Implicit commitment in theory choice
Implicit commitment in theory choice
复制标题
理论选择中的隐含承诺
DOI：
10.1007/s11229-013-0388-8
复制
发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
1.5
通讯作者：
Krämer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Krämer
对一个理论的优点的正确评估似乎除了明确指出的内容之外，还需要考虑该理论间接或隐含的承诺。文献中大多数现有的理论选择标准建议都通过某种蕴涵概念阐明了隐含承诺的相关概念。我表明，这样的标准在应用于在蕴含问题上存在分歧的理论时表现得令人难以置信。霍华德·皮科克 (Howard Peacock) 最近对这一标准进行的针对这一反对意见的辩护受到了审查并被驳回。我继续提出一个更好的建议，粗略地说，当且仅当一个理论的最佳完全明确的扩展明确地致力于该主张时，该理论才算致力于该主张。反过来，这种扩展是通过理论选择的普通标准来评估的，这些标准适合于假设以完全明确的方式阐明其预期内容的理论的情况。
The proper evaluation of a theory’s virtues seems to require taking into account what the theory is indirectly orimplicitlycommitted to, in addition to what itexplicitlysays. Most extant proposals for criteria of theory choice in the literature spell out the relevant notion of implicit commitment via some notion of entailment. I show that such criteria behave implausibly in application to theories that differ over matters of entailment. A recent defence by Howard Peacock of such a criterion against this objection is examined and rejected. I go on to a develop a better proposal on which, roughly speaking, a theory is counted committed to a claim if and only if its best fully explicit extension is explicitly committed to the claim. Such extensions in turn are evaluated by ordinary standards of theory choice adapted to the case of theories assumed to articulate their intended content in a fully explicit fashion.