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  1. Carnapian truthlikeness.Gustavo Cevolani - 2016 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 24 (4):542-556.
    Theories of truthlikeness (or verisimilitude) are currently being classified according to two independent distinctions: that between ‘content’ and ‘likeness’ accounts, and that between ‘conjunctive’ and ‘disjunctive’ ones. In this article, I present and discuss a new definition of truthlikeness, which employs Carnap’s notion of the content elements entailed by a theory or proposition, and is then labelled ‘Carnapian’. After studying in detail the properties and shortcomings of this definition, I argue that it occupies a unique position in the landscape of (...)
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  • What is (Dis)Agreement?Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (1):223-236.
    When do we agree? The answer might once have seemed simple and obvious; we agree that p when we each believe that p. But from a formal epistemological perspective, where degrees of belief are more fundamental than beliefs, this answer is unsatisfactory. On the one hand, there is reason to suppose that it is false; degrees of belief about p might differ when beliefs simpliciter on p do not. On the other hand, even if it is true, it is too (...)
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  • Dispositions all the way round.Richard Holton - 1999 - Analysis 59 (1):9-14.
    Simon Blackburn has argued that science finds only dispositional properties. If true, this is surprising: we think of the world as containing categorical properties too. But Blackburn thinks that our difficulties go further than this: that the idea of a world containing just dispositional properties is not simply surprising, but incoherent. The problem is made clear, he argues, when we have a counterfactual analysis of dispositions, and then understand counterfactuals in terms of possible worlds.
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  • Nauka i wartościowania — uwagi o kondycji filozoficznej refleksji nad nauką.Trela Grzegorz - 2014 - Argument: Biannual Philosophical Journal 4 (2):277-298.
    Science and valuation — remarks about the condition of philosophical re ection on science this text is an attempt at a more general look at twentieth‐century philosophical re ection on science conceived as persistent trials to eliminate the non‐eliminateable, i.e. valuations. In this article, I recall the most important concepts of knowledge developed in the twentieth‐century philosophy of science by exposing assumed axiology in, among other things: the Vienna Circle, Karl raimund Popper’s falsi cationism, the historical and social approach of (...)
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  • A Tale of Three Theories: Feyerabend and Popper on Progress and the Aim of Science.Luca Tambolo - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 51:33-41.
    In this paper, three theories of progress and the aim of science are discussed: the theory of progress as increasing explanatory power, advocated by Popper in The logic of scientific discovery ; the theory of progress as approximation to the truth, introduced by Popper in Conjectures and refutations ; the theory of progress as a steady increase of competing alternatives, which Feyerabend put forward in the essay “Reply to criticism. Comments on Smart, Sellars and Putnam” and defended as late as (...)
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  • Strongly semantic information and verisimilitude.Gustavo Cevolani - 2011 - Ethics and Politics (2):159-179.
    In The Philosophy of Information, Luciano Floridi presents a theory of “strongly semantic information”, based on the idea that “information encapsulates truth” (the so-called “veridicality thesis”). Starting with Popper, philosophers of science have developed different explications of the notion of verisimilitude or truthlikeness, construed as a combination of truth and information. Thus, the theory of strongly semantic information and the theory of verisimilitude are intimately tied. Yet, with few exceptions, this link has virtually pass unnoticed. In this paper, we briefly (...)
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  • Truth approximation, belief merging, and peer disagreement.Gustavo Cevolani - 2014 - Synthese 191 (11):2383-2401.
    In this paper, we investigate the problem of truth approximation via belief merging, i.e., we ask whether, and under what conditions, a group of inquirers merging together their beliefs makes progress toward the truth about the underlying domain. We answer this question by proving some formal results on how belief merging operators perform with respect to the task of truth approximation, construed as increasing verisimilitude or truthlikeness. Our results shed new light on the issue of how rational (dis)agreement affects the (...)
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  • Pliability and resistance: Feyerabendian insights into sophisticated realism.Luca Tambolo - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4 (2):197-213.
