The Anglican church observes a feast in honor of William of Ockham on this day, the 10th of April. I so love the Anglicans…
While he is important for a number of reasons, the big one is philosophical parsimony, named “Occam’s razor” for him.
Without it, we really wouldn’t have modern science.
To shift the metaphor for just a second, I’ve found his principle of not adding unnecessary extras a north star for a lot of my thinking. For me the razor has cut through so much nonsense that’s presented as fact, revealing what’s left so often so wonderful, the direction left to proceed so obvious, I find following it something ecstatic.
I remain endlessly grateful!
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