Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Metaphysics

Parsimony (In as few words as possible)

Toni Vogel Carey wonders whether nature loves simplicity.

Webster’s Ninth gives this definition of ‘parsimony’:

1) The quality of being careful with money or resources; the quality or state of being niggardly: stinginess. 2) Economy in the use of means to an end; economy of explanation in conformity with Occam’s razor.

It is the ‘explanatory’ meaning that is of primary interest to philosophers, although the line between it and means-end “principles of least effort” as Nicholas Rescher calls them, is rather fuzzy; and neither sense is far removed from thriftiness with a dollar (pound, euro, renminbi). All are principles of economy.

What Webster’s does not mention is the aesthetic aspect of parsimony, although it is conspicuous both in art and science.

…