View source for Ockham's Razor

'''Ockham's Razor''' — also called the principle of parsimony — is the methodological rule that entities should not be multiplied without necessity. In metaphysics, it functions as a selection criterion between competing theories: all else being equal, the theory with the sparser ontology is preferable. The principle is named after the medieval philosopher '''[[William of Ockham]]''', though its lineage extends to Aristotle. In contemporary philosophy, Ockham's Razor is the engine behind [[Nominalism|nominalism]] and '''[[Ontological Naturalism|ontological naturalism]]''', but critics note that parsimony is a virtue only when the simpler theory retains equivalent explanatory power — a condition that abstract-object theorists frequently dispute.

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