Q0431

William of Ockham

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.
Thinker William of Ockham
School Nominalism
Source Later summary of Ockham’s Razor
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Later summary of Ockham’s Razor, within the tradition of Nominalism. 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 philosophy, 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.). Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0431

MLA: William of Ockham. “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity..” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0431.

Chicago: William of Ockham. “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity..” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0431.

Same thinker

More from William of Ockham

  1. Plurality should not be posited without necessity.

All quotations by William of Ockham

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme