William of Conches

William of Conches (c. 1090 – after 1154) was a French scholastic philosopher who sought to expand the bounds of Christian humanism by studying secular works of the classics and fostering empirical science. He was a prominent member of the School of Chartres. John of Salisbury, a bishop of Chartres and former student of William's, refers to William as the most talented grammarian after Bernard of Chartres.

He was born in Conches, Normandy. His teaching activity extended from c. 1120 to 1154, and about the year 1145 he became the tutor of Henry Plantagenet. It is possible, but uncertain, that he was teaching at Chartres before that. Warned by a friend of the danger implied in his Platonic realism as he applied it to theology, he took up the study of Islamic philosophy and physical science. When and where he died is a matter of uncertainty.

William devoted much attention to cosmology and psychology. Having been a student of Bernard of Chartres, he shows the characteristic Humanism, tendency towards Platonism, and taste for natural science which distinguish the "Chartrains". He is one of the first of the medieval Christian philosophers to take advantage of Islamic physical and physiological lore, to which he had access in the translations by Constantine the African.

William of St. Thierry, who had encouraged Bernard of Clairvaux to prosecute Abelard, in another letter to Bernard attacked William's De philosophia mundi for having a modalist view of the Holy Trinity. William in consequence revised some controversial parts in the Dragmaticon.

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