On Simplicity in Empirical Hypotheses

Abstract

The title of this symposium, “Formal Simplicity as a Weight in the Acceptability of Scientific Theories,” to some people might seem to suggest that we are to be making positive proposals about how the concept of simplicity could be defined for formalized languages, defined so as to figure in a formalized theory of confirmation. I must confess at the start that I do not have any such ambitious object in view. I now feel, indeed, that premature formalizations have little power to illuminate the philosophically interesting questions which cluster round the problem of the role of simplicity in scientific thinking. So in this short paper I wish merely to present some elementary considerations, not very novel ones, concerning the role which simplicity seems to me to play in our non-demonstrative reasoning about matters of empirical fact. Although many writers have sought to analyze the logical character of such reasoning, little unanimity has been attained in their over-all views; thus it is that though the considerations which I wish to present are elementary, they are not wholly uncontroversial. But because these matters are elementary in nature, I do feel it appropriate in discussing them to use homely examples of uncomplicated kinds, rather than elaborate examples drawn from the more sophisticated reaches of scientific theory; in doing so, I am taking it for granted that scientific inference as regards its logical character is fundamentally a refinement of everyday thinking, rather than a procedure of some essentially different nature.

The Philosophy of Generative Linguistics

“…The many perplexities involved in trying to define a formal notion of simplicity are catalogued in, among other places, Goodman (1972; section VII), Barker (1961), andRosenkrantz (1977, ch. 5).…”

Squaring the Dialectic of Inference and Chance

“…Any correlation  of empirical judgments to experience cannot falsify them being anything other than hypothetical. Reasoning about chance, many (Carnap 1945;Reichenbach 1949;Ayer 1957;Lenz 1973;Ackermann 1961;Barker 1957Barker , 1961Hillman 1962;Braithwaite 1959;Russell 1962;Lewis 1980;Popper 1959;Cohen & Nagel 1962;Van Fraassen 1995;Ha´jek 2003;Pfiefer 2014) have justified their belief or critique of inferences that ground the logical interpretation of probability on notions such as simplicity, hypothesis, corroboration, confidence, and superiority. None though has considered the proportion as a hypothesis for the prediction of a given distribution, as anything other than probable.…”

From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution in the Aims and Methods of Science

“…See, for example, Popper (1959, ch. VII, 1963; Rudner (1961); Bunge (1961); Ackermann (1961); Barker (1961); Goodman (1972 ch. VII); Davies (1973, chs.…”