Simplicity as a Guide to Falsity?

Abstract

Participants in the debate about whether simplicity is a guide to truth or merely pragmatically useful typically wrangle over two problems: (1) how to weigh simplicity against other virtues like strength and fitness and (2) whether there is a unique measure for simplicity that straps it to truth. I would like to put forth a third problem: (3) Even if problems (1) and (2) could be solved, it is far from clear whether the simplest theory out of an available class of competitors would always be the one closest to the truth

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Ioannis Votsis
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

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Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology: Volume 2.David K. Lewis - 1999 - Cambridge, UK ;: Cambridge University Press.

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