Q0049

William of Ockham

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Plurality should not be posited without necessity.
Thinker William of Ockham
School Scholasticism
Source Summa Logicae et al. (principle)
Theme Simplicity
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Summa Logicae et al. (principle), within the tradition of Scholasticism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of simplicity, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In William of Ockham's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: William of Ockham. (n.d.). Plurality should not be posited without necessity. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0049

MLA: William of Ockham. “Plurality should not be posited without necessity..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0049.

Chicago: William of Ockham. “Plurality should not be posited without necessity..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0049.

Same thinker

More from William of Ockham

  1. Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

All quotations by William of Ockham

Same theme

More on simplicity

  1. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
  2. Simplify, simplify.
  3. The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it.
  4. Seek simplicity and distrust it.

Browse the simplicity theme