Walter Chatton

This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources.
Find sources: "Walter Chatton" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (November 2019)

|

Walter Chatton (c. 1290–1343) was an English Scholastic theologian and philosopher who regularly sparred philosophically with William of Ockham, who is well known for Occam's razor.

Chatton proposed an "anti-razor". From his Lectura I d. 3, q. 1, a. 1:

> Whenever an affirmative proposition is apt to be verified for actually existing things, if two things, howsoever they are present according to arrangement and duration, cannot suffice for the verification of the proposition while another thing is lacking, then one must posit that other thing.

In basic terms, he was arguing against Ockham's razor by stating that if an explanation does not satisfactorily determine the truth of a proposition, and you are sure that the explanation so far is true, some other explanation must be required.

## References

[edit]

* Keele, Rondo. "Walter Chatton". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Netherlands
* Poland
* Vatican
* Israel
* Belgium

People|

* Deutsche Biographie

Other|

* IdRef

This biography of an English philosopher is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

|

* v
* t
* e

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template