William Of Occam

WilliamOfOccam (c. 1285-1349), English monk, philosopher. OccamsRazor, also called law of parsimony[1].

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. (Latin for "Entities should not be multiplied more than necessary").

"Never multiply explanations or make them more complicated than necessary. An explanation should be as simple and direct as possible"

"It is vain to do with more that which can be done with less."

A rule in science and philosophy stating that entities should not be multiplied needlessly. This rule is interpreted to mean that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known.

I find that this really applies to ExtremeProgramming. -- JosephPelrine

WilliamOfOccam is not to be confused with the famous programmer, WilliamOfOcaml.

I can't figure how he managed to avoid getting burned at the stake -- AlistairCockburn

He might have come pretty close, since apparently he was excommunicated by the Pope -- MilesWhitener

The plague killed him before the Christians could. -- EricHodges

I'm a Christian and I would not have killed him. I don't know any Christians who believe in that. Not trying to start something ... -- MilesWhitener

It would be foolish to confuse modern mainstream Christianity with that of Sir William's time. Back in the 14th century; the church regularly did kill off folks who annoyed it. Which has little to do with today.

C'mon, guys. There was more to William's philosophy than just this one principle. In particular, he argued that revelation should take precedence over reason in matters of religion, and so never applied this principle to it. So why you would have expected him to be burnt is well beyond me; his excommunication had to do with something completely different. -- JoshuaGrosse

He was a hardcore, extremely devout Franciscan and I doubt he would have realized the Razor could be used against the faith. Everyone of any minor significance was excommunicated back then, often multiple times. He was excommunicated for purely political reasons and his writings were never condemned by the church. He was one of many monks writing dense books of logic that were generally only read by similar monks. And I believe that it was a long while before the razor was ever used in religious debates. I doubt anyone at the time understood the modern significance of the razor. -- kc

CategoryScientist