Parsimony and predictive equivalence

Erkenntnis 44 (2):167 - 197 (1996)
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Abstract

If a parsimony criterion may be used to choose between theories that make different predictions, may the same criterion be used to choose between theories that are predictively equivalent? The work of the statistician H. Akaike (1973) is discussed in connection with this question. The results are applied to two examples in which parsimony has been invoked to choose between philosophical theories-Shoemaker's (1969) discussion of the possibility of time without change and the discussion by Smart (1959) and Brandt and Kim (1967) of mind/body dualism and the identity theory.

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10.1007/bf00166500

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Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin, Madison

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References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Otto Neurath.
The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Philosophy of Biology.Elliott Sober - 1993 - Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
The Language of Thought.J. A. Fodor - 1978 - Critica 10 (28):140-143.

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