Razor (philosophy)
In philosophy, a razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate ("shave off") unlikely explanations for a phenomenon.[1]
Razors include:
- Occam's razor: When faced with competing hypotheses, select the one that makes the fewest assumptions. Do not multiply entities without necessity.
- Grice's razor: As a principle of parsimony, conversational implications are to be preferred over semantic context for linguistic explanations.[2][3]
- Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.[4]
- Hume's razor: "If the cause, assigned for any effect, be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the effect."[5][6]
- Hitchens's razor: "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
- Alder's razor: Also known as "Newton's flaming laser sword", it states that if something cannot be settled by experiment or observation then it is not worthy of debate.
- Popper's falsifiability principle: For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be falsifiable.
See also
References
- ↑ Garg, A. (17 May 2010). "Occam's razor". A.Word.A.Day. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
- ↑ Hazlett, A. (2007). "Grice's razor". Metaphilosophy. 38 (5): 669. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9973.2007.00512.x.
- ↑ "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Implicature". Implicature, 5. Gricean Theory. Retrieved 2016-12-27.
- ↑ "Hanlon's Razor". The Jargon File 4.4.7. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
- ↑ Miles, M. (2003). Inroads: Paths in Ancient and Modern Western Philosophy. University of Toronto Press. p. 543. ISBN 978-0802037442.
- ↑ Forrest, P. (2001). "Counting the cost of modal realism". In Preyer, G.; Siebelt, F. Reality and Humean Supervenience: Essays on the Philosophy of David Lewis. Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 93. ISBN 978-0742512016.
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