From 2006

AN INTRODUCTION TO OCKHAM’S RAZOR

“Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” Ockham’s razor, states that the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. While the definition is straightforward, application of Ockham’s Razor requires some development. In this paper we are going to investigate the question, “How is simplicity to be determined?” Some philosophers and scientists have suggested that simplicity is determined by a certain kind of elegance or in other cases a level of coherence combined with explanatory power. We suggest that such models are nonsense. We will start off by taking examples from the fields of Psychology and Linguistics before drawing some general…