Parsimony is not considered a virtue. We look upon those who exhibit this trait as mean, grasping, miserly and lacking in generosity or the milk of human kindness. And yet in the world of intellectual discourse we are encouraged to be mean and unrelenting. The intellectual rule in question is quite explicit as to the sentiment that motivates it - I mean the rule of ontological parsimony.
William of Ockham, that medieval thinker who struck a blow against philosophical realism, contrived a methodology that allowed little to no room to explain much of what the human being intuits and indeed little room for that which gives life and the cosmos meaning.
William of Ockham is famous colloquially for Ockham's razor, by which is of course meant cutting away all complicated reasons and looking to the simplest explanation as the most likely. As a rule of thumb through life it works fairly well in limiting overly speculative and unsupported claims about things we come across in life. It is simple to regard crop circles as a consequence of something manmade, be that farm equipment or a hoax, rather than assuming the patterns in the field are the consequence of extra-terrestrial activity.
Importantly, and what is sometimes forgotten is that Ockham's razor is only claiming that the simpler explanation is more likely, not that a more complicated explanation is proved as impossible. Ockham's razor is like a working solution until more is known and it cannot rule out conclusively a more complicated explanation.
The idea of ontological parsimony is closely related, but more specific to philosophy and theology. It is a rule of ontology that we are not justified in making speculative claims about ontology. From Ockham's point of view as an example, Platonic forms violate ontological parsimony. While Plato is logically coherent, he is for Ockham going too far ontologically in relying on forms outside space and time to account for the world of becoming and imperfection. Essentially what is meant by ontological parsimony is that ontological entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. Thus if the world can be explained materially, then it is not necessary to rely on immaterial explanations be that Platonic forms, God or anything from outside space and time. The more ontological claims you make the more likely you are to make a slip.
Now in modern Western thought, right down to the Man on the Clapham Omnibus, this is considered a holy and inviolable law. That though misses the point. The rule cannot prove that more ontological layers to a theory are bound to be false, only that you require more justifications for more ontological layers and this need can be avoided by not making any extra ontological claims beyond those absolutely necessary. A frugal and somewhat pusillanimous approach indeed that never actually proves or claims to prove new or speculative ontological claims are by necessity false; only that there is a greater need for justification.
As a result of the way this frugality of thought has seeped into our culture, atheism seems correct because it rules out all ontological claims. There may though be justifications for metaphysical and theistic claims bar the need to be an ontological necessity.
This parsimonious way of thinking means there is an inherent bias towards a simpler theory such as Darwin's idea of evolution because it does not need to rely on any greater ontological claims. But there may be very good reasons for giving credence to more ontological claims than those that are only strictly necessary.
This parsimony really is a frugal meanness of thought that impoverishes our intellectual realm in the West. If there is no ontological realism, by which is meant that certain universal or metaphysical concepts are considered real, we lose much that enriches life - the Good, the True the Beautiful.
Relying on a purely material explanation of reality gives us a very simple philosophy, but it is impoverished and means we must omit much that we intuit is real and not simply real on the periphery of reality, but central - be that ethics, the soul, the divine, love, even logic..
And so by adopting a philosophically frugal methodology we are bound also to adopt an impoverished Weltanschauung. We must rule out much of value, not because we have proved it as non-existent, but because we will only allow the most narrow of reasons to explain the world. But while this approach means less risk and less need for complicated ontology, it is equally possible that the cosmos is not at all simple, but baroque and beautifully ornate. The methodology is not proof in itself of a minimalist reality.
There are other reasons to think philosophical realism is justified. Indeed it is the opposite thinking to Ockhamite parsimony. A more generous way of thinking allows for us to give serious weight to immaterial but highly important ideas that we live by - love, God, beauty.
Evolution is often referred to as a beautiful theory, but that is because of its simplicity. There are other forms of beauty than minimalism and the human soul often craves a more intricate and ornate beauty. Minimalism is not necessarily superior to the Gothic or the Baroque.
If we look at the Church Councils and the Fathers they used a different methodology. For the Fathers it was what ensured theological concepts were coherent and non-contradictory that made up the methodology. Again there was a form of minimalism, in that it was not thought wise to over-dogmatise. Church Tradition was considered sufficient on the whole unless a heresy arose and only then would it be necessary to theologise on dogma. This thought is in the opposite sprit to the mean frugality of Ockham. Instead it gave liberal space to Tradition and personal spirituality unrestricted by dogma unless strictly necessary to avoid heresy. And so Patristics is generous not mean.
And Ockhamite parsimony really is mean spiritually. There is an ethical question about adopting a methodology that dismisses and derides the most precious aspects of being human, cutting us off like a crusty old miser, a Gradgrind, from the Good, the True, the Beautiful - the Transcendent.
Despite the way ontological parsimony and Ockham's razor permeate our way of thinking in the West at every level of society, making us a materialistic culture facing a meaning crisis, there are other methodologies that are more humane and generous that give credibility to all that the human soul intuits, giving a philosophical and theological structure through Scripture, testimonies, Councils and canons that protect this intuition from solipsism on the one hand and from a reductive ontology on the other.
No comments:
Post a Comment