I argue that although Ockham’s Razor (OR) has its origins in a-priorist ontological
mandates according to the purposes of natural theology and natural philosophy as
influenced by it, the principle has taken on significant empirical and contingent
materialist connotations and conceptual content since the scientific revolution. I briefly
discuss the pluralism of the concept of OR historically and in contemporary science
and philosophy. I then attempt to align scientific metaphysics with conte…
Read moreI argue that although Ockham’s Razor (OR) has its origins in a-priorist ontological
mandates according to the purposes of natural theology and natural philosophy as
influenced by it, the principle has taken on significant empirical and contingent
materialist connotations and conceptual content since the scientific revolution. I briefly
discuss the pluralism of the concept of OR historically and in contemporary science
and philosophy. I then attempt to align scientific metaphysics with contemporary
conceptions of OR, and to demonstrate that ontic parsimony is an indispensable
element of scientific (contingent and anti-a-priorist) metaphysics. I then further deploy
that scientific metaphysics to propose a contingently grounded semi-formal approach,
with set theoretic features, and then with information theoretic features, to provide a
way of assessing when a scientific theory and its ontology are aligned with OR
appropriately in the context of the proposed scientific metaphysics.