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Quantitative Parsimony
Abstract
In this paper, I motivate the view that quantitative parsimony is a theoretical virtue: that is, we should be concerned not only to minimize the number of kinds of entities postulated by our theories (i. e. maximize qualitative parsimony), but we should also minimize the number of entities postulated which fall under those kinds. In order to motivate this view, I consider two cases from the history of science: the postulation of the neutrino and the proposal of Avogadro's hypothesis. I also consider two issues concerning how a principle of quantitative parsimony should be framed.
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What Not to Multiply Without Necessity
Schaffer, J. (2015) · Australasian Journal of Philosophy · doi:10.1080/00048402.2014.992447 · Cited by 259
Huemer, M. (2009) · The Philosophical Quarterly · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9213.2008.569.x · Cited by 155
deRosset, L. (2010) · Philosophical Studies · doi:10.1007/s11098-010-9538-8 · Cited by 155
Metadata
- Authors
- Nolan, D.
- Venue
- The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 1997-09-01
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 329-343
- ISSN
- 0007-0882 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-3537
- OpenAlex
- W4254335087
- Cited by
- 173
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 2.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Nolan, D. (1997). Quantitative Parsimony. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/48.3.329
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
