TY - JOUR
T1 - Belief revision in the service of scientific discovery
AU - Martin, Eric
AU - Osherson, Daniel
N1 - Funding Information:
Research support was provided by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant number 21-32399.91. We thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments.
PY - 1998/7/1
Y1 - 1998/7/1
N2 - Two non-bayesian approaches to belief fixation have been explored in recent years. On the one hand, the theory of belief revision has been stimulated by the AGM tradition and its successors. On the other hand, the theory of scientific inquiry has made progress clarifying the mathematics of reliable discovery. In the present paper we discuss the relation between the two approaches. In particular, we consider whether they allow scientific inquiry to be represented as a process of rational hypothesis selection in the face of data. The present paper overviews a theory developed in detail in [E. Martin and D. Osherson. Scientific discovery based on belief revision. Journal of Symbolic Logic, in press., E. Martin and D. Osherson. Elements of scientific inquiry, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1998.]. The exposition is designed to be of interest to researchers in diverse fields.
AB - Two non-bayesian approaches to belief fixation have been explored in recent years. On the one hand, the theory of belief revision has been stimulated by the AGM tradition and its successors. On the other hand, the theory of scientific inquiry has made progress clarifying the mathematics of reliable discovery. In the present paper we discuss the relation between the two approaches. In particular, we consider whether they allow scientific inquiry to be represented as a process of rational hypothesis selection in the face of data. The present paper overviews a theory developed in detail in [E. Martin and D. Osherson. Scientific discovery based on belief revision. Journal of Symbolic Logic, in press., E. Martin and D. Osherson. Elements of scientific inquiry, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1998.]. The exposition is designed to be of interest to researchers in diverse fields.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0165-4896(98)00008-0
DO - 10.1016/S0165-4896(98)00008-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0040688982
SN - 0165-4896
VL - 36
SP - 57
EP - 68
JO - Mathematical social sciences
JF - Mathematical social sciences
IS - 1
ER -