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Scientific discovery based on belief revision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Eric Martin  and
Daniel Osherson
Eric Martin
Affiliation:
Lamii, B. P. 806, F-74016 Annecy Cedex, France E-mail: martin@esia.univ-savoie.fr
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Abstract

Scientific inquiry is represented as a process of rational hypothesis revision in the face of data. For the concept of rationality, we rely on the theory of belief dynamics as developed in [5, 9]. Among other things, it is shown that if belief states are left unclosed under deductive logic then scientific theories can be expanded in a uniform, consistent fashion that allows inquiry to proceed by any method of hypothesis revision based on “kernel” contraction. In contrast, if belief states are closed under logic, then no such expansion is possible.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Symbolic Logic , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 1352 - 1370
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 1997

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