    In this paper we focus on two claims, put forward by Feyerabend in his later writings , which constitute the metaphysical core of his view of scientific inquiry. The first, that we call the pliability thesis, is the claim that the world can be described by indefinitely many conceptual systems, none of them enjoying a privileged status. The second, that we call the resistance thesis, is the claim that the pliability of the world is limited, i.e., not all the different (...)
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  • Acceptance, Aggregation and Scoring Rules.Jake Chandler - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (1):201-217.
    As the ongoing literature on the paradoxes of the Lottery and the Preface reminds us, the nature of the relation between probability and rational acceptability remains far from settled. This article provides a novel perspective on the matter by exploiting a recently noted structural parallel with the problem of judgment aggregation. After offering a number of general desiderata on the relation between finite probability models and sets of accepted sentences in a Boolean sentential language, it is noted that a number (...)
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  • Facing inconsistency: Theories and our relations to them.Michaelis Michael - 2013 - Episteme 10 (4):351-367.
    Classical logic is explosive in the face of contradiction, yet we find ourselves using inconsistent theories. Mark Colyvan, one of the prominent advocates of the indispensability argument for realism about mathematical objects, suggests that such use can be garnered to develop an argument for commitment to inconsistent objects and, because of that, a paraconsistent underlying logic. I argue to the contrary that it is open to a classical logician to make distinctions, also needed by the paraconsistent logician, which allow a (...)
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  • The Problem of Unconceived Objections.Moti Mizrahi - 2014 - Argumentation 28 (4):425-436.
    In this paper, I argue that, just as the problem of unconceived alternatives provides a basis for a New Induction on the History of Science to the effect that a realist view of science is unwarranted, the problem of unconceived objections provides a basis for a New Induction on the History of Philosophy to the effect that a realist view of philosophy is unwarranted. I raise this problem not only for skepticism’s sake but also for the sake of making a (...)
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  • Assessing Theories: The Coherentist Approach.Peter Brössel - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):593-623.
    In this paper we show that the coherence measures of Olsson (J Philos 94:246–272, 2002), Shogenji (Log Anal 59:338–345, 1999), and Fitelson (Log Anal 63:194–199, 2003) satisfy the two most important adequacy requirements for the purpose of assessing theories. Following Hempel (Synthese 12:439–469, 1960), Levi (Gambling with truth, New York, A. A. Knopf, 1967), and recently Huber (Synthese 161:89–118, 2008) we require, as minimal or necessary conditions, that adequate assessment functions favor true theories over false theories and true and informative (...)
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  • Truth approximation via abductive belief change.Gustavo Cevolani - 2013 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 21 (6):999-1016.
    We investigate the logical and conceptual connections between abductive reasoning construed as a process of belief change, on the one hand, and truth approximation, construed as increasing (estimated) verisimilitude, on the other. We introduce the notion of ‘(verisimilitude-guided) abductive belief change’ and discuss under what conditions abductively changing our theories or beliefs does lead them closer to the truth, and hence tracks truth approximation conceived as the main aim of inquiry. The consequences of our analysis for some recent discussions concerning (...)
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  • What is Scientific Progress? Lessons from Scientific Practice.Moti Mizrahi - 2013 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 44 (2):375-390.
    Alexander Bird argues for an epistemic account of scientific progress, whereas Darrell Rowbottom argues for a semantic account. Both appeal to intuitions about hypothetical cases in support of their accounts. Since the methodological significance of such appeals to intuition is unclear, I think that a new approach might be fruitful at this stage in the debate. So I propose to abandon appeals to intuition and look at scientific practice instead. I discuss two cases that illustrate the way in which scientists (...)
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  • The Argument from Underconsideration and Relative Realism.Moti Mizrahi - 2013 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (4):393-407.
    In this article, through a critical examination of K. Brad Wray's version of the argument from underconsideration against scientific realism, I articulate a modest version of scientific realism. This modest realist position, which I call ‘relative realism’, preserves the scientific realist's optimism about science's ability to get closer to the truth while, at the same time, taking on board the antirealist's premise that theory evaluation is comparative, and thus that there are no good reasons to think that science's best theories (...)
