Ultimately, Ockham chose to distinguish between two kinds mental acts: the first are indeed of an introspective kind, having mental sentences as their objects, while the second are of a non-introspective kind by which nothing is properly known or believed. However, later Ockham, Chatton, and Wodeham all chose to ascribe to the act theory of intellection, which led them to reject identifying mental sentences with objects of knowledge or belief since that would require that the agent be aware of her mental acts. As long as mental sentences had been conceived as consisting of entities which can be apprehended without involving any reflection of the mind on itself-for instance, as ficta in Ockham's earlier writings-it was possible to identify such objects with mental sentences. This article presents an overview of mental discourse in Ockham, Chatton, and Wodeham by focusing on the extent to which they identified the objects of knowledge or belief with mental sentences. "William of Ockham, Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham on the Objects of Knowledge and Belief." Vivarium 33.2 (1995): 171-96. As Karger argues, however, Ockham did not regard abstractive cognitions as capable by nature of causing false judgments, nor did he consider it absolutely impossible, on pain of contradiction, that an intuitive cognition cause a false judgment. On the basis of a misunderstanding of Ockham’s reply to Chatton, Boehner and subsequent scholars inferred that, on Ockham’s doctrine, intuitive cognitions are infallible and abstractive cognitions deceptive.
Nevertheless, for Ockham, these acts of cognition are not of the same kind because they are not capable of causing the same effects: acts of intuitive cognition are, by nature, capable of causing what Ockham calls "evident assent" (that is, the immediate assent to the mental sentences that they engender) and acts of abstractive cognition lack this ability. In both cases of cognition, the very same individual is apprehended by the subject. For Ockham, Karger shows, an act by which we apprehend a material object via one or several of our five senses is an act of intuitive cognition, whereas an act by which we think of the same material thing when it is no longer present is an act of abstractive cognition. Karger provides a succinct account of Ockham's theory of intuitive and abstractive cognition, paying special attention to a misreading that can be traced back to Philotheus Boehner's influential 1943 article on the subject. Not only does Ockham subscribe to the truism that agents cannot will what they do not think of, he also upholds the Aristotelian doctrine that an agent’s own practical dictates are morally normative for willing, that not only right reason but erring conscience binds. Nevertheless, Adams reminds us that however distinctive, Ockham’s theories of will and morality are developed within the broad outlines of an Aristotelian theory of rational self-government, according to which it belongs to the intellect to deliberate and legislate, whereas implementation pertains to the will. Second, it “frees” will from reason’s rule: no matter what reason dictates,created willpower can disobey. First, it cuts will off from nature: the liberty of indifference turns created wills into neutral potencies unshaped by natural inclinations. By contrast with his great medieval predecessors, many estimate, Ockham has staked out a position fraught with disadvantages. In this article, Adams turns to Ockham's doctrine of the liberty of indifference: the notion that created willpower is power to will, to nill, or to do nothing with respect to any object.
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