Editing Occam's razor (section)

=== William of Ockham ===
[[File:William of Ockham - Logica 1341.jpg|thumb|[[Manuscript]] illustration of William of Ockham]]
[[William of Ockham]] (''circa'' 1287–1347) was an English Franciscan friar and [[theologian]], an influential medieval philosopher and a [[nominalist]]. His popular fame as a great logician rests chiefly on the maxim attributed to him and known as Occam's razor. The term ''razor'' refers to distinguishing between two hypotheses either by "shaving away" unnecessary assumptions or cutting apart two similar conclusions.

While it has been claimed that Occam's razor is not found in any of William's writings,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://boingboing.net/2013/02/11/what-ockham-really-said.html |title=What Ockham really said |last=Vallee |first=Jacques |date=11 February 2013 |publisher=Boing Boing |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130331171919/http://boingboing.net/2013/02/11/what-ockham-really-said.html |archive-date=31 March 2013 |access-date=26 March 2013}}</ref> one can cite statements such as {{Lang|la|Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate}} ("Plurality must never be posited without necessity"), which occurs in his theological work on the [[The Four Books of Sentences|''Sentences of Peter Lombard'']] (''Quaestiones et decisiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi''; ed. Lugd., 1495, i, dist. 27, qu. 2, K).

Nevertheless, the precise words sometimes attributed to William of Ockham, {{lang|la|Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem}} (Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity),<ref>{{Cite book |title=The linguistics Student's Handbook |last=Bauer |first=Laurie |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |year=2007 |location=Edinburgh}} p. 155.</ref> are absent in his extant works;<ref>{{Cite book |title=A Dictionary of Philosophy |last=Flew |first=Antony |publisher=Pan Books |year=1979 |location=London |author-link=Antony Flew}} p. 253.</ref> this particular phrasing comes from [[John Punch (theologian)|John Punch]],<ref>[[Alistair Cameron Crombie|Crombie, Alistair Cameron]] (1959), ''Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard, Vol. 2, p. 30.</ref> who described the principle as a "common axiom" (''axioma vulgare'') of the Scholastics.<ref name="commentary" /> William of Ockham himself seems to restrict the operation of this principle in matters pertaining to miracles and God's power, considering a plurality of miracles possible in the [[Eucharist]]{{Explain | date = February 2021 | reason = Currently impossible to figure out what this means (exceptions including Christians). Probably should just drop it as the first clause may be enough, or should just footnote it. }} simply because it pleases God.<ref name="Franklin" />

This principle is sometimes phrased as {{lang|la|Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate}} ("Plurality should not be posited without necessity").<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/424706/Ockhams-razor |title=Ockham's razor |year=2010 |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Online |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100823154602/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/424706/Ockhams-razor |archive-date=23 August 2010 |access-date=12 June 2010 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> In his ''Summa Totius Logicae'', i. 12, William of Ockham cites the principle of economy, {{lang|la|Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora}} ("It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer"; Thorburn, 1918, pp.&nbsp;352–53; [[William Kneale (logician)|Kneale]] and Kneale, 1962, p.&nbsp;243.)