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  • Progress as Approximation to the Truth: A Defence of the Verisimilitudinarian Approach.Gustavo Cevolani & Luca Tambolo - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (4):921-935.
    In this paper we provide a compact presentation of the verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress (VS, for short) and defend it against the sustained attack recently mounted by Alexander Bird (2007). Advocated by such authors as Ilkka Niiniluoto and Theo Kuipers, VS is the view that progress can be explained in terms of the increasing verisimilitude (or, equivalently, truthlikeness, or approximation to the truth) of scientific theories. According to Bird, VS overlooks the central issue of the appropriate grounding of scientific (...)
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  • Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment.Nicholas Maxwell - 2017 - London: UCL Press.
    Karl Popper is famous for having proposed that science advances by a process of conjecture and refutation. He is also famous for defending the open society against what he saw as its arch enemies – Plato and Marx. Popper’s contributions to thought are of profound importance, but they are not the last word on the subject. They need to be improved. My concern in this book is to spell out what is of greatest importance in Popper’s work, what its failings (...)
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  • Réalisme et fictionalisme chez Claude Bernard.Luiz Henrique A. Dutrdea - 1999 - Dialogue 38 (4):719-.
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  • (1 other version)Survey article. Verisimilitude: the third period.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (1):1-29.
    The modern history of verisimilitude can be divided into three periods. The first began in 1960, when Karl Popper proposed his qualitative definition of what it is for one theory to be more truthlike than another theory, and lasted until 1974, when David Miller and Pavel Trichý published their refutation of Popper's definition. The second period started immediately with the attempt to explicate truthlikeness by means of relations of similarity or resemblance between states of affairs (or their linguistic representations); the (...)
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  • Verisimilitude, cross classification and prediction logic. Approaching the statistical truth by falsified qualitative theories.Roberto Festa - 2007 - Mind and Society 6 (1):91-114.
    In this paper it is argued that qualitative theories (Q-theories) can be used to describe the statistical structure of cross classified populations and that the notion of verisimilitude provides an appropriate tool for measuring the statistical adequacy of Q-theories. First of all, a short outline of the post-Popperian approaches to verisimilitude and of the related verisimilitudinarian non-falsificationist methodologies (VNF-methodologies) is given. Secondly, the notion of Q-theory is explicated, and the qualitative verisimilitude of Q-theories is defined. Afterwards, appropriate measures for the (...)
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  • Approaching the truth via belief change in propositional languages.Gustavo Cevolani & Francesco Calandra - 2009 - In M. Suàrez, M. Dorato & M. Rèdei (eds.), EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science: Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association. Springer. pp. 47--62.
    Starting from the sixties of the past century theory change has become a main concern of philosophy of science. Two of the best known formal accounts of theory change are the post-Popperian theories of verisimilitude (PPV for short) and the AGM theory of belief change (AGM for short). In this paper, we will investigate the conceptual relations between PPV and AGM and, in particular, we will ask whether the AGM rules for theory change are effective means for approaching the truth, (...)
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  • An Objective Justification of Bayesianism I: Measuring Inaccuracy.Hannes Leitgeb & Richard Pettigrew - 2010 - Philosophy of Science 77 (2):201-235.
    One of the fundamental problems of epistemology is to say when the evidence in an agent’s possession justifies the beliefs she holds. In this paper and its sequel, we defend the Bayesian solution to this problem by appealing to the following fundamental norm: Accuracy An epistemic agent ought to minimize the inaccuracy of her partial beliefs. In this paper, we make this norm mathematically precise in various ways. We describe three epistemic dilemmas that an agent might face if she attempts (...)
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  • Evolutionary Epistemology and the Aim of Science.Darrell Patrick Rowbottom - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2):209-225.
