Why Modified Occam's Razor Matters to Philosophers?

It should matter to everyone, but I feel that a linguist shouldn't bother so much as a philosopher DOES, when Modified Occam's razor is breached.

In a recent query elsewhere as to the meanings of "my" in context, I was reminded of Grice's caution re the use of "a".

As in "a woman".

Grice writes:

"One would NOT lend a sympathetic ear"

-- just an antipathetic one --

"to a PHILOSOPHER"

-- never mind linguist --

I cannot but think of L. Jonathan Cohen when I read this "a philosopher"

"who suggested"

as Cohen will

"that there are THREE SENSES of the form of expression 'an X': one in which it means roughly 'something that satisfied the conditions defining the word X,' another in which it means approximately, 'an X (in the first sense) that is ONLY REMOTELY related in a certain way to some person indicated by the context', and yet another in which it means 'an X (in the first sense) that is CLOSELY related in a certain way to some person idnicated by the context'".

(WoW, 38).

Had I been at the Emerson Hall when Grice said that, I would have felt so amused as to LAUGH!

Cheers,

JL