Think of razors and you think of Gillette, Philips and – more recently – Harry. You are unlikely to think of Occam. But in the 14th century Occam was king. Well, not exactly. He did not manufacture the best cut-throat razors in Christendom. Nor did he have a barber’s pole outside his front door. In fact we have no reason for thinking he was adept with hollow-ground blades, scalpels or any other tools. He was famous for something else. That is why he figures in the church calendar on 10 April.
And that something else was the business of making sense of the world in which we find ourselves. William came from a small village in Surrey, Ockham, but he was known by all the scholars of Europe. He was part of the great sweep of study that occupied some of the best minds in the middle ages and he was at the cutting-edge. So much so that his independent thought led to his being excommunicated. He won a place in the history of Western civilisation.
William took to theology as a duck takes to water. As far as most of us are concerned hair-splitting debates about nominalism and realism may have intrigued medieval scholars but for us they are like water off a duck’s back. Nobody today wants to know how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
Occam made one thing clear. And this is important for us. He rose above his contemporaries with the catch-phrase: “Make it simple.” It was like Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid.” Or “Keep calm and carry on.” Well, since he was a philosopher, and philosophers (apart from Schopenhauer) never go in for sound-bites or throwaway lines, he didn’t actually coin the phrase. His point, however, was extremely important. He probably wouldn’t have had much time for talk of a multiplicity of universes.
Oh yes, you may say. So what. Well, we need Occam’s razor today. Not to cut our way through medieval undergrowth but to get to what lies behind the subterfuge, evasion and polysyllabic camouflage that clouds so many issues. Just as children can ask simple heart-stopping questions that we hardly dare form ourselves, so by asking plain straightforward questions we may sometimes get revealing answers. Notice how Jesus went about this.
PUNCH BOWL
Visitors to the Surrey Hills are bound to take a look at the Devil’s Punch Bowl, close to Hindhead and, incidentally, to St Alban’s church, to which the Vicar, Richard Bodle, invites newcomers in a video. The DPB, an extraordinary geological feature, is a large (697 acre) pit that has attracted legend and tales of supernatural beings throwing clods of earth at each other. It must have delighted Occam in his day. A few miles away is St Andrew’s, Farnham, a grade 1 listed building that has had a makeover by Ptolemy Dean. It is worth a visit. The Rector is David Uffindell.
HUMPTY’S SEARCH ADDRESS
Remind those of your friends who have not made his acquaintance that Humpty lives at:
Home Humpty Dumpty dido dum
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.
Comments