These days the "principle" is often stated as:
also spelled OCCAM'S RAZOR, also called LAW
OF ECONOMY, or LAW OF PARSIMONY, principle stated by
William of Ockham (1285-1347/49), a scholastic,
that non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem; i.e.,
entities
are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.
The principle was, in fact, invoked before Ockham
by Durand de Saint-Pourçain, a French Dominican theologian and
philosopher of dubious orthodoxy, who used it
to explain that abstraction is the apprehension of some real entity, such
as an
Aristotelian cognitive species, an active intellect,
or a disposition, all of which he spurned as unnecessary. Likewise, in
science,
Nicole d'Oresme, a 14th-century French physicist,
invoked the law of economy, as did Galileo later, in defending the simplest
hypothesis of the heavens. Other later scientists
stated similar simplifying laws and principles.
Ockham, however, mentioned the principle so frequently
and employed it so sharply that it was called "Ockham's razor." He
used it, for instance, to dispense with relations,
which he held to be nothing distinct from their foundation in things; with
efficient
causality, which he tended to view merely as
regular succession; with motion, which is merely the reappearance of a
thing in a
different place; with psychological powers distinct
for each mode of sense; and with the presence of ideas in the mind of the
Creator, which are merely the creatures themselves.
Copyright (c) 1995 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Was this Occam's Razor??? (or it's inspiration)
These days the "principle" is often stated as:
"Where there are multiple possibilities,
the simplest solution is most likely."
Or,
"Keep it simple, stupid" (KISS).
(So what is it about Rock Groups and razors???
More on that later!)
This is just another example of razors at the cutting edge, in this case, of philosophy. In fact, one has to wonder how many august principles, or even just simple solutions have been arrived at on an ordinary morning over a sink of suds as we (well, those of you who shave it off) scrape off another day's growth. That quiet contemplative time to think is one of the luxuries afforded us by the invention of the safety razor.
After all, who could imagine allowing even a single neuron to stray from the task of shaving with the previous generation of straight or "cut throat" razors. Those who got too deeply into philosophy with a freshly stropped naked blade poised over his jugular vein may indeed have found the universality of Occam's Razor to be all too true, in that considering too many ideas in addition to the focal task of shaving may not lead to the desired result!
And then again, we can contemplate the excessive complication of some of today's shaving solutions, in particular the electric shaver (I never call them razors). Here we have a technological marvel of a thousand pieces, connected directly by wire to such large and complex machinery as nuclear power plants, all for the simple purpose of buzzing off a few pesky whiskers. And all that just to get us to work faster?
We might well spend a few moments contemplating the chain reaction we unleash when we hit the switch some dull Monday morning. Although, truth be told, the humble single blade, single edge razor I use around the edges has its own history of industrial magic.
All of which leads me to the conclusion that Ockham/
Occam was right after all: entities (and ideas, perhaps) should not be
multiplied beyond necessity.
