Bradley, D (2018) Philosophers Should Prefer Simpler Theories. Philosophical Studies, 175 (12). pp. 3049-3067. ISSN 0031-8116
Abstract
Recent years have seen considerable attention paid to the methodology of philosophy. The puzzle is simple—if philosophy is not an empirical discipline, how can one philosophical theory be rationally preferred over another? One answer to this question is that we should apply the theoretical virtues. Foremost among these theoretical virtues is simplicity—so perhaps we should prefer simpler philosophical theories to more complex ones. Huemer (Philos Q 59:216–236, 2009) objects that the reasons to prefer simpler theories in science do not apply in philosophy. I will argue that Huemer is mistaken—the arguments he marshals for preferring simpler theories in science can also be applied in philosophy. Like Huemer, I will focus on the philosophy of mind and the nominalism/Platonism debate. But I want to engage with the broader issue of whether simplicity is relevant to philosophy.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This article is an open access publication. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Keywords: | Simplicity; Theoretical virtues; Methodology; Bayesianism |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) > School of Philosophy (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 656441 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 Oct 2017 10:41 |
Last Modified: | 13 Jun 2019 18:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Verlag |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11098-017-0994-2 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:121905 |
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