"In the logic of science there is a principle as important as that of parsimony: it is that of sufficient reason. The former directs us to look for simplest causes, the later cautions us not to simplify so far that the explanation is inadequate to the facts to be explained....Parsimony is not itself a simple criterion of a good methodology; we cannot simply count the factors of explanation and say that the theory containing the smallest number is the best. The ideal of parsimony cannot be expressed without the proviso that the conditions for which it is a norm shall themselves be adequate."
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Lewis White Beck, The "Natural Science Ideal" in the Social Sciences (1949), pp. 393-394
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Lewis White Beck
Lewis White Beck (26 September, 1913 - 7 June, 1997) was an internationally recognized scholar and philosopher at the University of Rochester who specialized in the study of German Idealism and the philosophical writings of Immanuel Kant. His translation of Kant's Critique of Practical Reason was praised by many of his peers both in the United States and Germany. He also contributed to the founding of the North American Kant Society which fosters cooperative research into the works of Immanuel K
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