How Simplicity Can be a Virtue in Philosophical Theory-Choice.
Sober and Huemer have independently argued that simplicity has no place in evaluating philosophical views. In particular, they have argued that the best rationales for scientists to appeal to simplicity in judging between rival theories fail to carry over to philosophers judging between rival philos...
| Published in: | Erkenntnis Vol. 89; no. 3; pp. 1217 - 1235 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Mar2024
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=176994868&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 176994868 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01650106 5KZ jtl: Erkenntnis issn: 01650106 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2024 vid: 89 iid: 3 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 176994868 10.1007/s10670-022-00580-4 ppf: 1217 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 861KB tig: atl: How Simplicity Can be a Virtue in Philosophical Theory-Choice. aug: au: Lange, Marc affil: https://ror.org/0130frc33 Department of Philosophy, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#3125, 27599-3125, Chapel Hill, NC, USA su: Simplicity Virtue Philosophers Pluralism Argument sug: subj: Simplicity Virtue Philosophers Pluralism Argument keyword: Analyticity Bayesian confirmation theory Explanation Ontology Quine Sober ab: Sober and Huemer have independently argued that simplicity has no place in evaluating philosophical views. In particular, they have argued that the best rationales for scientists to appeal to simplicity in judging between rival theories fail to carry over to philosophers judging between rival philosophical accounts. This paper disagrees with Sober and Huemer. It argues that two rationales for scientific appeals to simplicity equally well underwrite appeals to simplicity when philosophers evaluate rival rational reconstructions of some social normative practice. These two rationales are shown to apply to two philosophical appeals to simplicity: in Quine's argument against analyticity and in an argument against pluralism in accounts of scientific explanation. Some factors are identified that influence how much weight simplicity should carry in these and other philosophical cases. Simplicity's legitimate role in evaluating rival rational reconstructions suggests that simplicity will also turn out to be justly relevant to ontological investigations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Erkenntnis is a copyright of Springer, 2024. All Rights Reserved. item: Erkenntnis holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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