The Perils of Parsimony
Journal of Philosophy 115 (9):485-505 (2018)
Abstract
It is widely thought in philosophy and elsewhere that parsimony is a theoretical virtue in that if T1 is more parsimonious than T2, then T1 is preferable to T2, other things being equal. This thesis admits of many distinct precisifications. I focus on a relatively weak precisification on which preferability is a matter of probability, and argue that it is false. This is problematic for various alternative precisifications, and even for Inference to the Best Explanation as standardly understood.
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ISBN(s)
0022-362X
PhilPapers/Archive ID
ROCTPO-16
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Archival date: 2018-06-19
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2018-06-19
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430 ( #12,267 of 56,917 )
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114 ( #5,061 of 56,917 )
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