internet More About William of Ockham V. Philosophical and Mystical Knowledge The proper object of philosophy is the essence of material beings, and the philosopher conceives these essences by means of abstraction from data obtained by the senses, from external objects.

Any method of knowledge which bypasses sense experience and is based on intuition is not necessarily false, but it is not philosophical: it is true if based on an actual supernatural gift but it is beyond the means of natural knowledge. Therefore, all theories based on illumination are philosophically excluded because they are beyond philosophy, even though they may lead to deeper truths. Such men as St. Augustine and St.

Bonaventure were so used to the supernatural method that they accepted it by mistake as a natural means of acquiring knowledge, not noticing that such method was a personal favor of God and could not be followed by the philosopher who was left to reason alone. Conclusion Scholastic philosophy grew step by step as a harmonious accord of reason and faith, which met on the same summit: God, the Creator of man. Such metaphysics does not know decadence.

The decadence occurs in men, when their culture indicates a retrogression to past errors, such as Ockham did with his return to nominalism. Thus in later schools these same errors were to appear again; reason was to take the place of faith and man the place of God.