--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tgpedersen
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 8:18 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: OE *picga
>
>
> I saw "sine ratione" somewhere, but you might be right. Does it
make an essential difference here?
>
> Actually, William of Occam never actually wrote those words. He
expressed the principle of parsimony in many ways in his works,
e.g. "Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate". Duns Scotus also
wrote things to exactly the same effect. The classical formulation of
the principle comes from the 17th century (ca. 300 years after
William) and its author, as far as I know, was John Ponce of Cork,
another Franciscan philosopher. It says, "Entia non sunt
multiplicanda praeter necessitatem". "Necessitas" is the key word
here, since it emphasises the requirement of economy. "Sine ratione"
does not have the same effect, since economy may not be high on some
thinkers' lists of priorities, and they might have other "reasons"
for proposing something.
>
> Piotr
>
Thank you for clearing that up. I think you are right in stressing
that Occam's (unused by him) razor is about economy, not truth, since
the outcome of its use is sensitive not only to evidence, but to the
availability of evidence (all those unrecorded languages! and every
time a scrap of evidence appears we might have to change our views,
possibly out on a limb that that razor had told us to cut off. I
think we should keep that in mind when we use it: simplicity isn't
necessarily truth. It is true people might have other "reasons" for
proposing a theory, but in my system that doesn't mean they shouldn't
be given due process of law, science-wise. Otherwise one might
introduce one's own reasons for believing people have other reasons
into the process, and that complicates the whole procedure.
Torsten