Occam's razor
E35389
Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Occam's razor canonical | 5 |
| Ockham's razor | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T273224 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Occam's razor Context triple: [The Dragon in My Garage, relatedConcept, Occam's razor]
-
A.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
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B.
Science of Logic
Science of Logic is a foundational philosophical work by G.W.F. Hegel that systematically develops his dialectical method and metaphysical account of concepts, being, and reality.
-
C.
A Treatise on Probability
A Treatise on Probability is John Maynard Keynes’s influential 1921 work that develops a logical and philosophical theory of probability, challenging classical and frequency-based interpretations.
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D.
Quo primum
Quo primum is the 1570 papal bull of Pope Pius V that standardized the Roman Rite liturgy and mandated the widespread use of what became known as the Tridentine Mass.
-
E.
Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless is the fifth and final novel in Douglas Adams's comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, continuing the misadventures of Arthur Dent in an absurd and satirical universe.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Occam's razor Target entity description: Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
-
A.
Berserker hypothesis
The Berserker hypothesis is a proposed solution to the Fermi paradox suggesting that self-replicating killer probes or hostile civilizations systematically destroy emerging intelligent life in the galaxy, explaining our apparent cosmic silence.
-
B.
Science of Logic
Science of Logic is a foundational philosophical work by G.W.F. Hegel that systematically develops his dialectical method and metaphysical account of concepts, being, and reality.
-
C.
A Treatise on Probability
A Treatise on Probability is John Maynard Keynes’s influential 1921 work that develops a logical and philosophical theory of probability, challenging classical and frequency-based interpretations.
-
D.
Quo primum
Quo primum is the 1570 papal bull of Pope Pius V that standardized the Roman Rite liturgy and mandated the widespread use of what became known as the Tridentine Mass.
-
E.
Mostly Harmless
Mostly Harmless is the fifth and final novel in Douglas Adams's comic science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, continuing the misadventures of Arthur Dent in an absurd and satirical universe.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
epistemological principle
ⓘ
methodological principle ⓘ philosophical principle ⓘ scientific heuristic ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs |
Occam's razor
ⓘ
surface form:
Ockham's razor
law of parsimony ⓘ principle of parsimony ⓘ principle of simplicity ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
explanatory reasoning
ⓘ
hypothesis selection ⓘ model selection ⓘ theory choice ⓘ |
| coreIdea |
among competing hypotheses select the one with the fewest assumptions
ⓘ
do not multiply entities beyond necessity ⓘ prefer simpler explanations when all else is equal ⓘ |
| hasDiscipline |
epistemology
ⓘ
logic ⓘ philosophy of science ⓘ scientific methodology ⓘ |
| hasFormulation |
do not posit more causes than are needed to explain the phenomena
ⓘ
entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity ⓘ the simplest explanation that fits the facts is to be preferred ⓘ |
| hasGoal |
promote theoretical economy
ⓘ
reduce unnecessary assumptions in explanations ⓘ |
| hasLimitation |
can conflict with empirical adequacy
ⓘ
depends on how simplicity is measured ⓘ simplicity alone does not guarantee truth ⓘ |
| hasOriginPeriod | 14th century ⓘ |
| hasPhilosophicalDebate |
whether nature itself is simple
ⓘ
whether simplicity is an epistemic or pragmatic virtue ⓘ |
| hasStatus | heuristic rule rather than a logical law ⓘ |
| influenced |
Bayesian inference
ⓘ
surface form:
Bayesian epistemology
empiricism ⓘ logical positivism ⓘ modern scientific method ⓘ |
| namedAfter | William of Ockham ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Bayesian Occam factor
ⓘ
Kolmogorov complexity ⓘ instrumentalism ⓘ minimum description length principle ⓘ parsimony ⓘ scientific realism ⓘ simplicity ⓘ |
| usedIn |
Bayesian inference
ⓘ
everyday reasoning ⓘ philosophical argumentation ⓘ scientific reasoning ⓘ statistical model selection ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Occam's razor Description of subject: Occam's razor is a philosophical and scientific principle that advises preferring the simplest explanation that adequately accounts for all observed facts.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Ockham's razor