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Document Details : Title: The Impact of William of Ockham's Nominalism on Modern Mysticism According to Michel de Certeau Author(s): ÁLVAREZ, Carlos Journal: Studies in Spirituality Volume: 33 Date: 2024 Pages: 27-53 DOI: 10.2143/SIS.33.0.3293655 Abstract : This article explores Michel de Certeau’s analysis of the impact of nominalist ruptures in modern spiritual experience as an archaeology of modernity. Given the central role played by the nominalist rupture, specially the nominalism of William of Ockham in the emergence of modern mysticism, we consider that it is necessary to retrace path of Certeau’s work towards this problematic. This rupture catalyzed the collapse of a theory of symbolism that supported the epistemological edifice of Christianity during the Middle Ages: the passage from allegoria in factis to allegoria in verbis. What strikes Certeau most about the ‘Ockham moment’ is the uncertainty produced in the field of knowledge by the notion of potentia Dei absoluta and its corollary, the progressive desontologisation of language. The centrality of spiritual experience as the sole certainty of knowledge, established at the dawn of modernity, is the result of this theological and philosophical shift that Certeau so lucidly grasped. |
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