    Both Popper and van Fraassen have used evolutionary analogies to defend their views on the aim of science, although these are diametrically opposed. By employing Price's equation in an illustrative capacity, this paper considers which view is better supported. It shows that even if our observations and experimental results are reliable, an evolutionary analogy fails to demonstrate why conjecture and refutation should result in: (1) the isolation of true theories; (2) successive generations of theories of increasing truth-likeness; (3) empirically adequate (...)
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  • The P–T Probability Framework for Semantic Communication, Falsification, Confirmation, and Bayesian Reasoning.Chenguang Lu - 2020 - Philosophies 5 (4):25.
    Many researchers want to unify probability and logic by defining logical probability or probabilistic logic reasonably. This paper tries to unify statistics and logic so that we can use both statistical probability and logical probability at the same time. For this purpose, this paper proposes the P–T probability framework, which is assembled with Shannon’s statistical probability framework for communication, Kolmogorov’s probability axioms for logical probability, and Zadeh’s membership functions used as truth functions. Two kinds of probabilities are connected by an (...)
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  • From knowledge to wisdom: a revolution in the aims and methods of science.Nicholas Maxwell - 1984 - Oxford: Blackwell.
    This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...)
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  • Karl Popper.Stephen Thornton - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  • Karl Raimund Popper.Nicholas Maxwell - 1978 - In Philip Breed Dematteis, Peter S. Fosl & Leemon B. McHenry (eds.), British Philosophers, 1800-2000. Bruccoli Clark Layman. pp. 176-194.
    Karl Popper is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. No other philosopher of the period has produced a body of work that is as significant. What is best in Popper's output is contained in his first four published books. These tackle fundamental problems with ferocious, exemplary integrity, clarity, simplicity and originality. They have widespread, fruitful implications, for science, for philosophy, for the social sciences, for education, for art, for politics and political philosophy. This article provides a critical survey of (...)
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  • Scientific Realism.Richard Boyd - 1984 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 21 (1&2):767-791.
    (i) Scientific realism is primarily a metaphysical doctrine about the existence and nature of the unobservables of science. (ii) There are good explanationist arguments for realism, most famously that from the success of science, provided abduction is allowed. Abduction seems to be on an equal footing, at least, with other ampliative methods of inference. (iii) We have no reason to believe a doctrine of empirical equivalence that would sustain the underdetermination argument against realism. (iv) The key to defending realism from (...)
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  • Critical realism in progress: Reflections on Ilkka Niiniluoto's philosophy of science. [REVIEW]David Pearce - 1987 - Erkenntnis 27 (2):147 - 171.
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  • (1 other version)Part two: Aim-oriented empiricism and scientific essentialism.Nicholas Maxwell - 1993 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44 (1):81-101.
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  • The dual foundation of qualitative truth approximation.Theo A. F. Kuipers - 1997 - Erkenntnis 47 (2):145-179.
    The main formal notion involved in qualitative truth approximation by the HD-method, viz. ‘more truthlike’, is shown to not only have, by its definition, an intuitively appealing ‘model foundation’, but also, at least partially, a conceptually plausible ‘consequence foundation’. Moreover, combining the relevant parts of both leads to a very appealing ‘dual foundation’, the more so since the relevant methodological notions, viz. ‘more successful’ and its ingredients provided by the HD-method, can be given a similar dual foundation. According to the (...)
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  • On comparison of theories by their contents.Jan Woleński - 1989 - Studia Logica 48 (4):617 - 622.
    Popper's definition of verisimilitude was criticized for its paradoxical consequences in the case of false theories. The aim of this paper is to show that paradoxes disappear if the falsity content of a theory is defined with help of dCn or Cn –1.
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  • (1 other version)Zwart and Franssen’s impossibility theorem holds for possible-world-accounts but not for consequence-accounts to verisimilitude.Gerhard Schurz & Paul Weingartner - 2010 - Synthese 172 (3):415 - 436.
