Quotation
Last reviewed:
“It is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer.”
William of Ockham · Nominalism · Medieval · c. 1323
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a rule of method. If fewer things will do the explanatory work, bringing in more is futile. A competing reading treats the sentence as the famous razor about entities, which is a later capsule and is already in this library as Questionable. The Latin formula is about not using more where fewer suffice, and it appears in the Summa Logicae I.12 in the course of a logical argument, not as a named principle of metaphysics. Futile is the word that marks a bad method rather than a claim that the world is simple. The world may be complicated. The rule says an explanation should not add complexity it does not use. The entities tag is sharper than this and is not a sentence he is known to have written. This one is the formula that can be placed. The English is a translation of the Latin.
Did William of Ockham really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The sense of a formula Ockham uses in the Summa Logicae, part I, chapter 12: frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora. This English is a translation of that formula. It is not the later tag 'entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity', which remains Questionable on its own card.
Where it comes from
Summa Logicae, part I, chapter 12, the parsimony formula in his Latin, in English
Approximate date: c. 1323.
How to use it
A product team that explains a drop in sales by inventing a hidden change in the customer's character, when the price rose and the bus route was cut, is doing with more what the facts already do with fewer. The formula does not say the simpler story is true. It says the extra factor has to earn its place. An extra that does real work is not futile.
A mindset reading
Parsimony is a complaint about unused extras, not a proof. The habit is to ask what work the additional item does that the shorter account cannot do. If the answer is none, the formula applies. If the answer is a real job, the formula does not ban the item.
Understand the philosophy
Summa Logicae I.12 is the locus of this formula. The key contrast is more and fewer. The later sentence about entities is a different card and stays Questionable. His nominalism, the refusal to treat universals as things outside the mind, is the neighbouring card from the same summa. The two are related and they are not the same sentence.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a rule of method. If fewer things will do the explanatory work, bringing in more is futile. A competing reading treats the sentence as the famous razor about entities, which is a later capsule and is already in this library as Questionable. The Latin formula is about not using more where fewer suffice, and it appears in the Summa Logicae I.12 in the course of a logical argument, not as a named principle of metaphysics. Futile is the word that marks a bad method rather than a claim that the world is simple. The world may be complicated. The rule says an explanation should not add complexity it does not use. The entities tag is sharper than this and is not a sentence he is known to have written. This one is the formula that can be placed. The English is a translation of the Latin.
Did William of Ockham really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The sense of a formula Ockham uses in the Summa Logicae, part I, chapter 12: frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora. This English is a translation of that formula. It is not the later tag 'entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity', which remains Questionable on its own card.
Which work is it in?
Summa Logicae, part I, chapter 12, the parsimony formula in his Latin, in English Approximate date: c. 1323.