  William's discussions of the intellective power are driven by a concern to attack errors he sees in his contemporaries and Greek and Islamic thinkers. While his reasons for rejecting these errors are clear enough, if at times based on a confused understanding of his sources, his own views on the nature of cognition are less well developed. Yet it is clear that, with the exception of our knowledge of first principles and the concepts they involve and certain cases of supernaturally revealed knowledge, William wishes to present a naturalistic account of cognition in this life in which God plays no special role.