By 'entia' he meant not just substances but all metaphysical beings, including causes. The principle was an attack on those (principally Scotists) who posited multiple metpahysical entities (e.g. haecceitas, "thisness"). Ontological simplicity is a matter of debate in modern philosophy.
Occam's razor as used in general modern argument, outside technical Scholastic philosophy, is adequately summarized as, "The simplest explanation is to be preferred."
On Jan 8, 2015, at 9:11 PM, Michael Smith <mjs at smithbowen.net> wrote:
>
> On Thu, January 8, 2015 8:33 pm, Carl G. Estabrook wrote:
>> "Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" => the simplest
>> explanation is to be preferred.
>
> That's not *at all* what the Latin means. At all.
>
> Though this is a common overgeneralization of the famous Razor, which is a
> much more precise observation.
>
>
> --
> Michael Smith
>
> It is very easy for someone to be good at math;
> most of the time the kind of math that economists
> do would not impress a mathematician, but it is
> enough to impress people around them in the
> school of social sciences. -- Thomas Piketty
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk