Hence Ockham is sometimes called a conceptualist rather than a nominalist, although given the close connection between spoken/written language and mental language both names are apt. He rejects the suggestion that terms of written or spoken language, independently of their connection with mental language, can be called universals. Ockham therefore identifies universals with concepts that can be the terms of mental language. Thus mental language functions as the semantics of written and spoken language. Terms of spoken language are said to 'signify' whatever the mental term to which they are directly subordinated signifies, and terms of written language 'signify' whatever the mental term to which they are indirectly subordinated, via spoken language, signifies. The constituent elements of mental language, however, are not an encoding they are directly related to extralinguistic items, a relation Ockham calls 'signification' - the mediaeval correlate to the modern notion of 'meaning'. These semantic linkages Ockham calls 'subordination': written language encodes spoken language, which in its turn encodes mental language. For Ockham, the constituent elements of written language are linked piecemeal to the constituent elements of spoken language, and those of spoken language piecemeal to mental language (Summa logicae I.i-ii). Each is complete, with its own vocabulary, rules of syntax, and semantics. But are all such names universal? If universals are linguistic tokens, do they come into being and pass away? Do distinct languages have different universals? To avoid difficulties stemming from the conventionality of language, Ockham has recourse to a device inspired by Aristotle, namely to hold that there are three hierarchically-ordered levels of language, written language, spoken language, and mental language, where the first two are conventional but the last not. Universals, Ockham declares, 'are not things other than names' - names predicable of many, that is. Ultimately, I believe, his attempt fails, though not for any lack of ingenuity, and his failure is itself instructive about the possible forms and limits of nominalism. The results are be instructive, since Ockham was struggling with difficulties that continue to plague philosophers who want to avoid a pure conventionalism and yet find realism about universals an unacceptable alternative. I want to explore the insights that nourished Ockham's positive views about nominalism and also threw him into such uncertainty. Ockham is sure that no form of realism about universals is acceptable, but doesn't seem to know what to put in its place. The text itself is heavily revised in a later redaction and a new alternative appended to the discussion. Instead, Ordinatio I d.2 q.8 is indecisive: several identifications of universals are presented but none clearly endorsed. Ockham's positive account should therefore avoid the realist commitments of his predecessors while managing to satisfy the demands of rigor and subtlety established in his critique. In qq.4-7 he criticizes positions holding that the universal is somehow a real existent outside the soul, presenting his view that universals are nothing but words as the conclusion to be drawn from the failure of these realist positions to stand up to his rigorous examination.

This ringing declaration closes William of Ockham's lengthy discussion of universals in Ordinatio I d.2 qq.4-8 (pp.291-292). 'I do hold this, that no universal, unless perhaps it is universal by a voluntary agreement, is something existing outside the soul in any way, but all that which is of its nature universally predicable of many is in the mind either subjectively or objectively, and that no universal is of the essence or quiddity of any given substance.'

Ockham agent intellect