Ic. Burger et J. Heidema, COMPARING THEORIES BY THEIR POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CONTENTS, British journal for the philosophy of science, 45(2), 1994, pp. 605-630
Citations number
15
Categorie Soggetti
History & Philosophy of Sciences","History & Philosophy of Sciences","History & Philosophy of Sciences
The 'positive content' and the 'negative content' (relative to the act
ual world) of a propositional theory are defined. A theory is 'closer
to the truth' the logically stronger its positive content and the logi
cally weaker its negative content. This proposal delivers the same ver
isimilar preordering of theories that has been defined by Brink and He
idema as a 'power ordering'. The preordering may be collapsed to a par
tial ordering and then embedded into a complete distributive lattice.
The preordering may also be refined to a partial ordering by employing
the 'convex content' and the 'non-convex content' of each theory. Phi
losophical implications and historical relations are discussed.