Occam’s Razor and Possible Worlds

The Monist 65 (4):456-464 (1982)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper I argue against Realism about Possible Worlds by showing how it leads to a counter-intuitive scepticism about the rationality of Occam’s razor. This can be thought of as a transcendental argument from Logic to Metaphysics. It should be contrasted with a straightforward application of Logic to Metaphysics, as when we apply Occam’s razor to reject a category of entities which we judge to be redundant.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is Occam's Razor a Physical Thing?J. J. C. Smart - 1978 - Philosophy 53 (205):382 - 385.
Simple or Simplistic? Scientists' Views on Occam's Razor.Hauke Riesch - 2010 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 25 (1):75-90.
Modified Occam’s Razor.Ben Phillips - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (2):371-382.
Simple or Simplistic? Scientists' Views on Occam's Razor.Hauke Riesch - 2010 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 25 (1):75-90.
Occam’s Razor, Dogmatism, Skepticism, and Skeptical Dogmatism.Mark Walker - 2016 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (1):1-29.
Curve-Fitting for Bayesians?Gordon Belot - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (3):689-702.
Constructions as the Subject Matter of Mathematics.Pavel Tichý - 1995 - Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 3:175-185.
Occam's razor.W. M. Thorburn - 1915 - Mind 24 (2):287-288.
Occam's razor.William G. Lycan - 1975 - Metaphilosophy 6 (3-4):223-237.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-02-21

Downloads
151 (#121,584)

6 months
6 (#504,917)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

The Way of Actuality.Sam Cowling - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (2):231-247.
On Quantitative and Qualitative Parsimony.Maciej Sendłak - 2018 - Metaphilosophy 49 (1-2):153-166.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references