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A Pragmatic Modification of Explicativity for the Acceptance of Hypotheses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

I. J. Good  and
Alan F. McMichael
I. J. Good
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Department of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Alan F. McMichael
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, Department of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
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Abstract

The use of a concept called “explicativity”, for (provisionally) accepting a theory or Hypothesis H, has previously been discussed. That previous discussion took into account the prior probability of H, and hence implicitly its theoretical simplicity. We here suggest that a modification of explicativity is required to allow for what may be called the pragmatic simplicity of H, that is, the simplicity of using H in applications as distinct from the simplicity of the description of H.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 120 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

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Footnotes

†

This work was supported in part by Grant R01-GM 18870 from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and administered by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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