Niiniluoto, Ilkka (2016) Unification and Confirmation. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 31 (1). pp. 107-123. ISSN 2171-679X
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Abstract
According to the traditional requirement, formulated by William Whewell in his account of the “consilience of inductions” in 1840, a scientific hypothesis should have unifying power in the sense that it explains and predicts several mutually independent phenomena. Variants of this notion of consilience or unification include deductive, inductive, and approximate systematization. Inference from surprising phenomena to their theoretical explanations was called abduction by Charles Peirce. As a unifying theory is independently testable by new kinds of phenomena, it should also receive confirmation from its empirical success. The study of the prospects of probabilistic Bayesianism to motivate this kind of criterion for abductive confirmation is shown to lead to two quite distinct conceptions of unification.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | ISSN: 0495-4548 (print) | ||||||
| Keywords: | abduction; approximation; consilience; confirmation; systematization; testability; unification | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email theoria@ehu.es | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jun 2016 19:46 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 08 Jun 2016 19:46 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 12175 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science | ||||||
| Publisher: | Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea / Universidad del País Vasco | ||||||
| Official URL: | http://www.ehu.eus/ojs/index.php/THEORIA/article/v... | ||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1387/theoria.13084 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Date: | January 2016 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 107-123 | ||||||
| Volume: | 31 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| ISSN: | 2171-679X | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/12175 |
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