On Three Measures of Explanatory Power with Axiomatic Representations.

Jonah N. Schupbach and Jan Sprenger ([2011]) and Vincenzo Crupi and Katya Tentori ([2012]) have recently proposed measures of explanatory power and have shown that they are characterized by certain arguably desirable conditions or axioms. I further examine the properties of these two measures, and a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 67; no. 4; pp. 1077 - 1090
Autor principal: Cohen, Michael P.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: University of Chicago Press Dec2016
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Jonah N. Schupbach and Jan Sprenger ([2011]) and Vincenzo Crupi and Katya Tentori ([2012]) have recently proposed measures of explanatory power and have shown that they are characterized by certain arguably desirable conditions or axioms. I further examine the properties of these two measures, and a third measure considered by I. J. Good ([1960]) and Timothy McGrew ([2003]). This third measure also has an axiomatic representation. I consider a simple coin-tossing example in which only the Crupi-Tentori measure does not perform well. The Schupbach-Sprenger and Good-McGrew measures are based on different notions of explanatory power, but both are tenable.