Abstract

In the 14th century Ockham's critique of the realist approach to philosophy instigated an ongoing debate between Ockham himself and Walter Burley. Ockham's principle of ontological parsimony and Burley's trust in the scheme object-label as the main interpretative key of every semantic problem are the decisive differences between the central features of Burley's semantics and ontology and those of Ockham's. This paper tries to show that a close analysis of the dispute between them leads us to conclude that the following rough proportion somehow holds: Ockham's semantic and ontological theories are to Burley's later theories as later Wittgenstein's theories are to earlier Wittgenstein's.