William of Ockham wasn’t the first person to use or explain this logical tool â€" indeed, nowhere in his writings will you find the most common formulations today, like “Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.†The closest you will come to a direct formulation is the quote at the beginning of this article.
However, it was Ockham who used it most ruthlessly and even vehemently, chiefly in reaction to the intellectual climate of his age. At the time, the methods of theology and philosophy were dominated by his predecessor Thomas Aquinas and other “Scholastics†- so named because they preferred arguments based upon texts and pure thinking rather than experiment and experience.
These Scholastics desperately wished to make their theology more “scientific†in nature, resolving any contradictions between ancient science and contemporary scriptural teachings. It was their goal to offer fully rational explanations and proofs of theological concepts such as God’s existence. Curiously, we find similar attitudes today among people attempting to find support for the existence of their god in the “design†of the universe. Ockham thought that the Scholastics of his day were simply wasting their time, and he would probably render a similar judgment about “Intelligent Design†theorists today.
One step in the Scholastic road was to treat universal concepts like “good†and “great†(and even more mundane universals like “dogâ€) as real, independent entities. They argued, closely following Plato, that if we call both a pine and an oak “trees,†then there must exist some real thing called “treeness†that they both share. For another example, if we call both Martin Luther King and our best friend “good,†then that means that there is some universal, really existing thing called “goodness†which they both must share. Neither goodness nor treeness is a subjective concept in our minds. This doctrine is known as “realism.â€
As you might guess, Ockham regarded this “realism†as nothing more than nonsense. It confused categories and elevated that confusion to a “science.†According to Ockham, it is a mistake to treat a mere name as a reality rather than just a description. The contrary idea, that names really are just names is called “nominalism.â€
If we call two different objects both “trees,†it is not because there is some independently existing “treeness†out there, but instead because they both share certain characteristics which we have chosen to label “treeness.†If all the trees suddenly disappeared, then there would no longer be any “treeness†left around outside our own memories and records.
Such realist universals were done away with by Ockham wielding his Razor. He insisted that valid, reasonable explanations had to be based upon simple, observable facts, supplemented by logic. The acceptance of such conditions results in not being able to either simply assume that God exists or scientifically prove that God exists - but Ockham, even though he was a theologian, was willing to accept that consequence. In his mind, theology was one thing â€" a matter of revelation â€" and science quite another â€" a matter of discovery.
It took quite a while for this idea to take hold either in ecclesiastical or secular circles; Galileo found that out rather unpleasantly. Ultimately, however, the basic ideas and premises which Ockham used have become the foundation of modern, secular society â€" at least in theory.
Although science and religion have generally gone their separate ways, there are still people seeking to mix the two or limit science with religion’s assumptions. And many, if not most, people don’t quite make full use of the skepticism required to avoid introducing unnecessary assumptions or ideas in their explanations.
However, most people do realize that this is what they should do and that this is what is best. And it is thus Ockham’s ideas here which have become so fundamental to modernity and even secularism.
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