A Discipline for the Avoidance of Unnecessary Assumptions

Although unnecessary assumptions are something we all try to avoid, advice on how to do so is much harder to come by than admonition. The most widely quoted dictum on the subject, often referred to by writers on philosophy as "Ockham's razor" and attributed generally to William of Ockham, states Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity). As noted in reference (1), however, the authenticity of this attribution is questionable.