Verisimilitude and belief change for nomic conjunctive theories

Gustavo Cevolani*, Roberto Festa, Theo A. F. Kuipers

*Corresponding author voor dit werk

OnderzoeksoutputAcademicpeer review

23 Citaten (Scopus)
5 Downloads (Pure)

Samenvatting

In this paper, we address the problem of truth approximation through theory change, asking whether revising our theories by newly acquired data leads us closer to the truth about a given domain. More particularly, we focus on "nomic conjunctive theories", i.e., theories expressed as conjunctions of logically independent statements concerning the physical or, more generally, nomic possibilities and impossibilities of the domain under inquiry. We define both a comparative and a quantitative notion of the verisimilitude of such theories, and identify suitable conditions concerning the (partial) correctness of acquired data, under which revising our theories by data leads us closer to "the nomic truth", construed as the target of scientific inquiry. We conclude by indicating some further developments, generalizations, and open issues arising from our results.

Originele taal-2English
Pagina's (van-tot)3307-3324
Aantal pagina's18
TijdschriftSynthese
Volume190
Nummer van het tijdschrift16
DOI's
StatusPublished - nov.-2013

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