Do any philosophers disagree with Occam's razor?

Question

I never bought into the razor. For example, if I have two hypotheses A and B with equal evidence, the razor would have me pick the simpler one. But personally in my mind, I create a sort of credence-distribution over the two hypotheses and hold the resulting distribution as my belief. This can put us into some really interesting situations. For example, maybe you consider the hypothesis of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to have credence zero (and all other god hypotheses). But because there are an infinite number of possible hypothesis, it's possible that when you integrate over their credences you get a non-zero credence. Then, your belief in god would be a credence-distribution over all possible beliefs in god. Are there philosophers who think this way?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if any philosophers think about things the way you do (partly because I'm not entirely sure what you have in mind), but I do think that you're right to be skeptical of Occam's Razor. I usually just see it assumed without argument, but I think there are defenses of Occam's Razor out there (I believe there's a relatively recent article in Philosophical Studies trying to defend it, although I haven't read the article). I am quite skeptical of the idea myself. Take your example above where you have two hypotheses, A and B, with equal support, yet Occam's Razor would have us choose the simpler hypothesis as the right one. But if they have equal support, then simplicity doesn't really offer any more support for one of these hypotheses, or any more evidence of its truth. Yet if simplicity doesn't offer any further evidence or indication of truth, then it doesn't seem like it's a good reason to choose one hypothesis over the other. Severed from the current example, I personally don't see how the mere simplicity of a hypothesis serves as any indication of its truth or probable truth, and so I don't see simplicity as a good reason to choose certain hypotheses over others (at least if we're in the business of choosing hypotheses that are supposed to be true!).