SIMPLICITY by Shyson Poruthoor (09030)

SIMPLICITY

Philosophers and scientists have often held that the simplicity or parsimony of a theory is one reason. All else beings are equal, to view it as true. This goes beyond the unproblematic idea that simpler theories are easier to work with and have greater aesthetic appeal. The simplicity of a theory depends on more or less the same considerations, though it is not obvious that parsimony and simplicity come to the same thing. It is plausible to demand clarification of what makes one theory simpler or more parsimonious than another before the justification of these methodological maxims can be addressed. If we set this descriptive problem to one side, the major normative problem is as follows: What reason is there to think that simplicity is a sign of truth? Why should we accept a simpler theory instead of its more complex rivals? Newton and Leibniz thought that the answer was to be found in a substantive fact about nature. In Principia, Newton laid down as his first Rule of Reasoning in Philosophy that 'nature does nothing in vain.… For nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes'. Leibniz hypothesized that the actual world obeys simple laws because God's taste for simplicity influenced his decision about which world to actua1ize.

 
Since Hume and Kant, Epistemological view has taken hold that a preference for simple and parsimonious hypotheses is purely methodological; it Is constitutive of the attitude we call 'scientific' and makes no substantive assumption about the way the world is. A variety of otherwise diverse twentieth century philosophers of science have attempted, in different ways, to flesh out this position. Two examples must suffice here; see Hesse (1969) for summaries of other proposals popper (1959) holds that scientists should prefer highly falsifiable improbable theories; he tries to show that simpler theories are more falsifiable. Quine (1966), in contrast, sees a virtue in theories that are highly probable; he argues for a general connection between simplicity and high probability.
Newton and Leibniz thought that the justification of parsimony and simplicity flows from the hand of God; Popper and Quine try to justify these methodological maxims without assuming anything substantive about the way the world is. In spite of these differences in approach, they have something in common. They assume that all uses of parsimony and simplicity in the separate sciences can be encompassed in a single justifying argument.
'Principles of parsimony and simplicity mediate the epistemic connection between hypotheses and observations. Perhaps these principles are able to do this because they are surrogates for an empirical background theory. It isn't that there is one background theory presupposed by every appeal to parsimony; this has the quantifier order backwards. Rather, the suggestion is that each parsimony argument is justified only to the degree that it reflects an empirical background theory about the subject matter at hand. Once this theory is brought out into the open, the principle of parsimony is entirely dispensable (Sober. 1988). This local approach to the principles of parsimony and simplicity resurrects the idea that they make sense only if the world is one way rather than another. It rejects the idea that these maxims are purely methodological.

 

 

 

Source: A Companion to Epistemology