Comprehensive development and ability to use psychological and philosophical lifehacks allows a person to succeed in any endeavors. Also BrainApps offers daily improvement of cognitive functions, which constitute the highest nervous activity of a person and help to live in a modern society. Periodically visiting our resource, you will learn a lot of interesting facts and techniques aimed at self-development. The principle of Occam is only a small detail in the multifaceted science of studying the personality and its improvement, but it still needs to be understood.
What is Occam’s Razor?
In short, the Occam principle is the following saying: “Do not multiply entities without necessity.” You can also present the concept as follows: you do not need to introduce something new or unnecessary without the need. Occam’s razor in philosophy is one of the mainstays of the law of thrift.
The founder of this principle is William Occam, but he is not its creator. This concept became known to mankind yet from Aristotle, but only the Franciscan monk brought it into the proper form, and therefore is still considered the pioneer.
Occam’s razor reflects the following content of the principle: if there is some phenomenon that can be explained with the help of three facts or terms or arguments, and the involvement of the fourth, fifth, sixth points do not affect the final result of understanding, and then their use is meaningless. That is, we explain the concept as simply as possible. Here it is important to consider that the rule of Occam’s Razor is not an axiom, but it is actively used in considering various hypotheses, since it allows you to drop the superfluous.
Curious facts about the principle of Occam
For most people, the concept of Occam is known in the following interpretation: Do not produce the essence without necessity. However, the creator of the technique, William Occam, never once applied such words to his own conception. He described the principle as follows: Without need, one should not assert much. Since the concept has firmly taken root in philosophical circles, it has become overgrown with new interesting interpretations and formulations.
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William Occam argued that one and the same phenomenon can be explained much better and more efficiently with the help of one object, without resorting to others, which will not change understanding completely. Now one more interpretation of the principle is actively used: if something can be explained less, then there is no need to use more.
Initially, the rule of Occam was created by a monk to confirm the existence of God and did not claim to be widely used. However, in the modern world the principle is used in many exact and humanitarian sciences, in business and even everyday life, to save time and reduce the probability of error.
The concept of Occam in modernity
Even after reading the full definition of the principle, you can still not understand what Occam’s Razor is in the modern world. Now the concept is interpreted as follows: if there are several equivalent explanations for a concept, but different in the number of arguments and volume, then the simplest and shortest explanation is used. In addition, new laws and theories should not be introduced to explain the discovery or phenomenon, if it is possible to use existing old laws or theories.
The second feature of Occam’s Razor in modern interpretation is that the principle is used only if the simple explanation of the phenomenon is completely exhaustive. That is, a person will not understand or perceive an object better if you describe it more difficult. It is also necessary to take into account the environment and other subjective reasons. It is not always necessary to address the principle of Occam, but sometimes it greatly simplifies life.
Upgraded Occam’s Razor reaches out to logical laws, guides them and improves them. From the point of view of ordinary logic, it is only necessary to talk about any facts and arguments when it’s really needed. Thus, in the presence of a simpler explanation of the phenomenon, the use of additional arguments is inexpedient and contradicts the logic. However, if there is a reason for applying a particular fact, then using the Occam method will be an error, since a simple explanation does not satisfy the request.
Interpretation of the term “razor”
Even if you understand the basics of the principle, you should explain what Occam’s Razor is and why it’s called so. In the philosophical sciences, the “razor” means the rejection of untruthful or meaningless explanations and arguments. Now there are several different techniques based on this interpretation:
- Hitchens Razor;
- Hanlon’s Razor;
- Popper’s falsifiability and so on.
To understand the application of the principle of Occam’s Razor, various examples will help. If you also have some life situations or literature examples, then share them with other users in the comments to the article.
Examples of using the methodology
Occam’s razor is used in various spheres, since many well-known personalities have found it to use it in their work. For example, Albert Einstein came to the conclusion that any phenomenon should be simplified as long as it is real, but not more than that. And in the sphere of communications a rule has appeared that any message becomes more constructive if its length is reduced, that is, unnecessary words are removed.
An interesting example of the duality of the Occam principle is known since the time of Plato, who claimed: “Man is an animal with two legs, but without feathers.” In response, his rival found a cock, plucked his feathers and brought it to the Academy to show that it was a man of Plato. To which the well-known scientist imperturbably added: “And without curved nails.”
Another well-known and old example of the use of the concept of Occam – answer of the creator of the solar system theory formation to Napoleon why he did not use the word “God” in his developments. The scientist only shrugged his shoulders and said: “There was no need for it”.
In some way BrainApps resource also works on the principle of Occam, where interesting games for personal development are created. There is nothing superfluous and pointless, they are simplified for maximum benefit in minimum time.
