Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-30T07:16:47.527Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Objects of Acceptance: Competing Scientific Explanations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Ronald C. Hopson
Ronald C. Hopson*
Affiliation:
Franklin and Marshall College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Important revisions and additions to the contemporary objectives of acceptance rules result from construing a theory of warranted inductive inference to presuppose an account of adequate scientific explanations. We conceive the objects of acceptance rules to be the best of competing scientific explanations. Our primary interest is to show how to construct an analysis of competing explanations. Hence our specific investigation concerns the interrelations between the criteria of adequacy for scientific explanations and the definitions of the modes of competition between explanations.

Type
Part IX Scientific Explanation
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1972 , 1972 , pp. 349 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Harman, Gilbert, ‘The Inference to the Best Explanation’, The Philosophical Review 74 (1965) 88-95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert, ‘Detachment, Probability and Maximum Likelihood’, Nous 1 (1967) 401-411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert, ‘Enumerative Induction as Inference to the Best Explanation’, Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968) 529-533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert, ‘Knowledge, Inference and Explanation’, American Philosophical Quarterly 5 (1968) 164-173.Google Scholar
Hilpinen, Risto, ‘Rules of Acceptance and Inductive Logic’, Ada Philosophica Fennica 21 (1968), North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Hintikka, Jaakko and Pietarinen, J., ‘Semantic Information and Inductive Logic’, in Aspects of Inductive Logic(ed. by Hintikka, and Suppes, ), North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1966, pp. 1-20.Google Scholar
Lehrer, KeithHopson, Ronald C, ‘The Role of Scientific Explanation in a General Theory of Inductive Inference’, Ph. D. Thesis, University of Rochester, 1972.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Keith, ‘Justification, Explanation, and Induction’, in Induction, Acceptance and Rational Belief (ed. by Swain, ), D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, 1969, pp. 100-133.Google Scholar
Lehrer, Keith, ‘Belief and Error: An Inductive Rule’, presented at the Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, December, 1971.Google Scholar
Levi, Isaac Gambling with Truth: An Essay on Induction and the Aims of Science, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1967.Google Scholar
Rescher, Nicholas and Brian, Skyrms, ‘A Methodological Problem in the Evaluation of Explanation’ Nous 2 (1968) 121-129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmon, Wesley, review of Day's Inductive Probability, The Philosophical Review 72 (1963) 392-396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar