(2015) 30 Liburuki. 1 Zenbakia;;(2015) Volumen 30. Número 1Unification and Coherencehttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/391412024-03-28T19:19:11Z2024-03-28T19:19:11ZCausality and unification: how causality unifies statistical regularitiesSchurz, Gerhardhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/395802020-01-30T02:30:15Z2015-01-01T00:00:00ZCausality and unification: how causality unifies statistical regularities
Schurz, Gerhard
Two key ideas of scientific explanation - explanations as causal information and explanation as unification - have frequently been set into mutual opposition. This paper proposes a "dialectical solution" to this conflict, by arguing that causal explanations are preferable to non-causal explanations because they lead to a higher degree of unification at the level of the explanation of statistical regularities. The core axioms of the theory of causal nets (TC) are justified because they give the best if not the only unifying explanation of two statistical phenomena: screening off and linking up. Alternative explanation attempts are discussed and it is shown why they don't work. It is demonstrated that not the core of TC but extended versions of TC have empirical content, by means of which they can generate independently testable predictions.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZUnification: not just a thing of beautyVotsis, Ioannishttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/395822020-01-30T02:30:16Z2015-01-01T00:00:00ZUnification: not just a thing of beauty
Votsis, Ioannis
We often hear that simplicity, explanatory power and unification, though aesthetically pleasing or beautiful qualities, are at best pragmatic considerations in matters of choosing between rival hypotheses. This paper aims to offer a novel conception and an associated measure of unification, both of which are demonstrably more than just pragmatic considerations. The discussion departs from a brief survey of some failed attempts to carve out adequate conceptions of unification. It then proceeds to an analysis of the notions of confirmational connectedness and disconnectedness. Roughly speaking, these notions attempt to capture the way support propagates or fails to propagate between the content parts of a hypothesis or, equivalently, between the contents of two or more hypotheses. The two notions are instrumental in helping to tackle the problem of ad hoc, and in particular monstrous, hypotheses. More importantly for the purposes of this paper, they are essential ingredients in the proposed conception of unification and its associated measure. In simple terms, the more the content of a hypothesis (or, equivalently, the content of a set of hypotheses) is confirmationally connected the more that content is unified. Since the confirmational connectedness of two content parts is determined by purely objective matters of fact, the proposed notion and measure of unification are themselves strictly objective, i.e. not merely pragmatic considerations in matters of hypothesis choice. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the proposed measure handles real and hypothetical examples but also how it stands up to various objections.
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZGuest Editors’ IntroductionVotsis, IoannisSchurz, Gerhardhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/395812020-01-30T02:30:16Z2015-01-01T00:00:00ZGuest Editors’ Introduction
Votsis, Ioannis; Schurz, Gerhard
2015-01-01T00:00:00ZCan probabilistic coherence be a measure of understanding?Gijsbers, Victorhttp://hdl.handle.net/10810/395792020-01-30T02:30:15Z2015-01-01T00:00:00ZCan probabilistic coherence be a measure of understanding?
Gijsbers, Victor
Coherence is a measure of how much our beliefs hang together. Understanding is achieved when we see that something is not just a brute, isolated fact. This suggests that it might be possible to develop a coherence theory of understanding, which is what we attempt to do in this article using several formal measures of coherence. However, it turns out that a coherence theory runs into trouble with the asymmetry of understanding. We identify four difficulties and give suggestions for how they could be solved. These solutions all point away from coherence and towards a rather different notion, unification, which casts some (though not conclusive) doubt on the possibility of a coherence theory of understanding.
2015-01-01T00:00:00Z