Abstract
There is a straightforward connection in terms of subject-matter between belief revision and one of the major issues in the philosophy of science, namely the dynamics of changes in scientific knowledge. But in spite of this connection, there has been relatively little contact between the two disciplines. There is an obvious reason for this lack of contact: The standard framework that is used in the belief change literature is not suitable for analyzing the mechanisms of change in science. The aim of this contribution is to identify the differences and show what modifications are needed to make the format suitable for modelling the development of scientific knowledge.
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- 1.
See Section 2.4.2 for a delimitation of data.
- 2.
As will be clear in Section 2.6, it is a matter of convenience whether the accepted data are treated as elements of the corpus, or whether the corpus consists only of the generalized statements that are based on these data.
- 3.
Of course, both accepted and non-accepted statements are often expressed in probabilistic terms.
- 4.
On the other hand, we also regard many issues as unsettled or uncertain, but do not assign definite probabilities or degrees of belief to them. Thus, whereas a (hypothetical) Bayesian subject assigns probabilities distinct from 0 and 1 to all contingent factual statements, actual subjects have very few such probabilistic beliefs but instead (i) judgments held to be true or false, and (ii) judgments that are unsettled but to which no exact numerical probability has been assigned.
- 5.
What makes this plausible is the restricted delimitation of data that was introduced in Section 2.4.2. Theoretical deliberations can lead us to acquire new beliefs about matters of fact. Hence, given the observation of several thrust nightingales in Saudi Arabia that were ringed in Sweden, we may add the statement “thrust nightingales migrate from Sweden to Saudi Arabia” to our state of belief. However, this statement of fact does not qualify as data on the present account. (Reports about the finding of these ringed birds will, however, qualify as data.)
- 6.
Proof: \(\left| B \right| = \left\| B \right\|\)
\(= \left| {{\rm{C}}(\left| B \right|)} \right|\,({\rm{data identity}})\)
\(\subseteq {\rm{C}}(\left| B \right|)\)
- 7.
But see the further comment on it in Section 2.8.
- 8.
This completeness property is encoded in the iteration property that was introduced in Section 2.6.
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Hansson, S.O. (2010). Changing the Scientific Corpus. In: Olsson, E., Enqvist, S. (eds) Belief Revision meets Philosophy of Science. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 21. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9609-8_2
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