Instead of looking at the human empirically as a fuzzy collection of various traits, GA takes seriously attempts at definition like Aristotle 's zoon logon exon . The human is subject to definition because it is not a mere empirical biological entity. Unlike philosophy, GA does not renounce the specificity of the human for the simplicity of the concept because it recognizes that the generation of entities like Reason or Spirit is anything but simple. The originary hypothesis conceives of the human in minimal terms as emerging from a single event in a prehuman world. Ockham's razor only operates when the explanatory goal is independent of the means to accomplish it.
Intellectual simplicity is analogous to cost-effectiveness in the market.
But in the cultural sphere, the virtue of simplicity is less unambiguous. Culture is not a matter of setting goals and then finding the most efficient way to reach them. Even if all narratives perform essentially the same cultural function, one cannot argue that a short story is therefore preferable to a novel because it accomplishes this function more efficiently. On the contrary, our tendency is to value the novel more highly because it keeps us entertained longer. Generative anthropology may well be the first theory that claims maximal simplicity for a structure that it understands as paradoxical.