    Zwart and Franssen’s impossibility theorem reveals a conflict between the possible-world-based content-definition and the possible-world-based likeness-definition of verisimilitude. In Sect. 2 we show that the possible-world-based content-definition violates four basic intuitions of Popper’s consequence-based content-account to verisimilitude, and therefore cannot be said to be in the spirit of Popper’s account, although this is the opinion of some prominent authors. In Sect. 3 we argue that in consequence-accounts , content-aspects and likeness-aspects of verisimilitude are not in conflict with each other, but (...)
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  • (1 other version)Verisimilitude: The third period.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (1):1-29.
    The modern history of verisimilitude can be divided into three periods. The first began in 1960, when Karl Popper proposed his qualitative definition of what it is for one theory to be more truthlike than another theory, and lasted until 1974, when David Miller and Pavel Trich published their refutation of Popper's definition. The second period started immediately with the attempt to explicate truthlikeness by means of relations of similarity or resemblance between states of affairs (or their linguistic representations); the (...)
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  • (1 other version)Realism and nursing.Trevor Hussey - 2000 - Nursing Philosophy 1 (2):98–108.
    It is argued that philosophical realism is well suited to serve as a perspective from which to understand nursing, and that it should be considered as an alternative to positivist, interpretivist, hermeneutical and phenomenological approaches. However, existing forms of realism, including theory and entity realism are shown to be faced with serious problems. In response, an alternative form ‘constraint realism’ is outlined, and shown to be apposite for illuminating the rule or convention governed behaviour characteristic of human beings. A brief (...)
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  • Getting Accurate about Knowledge.Sam Carter & Simon Goldstein - 2022 - Mind 132 (525):158-191.
    There is a large literature exploring how accuracy constrains rational degrees of belief. This paper turns to the unexplored question of how accuracy constrains knowledge. We begin by introducing a simple hypothesis: increases in the accuracy of an agent’s evidence never lead to decreases in what the agent knows. We explore various precise formulations of this principle, consider arguments in its favour, and explain how it interacts with different conceptions of evidence and accuracy. As we show, the principle has some (...)
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  • Improve Popper and procure a perfect simulacrum of verification indistinguishable from the real thing.Nicholas Maxwell - 2021 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science.
    According to Karl Popper, science cannot verify its theories empirically, but it can falsify them, and that suffices to account for scientific progress. For Popper, a law or theory remains a pure conjecture, probability equal to zero, however massively corroborated empirically it may be. But it does just seem to be the case that science does verify empirically laws and theories. We trust our lives to such verifications when we fly in aeroplanes, cross bridges and take modern medicines. We can (...)
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  • The Eclipse of Value-Free Economics. The concept of multiple self versus homo economicus.Aleksander Ostapiuk - 2020 - Wrocław, Polska: Publishing House of Wroclaw University of Economics and Business.
    The books’ goal is to answer the question: Do the weaknesses of value-free economics imply the need for a paradigm shift? The author synthesizes criticisms from different perspectives (descriptive and methodological). Special attention is paid to choices over time, because in this area value-free economics has the most problems. In that context, the enriched concept of multiple self is proposed and investigated. However, it is not enough to present the criticisms towards value-free economics. For scientists, a bad paradigm is better (...)
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  • (1 other version)Truthlikeness: old and new debates.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2020 - Synthese 197 (4):1581-1599.
    The notion of truthlikeness or verisimilitude has been a topic of intensive discussion ever since the definition proposed by Karl Popper was refuted in 1974. This paper gives an analysis of old and new debates about this notion. There is a fairly large agreement about the truthlikeness ordering of conjunctive theories, but the main rival approaches differ especially about false disjunctive theories. Continuing the debate between Niiniluoto’s min-sum measure and Schurz’s relevant consequence measure, the paper also gives a critical assessment (...)
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  • (1 other version)Some Remarks on Popper’s Qualitative Criterion of Verisimilitude.Kit Fine - 2019 - Erkenntnis 87 (1):213-236.
