What is Occam’s Razor?
What is a philosophical razor?
Philosophical razors are principals or rules of thumb that guide a thinker in ruling out unlikely explanations to a problem. We call these things razors because razors shave things away. i.e. a philosophical razor can shave away incorrect answers and a lot of needless thinking.
Philosophal razors are handy tools for people who do a lot of pondering. They can be used to help with questions ranging from “Is there life after death?” to “Why isn’t she texting me back?” There are many different razors, laws, and principles that exist (in theory) for us to use. But, for now, I will describe the one that is most common.
Occam’s Razor
Occam’s Razor is understood by most people as this: The simplest answer is likely the correct answer. However another, more accurate way to describe this razor is that you should only believe answers which have the fewest entities and the fewest suppositions. A supposition is an uncertain belief.
Occam’s Razor is attributed to William of Occam, but the concept was certainly used by many philosophers and thinkers before him. This is also known as the law of parsimony.
Example
Suppose you have come up with the question “Why do mountains exist?” There are two competing theories that you are considering, but you can’t decide which one is correct. Theory 1 says that God lifted the mountains high above the sea as a place of worship so that you may be closer to Him when you are praying. Theory 2 says that the earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates and the plates move and sometimes crash into each other, and when that happens earth and rock are thrust upwards, forming mountians.
If you are a rational person in 2024 you have an ontology (things you know to be true) that looks something like this
Shifting tectonic plates
Laws of physics
A spherical earth
As a person in the 21st century, you would be wise to believe theory 2, the theory in which the tectonic plates because this theory requires no suppositions (i.e. supernatural powers.)
Now suppose you are a person living in Jerusalem in 1400 A.D. Your ontology would look something like this:
God
Supernatural powers
Prayer
A person in the 13th century is rational for believing the theory involving God because he does not know about lava, tectonic plates etc. He would have to suppose that those things exist and he has no proof for their existence. However, it was common to believe in a omnipotent being in that time period.
*disclaimer
Always gather as much information as possible before making a decision. It is easy to jump to the wrong conclusion when applying Occam’s razor.