#Ockham summa logicae analysis manual

Ockham presents the book as a manual or textbook, and its organisation and framework is similar to other such medieval textbooks. The Latin word Summa is difficult to translate, and does not mean a mere summary of its subject, but rather a comprehensive handbook, or manual or compendium, intended to cover all the salient points of the subject, written authoritatively, and from a single point of view. This idea had a far-reaching influence in Western thought, and is regarded by some as the beginning of European empiricism, by others as an anticipation of twentieth century linguistic philosophy.

It is introduced by Ockham as a manual or textbook of logic, but he has the more ambitious purpose of promoting a philosophical programme, according to which philosophical and theological error can be resolved by a correct understanding of logic and language. It was probably begun at the Franciscan friary at Greyfriars, London, and may have been finished while Ockham was in Avignon where he had been summoned by Pope John XXII to answer charges of heresy. Like all scholarly works of that period, it was written in Latin. Nearly a thousand pages long, it is organised in three parts according to Aristotle's three functions of the understanding, namely concepts and the terms which signify them (Part I), propositions formed by combining terms together (Part II), and argumentation (Part III). The Summa of Logic (Latin Summa Logicae) is an important work by the English philosopher-theologian and logician William of Ockham, written some time between 13.