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William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347) was an English Franciscan friar and theologian, an influential medieval philosopher and a nominalist. His popular fame as a great logician rests chiefly on the maxim attributed to him and known as Ockham’s razor. The term razor refers to distinguishing between two hypotheses either by “shaving away” unnecessary assumptions or cutting apart two similar conclusions.

While it has been claimed that Ockham’s razor is not found in any of his writings,[20] one can cite statements such as Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate [Plurality must never be posited without necessity], which occurs in his theological work on the ‘Sentences of Peter Lombard’ (Quaestiones et decisiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi (ed. Lugd., 1495), i, dist. 27, qu. 2, K).

Nevertheless, the precise words sometimes attributed to Ockham, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity),[21] are absent in his extant works;[22] this particular phrasing owes more to John Punch,[23] who described the principle as a “common axiom” (axioma vulgare) of the Scholastics.[13] Indeed, Ockham’s contribution seems to be to restrict the operation of this principle in matters pertaining to miracles and God’s power: so, in the Eucharist, a plurality of miracles is possible, simply because it pleases God.[17]

This principle is sometimes phrased as pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate (“plurality should not be posited without necessity”).[24] In his Summa Totius Logicae, i. 12, Ockham cites the principle of economy, Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora [It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer]. (Thorburn, 1918, pp. 352–3; Kneale and Kneale, 1962, p. 243.)