William of Champeaux

William of Champeaux (1060?-1121) was a highly renowned logician, theologian, and master, active in Laon, Paris, Saint-Victor and Châlons-sur-Marne at the turn of the twelfth century. As a philosopher, he provided important contributions in logic, semantics and metaphysics, and inspired a new philosophical approach to theology. As a teacher, he has been deeply influential in shaping the philosophical outlook of an entire generation of thinkers, including Peter Abelard, Joscelin of Soissons, Bernard of Clairvaux, Ulger of Angers and Hugh of Saint Victor. Besides his career as philosopher and master, he pursued a successful ecclesiastic career, culminating in his election as bishop in Châlons from 1113. A figure apparently torn between many lives––as a master, as a philosopher, as a reformer of the Church, as a hermit––William still “escapes his biographers” and interpreters (cf. Miramon 2011), because of the scarcity of direct biographical sources and of texts unquestionably attributable to him. But traces of his teaching and thought appear almost everywhere in philosophical texts produced in the context of Parisian schools at the turn of the 12th century. In this entry, we follow these traces to provide an overview of William’s life, texts and philosophical views in the areas of logic, grammar, rhetoric and theology.