Superfluous Entities, or Occam’s Razor

Abstract

It seems to me that in the bewildering variety of philosophical systems it is possible to distinguish two main types: those systems of philosophy that affirm the world and those that deny it. The world-affirming philosophy builds wholly upon the world revealed to us by the senses; it takes this world as it presents itself: in its inconstancy, its irregularity, its motley, and tries to find its way about it, to come to terms with it, and to enjoy it. It takes as real only what is revealed by the senses; it finds it abhorrent to seek out other kinds of entities outside the sensible world. On the other hand, the world-denying philosophy distrusts the senses, takes the sensible world for sham and fraud, for mere appearance, and searches for true entities, for true being, behind the world of appearance conjured up by the senses. The ultimate cause for such different kinds of philosophizing would seem to be certain basic psychological attitudes: a certain optimism on the one hand and a certain pessimism on the other.