Epistemic Simplicity—A Virtue or a Vice?

Abstract

AbstractSimplicity was recently described in the philosophy of science as “perhaps the most controversial theoretical virtue” (Schindler 2018). It has been also argued that contrary to the standard view, simplicity is not merely a pragmatic virtue but also an epistemic one. Virtue epistemologists are also interested in epistemic virtues, but simplicity is usually absent in their discussions. This paper adduces several contemporary approaches to simplicity showing that in philosophy and in psychology it can be considered either as a virtue or as a vice. The paper then refers to the thought of Thomas Aquinas as an example of a premodern understanding of the virtue simplicity and suggests that his notion of simplicity as a virtue might be developed today within virtue epistemology into an interesting complement to this “perhaps the most controversial theoretical virtue” (Schindler 2018) known from contemporary philosophy.