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Residual issues—emotions need a kind of simplicity, but this is compatible with subtlety. Generally, what is the point of scrutinising the losses of integrity to which emotions are various susceptible? Isn’t this over-sophisticated, and shouldn’t feeling good not be enough? The answer is no: the costs of emotion’s foibles are themselves emotional.

‘Purism’, the claim that I is a pure indexical, is a contradictory position which requires the truth of three doctrines that have been shown to be myths: ‘rule theory’, ‘independence’, and ‘the guarantee’. A rash craving for simplicity explains its almost-universal support. ‘Purism’ is false for reasons that create a presumption in favour of a sharply diverging conception: that I is a deictic term. Thus, it is now necessary to establish what a ‘deictic term’ is, and whether I counts as one.

Predictive models should be as simple as one can get away with, and they must not predict absurdities. They join the parsimony of “Occam's razor” to the “Sherlock Holmes principle”: Show how things cannot be connected, and only one acceptable form of relationship may remain – or very few. Conceptual models must not predict absurdities even under extreme circumstances. All too many variables are interdependent rather than “independent” or “dependent,” so it is safer to talk about input and output variables under given conditions.

This chapter examines two different views of universal grammar. Most linguists assume that universal grammar is underspecified — providing us with an incomplete grammar to be elaborated by learning. But the alternative is that it is overspecified — providing us with a full range of possible grammars from which we select one on the basis of environmental input. Underspecification is now the dominant view in the developmental sciences, and is often treated as the null hypothesis on grounds of greater possibility, parsimony, and simplicity. The chapter questions whether the underspecification view is really feasible and whether it is more parsimonious than the overspecification view, drawing on examples from certain African languages. It also shows that the perplexity evoked by overspecification theories disappears if language has a concealing purpose as well as a communicating purpose, similar to a code.

This chapter complements chapter six by setting out the doctrine of God which was advanced by the Anglican Reformed. Tracing the most detailed Reformed presentation of the issues, the Cambridge lectures of Pearson, it shows how the Reformed were committed to a remarkably Thomist conception of the divine nature and the divine attributes. Advancing a strong conception of divine simplicity, they held, as many of their contemporaries did not, to the idea of eternity as timeless, and denied the existence of middle knowledge or a conditional will within the Godhead. The chapter underlines that the Anglican Reformed explicitly acknowledged their indebtedness to Roman Catholic Thomist thinking, and in fact preferred to cite those Roman Catholic authorities rather than contemporary continental Reformed sources.

The chapter begins the task of elucidating Berkeley's active/passive distinction by focusing on his understanding of the concept of existence. The latter is elucidated by mapping Berkeley's understanding of its relationship to concepts such as simplicity, unity, identity, and substance. Berkeley's view of existence is contrasted with the competing views of Descartes and Locke. Throughout the chapter, the bundle-theory interpretation of spirits is used as a stalking horse and shown to be incompatible with Berkeley's account of existence as it applies to spirits.

This chapter begins by noting that the 20th century beneficiary of the open question argument has been (rather ironically) the class of non-realist views, including non-cognitivism and expressivism. It contends that Moore did not properly diagnose the openness of the relevant questions about goodness; it is not simplicity versus complexity, and it is not indefinability versus definability. Rather, it is the normativity involved in moral judgments and concepts that keeps Moorean questions open and blocks definitions of ‘good’; the same sort of normativity that keeps questions open in relation to concepts like ‘plus’, ‘mass’, and ‘triangle’. The issue of normativity in semantics, epistemology, and ethics is basically the same. ‘How can features of the world establish conditions under which it makes sense for us to think that there are ways we ought to conduct ourselves (with regard to our actions, our speech, or our beliefs) and other ways which ought not to be followed?’ A clear implication of this line of argument is that those working in metaethics have often laboured under the mistaken assumption that moral terms like ‘good’ are especially problematic.

An explanatory hypothesis (whether of the personal or scientific kind) is probable in so far as it makes probable the occurrence of many observed phenomena, the occurrence of which is not probable otherwise; and in so far as it is simple, and fits with background knowledge. This account of the probability of hypothesis is given precise form by Bayes's Theorem.

This chapter argues that the problem of what the simplicity of a theory is can be solved within the framework of aim-oriented approach. It addresses the following questions: (1) What is simplicity?; and (2) What is the rationale for preferring simple to complex theories? In the present context, simplicity refers to the simplicity of the form of a law or theory, or the extent to which a theory is explanatory, elegant, or unified. The chapter asserts that in assessing the relative simplicity of two theories, what matters is the content, not their form, it is what theories assert about the world that must accord with physicalism. The chapter concludes that standard empiricism cannot solve the problem of what simplicity is, but an aim-oriented approach can.

It can be very difficult to decide between two competing theories. It is rarely a straightforward matter of appealing to evidence. Sometimes neither theory conforms perfectly with the evidence, and sometimes more than one theory can be made to agree with the evidence. The issue then is not which theory best accords with the data, but which does so in the simplest or least ad hoc way. This chapter discusses some of the philosophical issues associated with scientific theory choice. These issues in philosophy of science shed light on the choice of population model, and lend support to the inertial model proposed in this book.

The Introduction defines divine simplicity and theological epistemology. The latter is distinguished from religious epistemology, which asks, ‘On what grounds is someone's holding a certain belief justified?’ Theological epistemology starts from beliefs about God held by religious people and asks, ‘In what sense does the believer attribute these to God?’ The doctrine of divine simplicity, according to which God's unity precludes a diversity of parts or attributes, raises problems for theological epistemology. Divine simplicity forces theologians to explain how divine attributes are predicated of God without introducing composition, complexity, or, most importantly, contradiction into God. In referring the various scriptural portrayals of God to a simple entity, early Christians attempted to explain how these can be coherent and consistent. Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa are unique in their approach to these ideas. They steer a median course between the identity thesis, according to which God's attributes are identical with God, and radical apophaticism, which says that no attribute can properly be ascribed to God. Basil and Gregory view divine attributes as propria, unique identifying characteristics inherent in the divine nature, but not identical with its essence. Attention is given to Christopher Stead's interpretation of Basil and Gregory.

Chapter 3 sets the stage for the subsequent discussion of Eunomius of Cyzicus and his opponents. It outlines the background to his view that ingeneracy, that is, having no cause, is the essential characteristic of God. Two theologians are examined on this issue: Justin Martyr and Dionysius of Alexandria, the latter of whom comes closest to Eunomius' position, though in the context of a late third‐century argument about whether matter is also ingenerate. A second section investigates the background to Eunomius' view, labelled the ‘identity thesis’, that God's essence and God's attributes are identical. It is suggested that Athanasius of Alexandria, though far removed doctrinally from Eunomius, articulated a similar position in a text Eunomius likely knew. One common theme in the two is a concern to avoid construing the attributes of God as essential complements, that is as parts of God's essence. Clearly if God's essence has parts, it is not simple. Some background is given on essential complements, which Eunomius will accuse Basil of maintaining.