    The paper sets up a general framework for defining the notion of verisimilitude. Popper’s own account of verisimilitude is then located within this framework; and his account is defended on the grounds that it can be seen to provide a reasonable structural or Pareto criterion, rather than a substantive criterion, of verisimilitude. Some other criteria of verisimilitude that may be located within the framework are also considered and their relative merits compared.
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  • (2 other versions)Scientific Realism.Anjan Chakravartty - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Debates about scientific realism are closely connected to almost everything else in the philosophy of science, for they concern the very nature of scientific knowledge. Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, known collectively (...)
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  • Why Explanatory Considerations Matter.Miloud Belkoniene - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (2):473-491.
    This paper aims at elucidating the connection between explanatory considerations and epistemic justification stipulated by explanationism which take epistemic justification to be definable in terms of best explanations. By relying on the notion of truthlikeness, this paper argues that it is rational for a subject to expect the best explanation she has for her evidence to be more truthlike than any of the other potential explanations available to her by virtue of containing a class of propositions that, given her evidence, (...)
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  • The Need for a Revolution in the Philosophy of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 2002 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 33 (2):381-408.
    There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity (...)
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  • Idealist Origins: 1920s and Before.Martin Davies & Stein Helgeby - 2014 - In Graham Oppy & Nick Trakakis (eds.), History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 15-54.
    This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...)
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  • The objectivity of truth, a core truism?Robert Barnard & Joseph Ulatowski - 2017 - Synthese 198 (2):717-733.
    A typical guiding principle of an account of truth is: “truth is objective,” or, to be clear, judging whether an assertion is true or false depends upon how things are in the world rather than how someone or some community believes it to be. Accordingly, whenever a claim is objectively true, its truth conditions ought not depend upon the context in which it is uttered or the utterer making the claim. Part of our ongoing empirical studies surveying people’s responses to (...)
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  • The Climate Wars and ‘the Pause’ – Are Both Sides Wrong?Roger Jones & James Ricketts - 2016 - Victoria University, Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies.
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  • Unity As An Epistemic Virtue.Kit Patrick - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (5):983-1002.
    It's widely supposed that unification is an epistemic virtue: the degree to which a theory is unified contributes to its overall confirmation. However, this supposition has consequences which haven't been noted, and which undermine the leading accounts of unification. For, given Hempel's equivalence condition, any epistemic virtue must be such that logically equivalent theories must equally well unify any body of evidence, and logically equivalent bodies of evidence must be equally well unified by any theory. Yet the leading accounts of (...)
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  • Empiricism, scientific change and mathematical change.Otávio Bueno - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 31 (2):269-296.
    The aim of this paper is to provide a unified account of scientific and mathematical change in a thoroughly empiricist setting. After providing a formal modelling in terms of embedding, and criticising it for being too restrictive, a second modelling is advanced. It generalises the first, providing a more open-ended pattern of theory development, and is articulated in terms of da Costa and French's partial structures approach. The crucial component of scientific and mathematical change is spelled out in terms of (...)
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  • A pragmatic, existentialist approach to the scientific realism debate.Curtis Forbes - 2017 - Synthese 194 (9):3327-3346.
    It has become apparent that the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists has come to a stalemate. Neither view can reasonably claim to be the most rational philosophy of science, exclusively capable of making sense of all scientific activities. On one prominent analysis of the situation, whether we accept a realist or an anti-realist account of science actually seems to depend on which values we antecedently accept, rather than our commitment to “rationality” per se. Accordingly, several philosophers have attempted (...)
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  • Verisimilitude and Content.Ken Gemes - 2007 - Synthese 154 (2):293-306.
    Popper’s original definition of verisimilitude in terms of comparisons of truth content and falsity content has known counter-examples. More complicated approaches have met with mixed success. This paper uses a new account of logical content to develop a definition of verisimilitude that is close to Popper’s original account. It is claimed that Popper’s mistake was to couch his account of truth and falsity content in terms of true and false consequences. Comparison to a similar approach by Schurz and Wiengartner show (...)
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