Occam's Razor Proves a Close Shave

In Nancy Sommers’ “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers,” when she talks about students’ understanding of revision to be predominantly lexical in in nature, she makes the statement, “Lexical changes are the major revision activities of the students because economy is their goal. They are governed, like the linear model itself, by the Law of Occam’s razor that prohibits logically needless repetition” (p. 47) [I would like to take the time to point out that, here, “they” is an ambiguous pronoun to me. Is it they the students or they the lexical changes? Oh the woes of grammar. Thoughts?]. This profound statement got me thinking, what is Occam’s razor?

Through quick research I found that William of Occam (1287-1347) was a Franciscan and a philosopher who produced literature in the disciplines of logic, physics and theology. The friar argued that intellectual reasoning should be observed using principles of parsimony and with avoidance of extravagance. In essence, simplicity is the name of the game for William. Once I looked this up, I remembered taking an analytical discourse class. I have not retained much, or really anything, from the course, but for some reason I remember vividly the professor teaching a section on maxims, and the only one I can recall is the maxim of parsimony; to say only what needs to be said and nothing more. With this familiar nugget in my pocket, I continued to look for research to illuminate this concept in a rhetorical light.

Historically, this razor has been used in scientific and mathematical theory, and thus, it was difficult to find literature that spoke of Occam’s razor in literary terms (although I must admit, however, that I only undertook a superficial search for purposes of this blog, and mostly skimmed what I found). Philosopher Bertrand Russell embraced Occam’s razor in most of his disseminated works. In fact, Russell thought the principle to be ontological in nature. In his book Principia Mathematica, he talks about minimal vocabularies, which he defines as “a vocabulary in which no word can be defined in terms of others” (Taylor). Russell was building upon what William of Occam was saying,

“Nunquam ponenda est pluralitas sin necessitate.”

This Latin phrase translates to “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity” (Domingos). Russell says “In every proposition that we can apprehend (i.e. not only in those whose truth or falsehood we can judge of, but in all that we can think about), all the constituents are really entities with which we have immediate acquaintance” (Taylor). Russell would go on to develop ideas of knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description" which I equate to the distinctions English makes between descriptive writing and prescriptive writing. I was getting closer, but needed a little more information to make the connection.

In doing more exhausting research (not to be confused with exhaustive research), I found information about the plain English movement. Engendered out of consumer outcry to use accessible language so that people could understand the legalese written in way that only lawyers could understand. This rhetorical movement countered the ideation Carl Felsenfeld says lawyers have derided for centuries that, “A word will not suffice where two or even three can take its place” (1981). Again, simplicity is being called for, and Occam’s razor is at the center. As we have discussed in class, the 70s and 80s were a crucial time when rhetoric and composition were fighting to establish itself as a valid field within English. So Sommers using the term might have been a rhetorical device, allusive in nature, to make readers more scientifically inclined to take notice. But is there anything to the use of Occam within English, rhetoric, and composition?

What Sommers is ultimately postulating in her essay is that speech and writing, while they share the most basic communicative values, are nuanced in ways that make a “one stop” treatment for both highly improbable, if not impossible. There is an underlying idea in education, specifically higher education, that in order to sound smart, you must use big words. Students are petrified to use their common language to define or explain in their papers for fear of red marks and bad grades. Post-pedagogy practices aim to reduce the rigidity of the linear process of writing. Write what needs to be said when it needs to be said is my variation on Occam’s razor, and the more students understand that there is no one size fits all, the more instructor might actually start seeing students embrace and perform more authentic writing and revision (much like the views of expressionists). I’m with Sommers (and James Berlin as well), understanding the difference between communication and articulation is key.