Abstract
According to Wittgenstein statements picture reality as it is or as it might be.1 It is a notorious problem in Wittgenstein scholarship to spell out exactly what is meant by this thesis, and to reconcile Wittgenstein’s various pronouncements on the matter. This exegetical problem is not our main concern (though some light may be thrown on it by what follows) but the thesis itself is extremely suggestive, and elements of it can be used to elucidate what might at first appear to be a purely syntactic approach to the problem of rigorously characterizing truthlikeness. The concept will be defined by means of the properties of certain special formulas (strings of symbols) but this procedure is legitimate only because these formulae, suitably interpreted, picture reality, or possible kinds of states of affairs.
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References
Wittgenstein [1921]. As is usual, Wittgenstein’s own numbering of theses is used in the text here.
Hintikka [1965]. In sections 4.3 and 4.5 an intuitive account of the structure of constituents is given, and in appendix 8.4 and 8.5 a detailed mathematical account is given.
See any textbook on first-order logic; for example, Bell and Machover [1976], pp. 15–8. See also the appendix, 8.1.
Those familiar with the literature on truthlikeness will recognise here Miller’s famous hot-Minnesotan-Arizonan example. (Miller [1974], p. 176.) The argument Miller bases on this example (and others like it) is discussed in greater depth in chapter 6. It might be noted here that implicit in the discussion in 4.1 is only one way of interpreting Miller’s argument. Another completely different way will be discussed in chapter 6.
Quine [1970] pp. 4–5.
ibid.
Carnap [1971], p. 56.
See Niiniluoto [1977], [1978a], [1978b], [1979a], [1979b] and Tuomela [1978] and [1979]. See Niiniluoto [1982] for a reply to some of the criticisms that ensue (first published in Oddie [1981]). These replies are dealt with in later sections.
See Tichy [1976], pp. 39–40. Tichy calls this concept verisimilitude P because it seems to capture some of the ingredients of Popper’s approach to the problem.
See Niiniluoto [1978b], p. 302.
See Niiniluoto [1978a], p. 448ff.
Niiniluoto [1978a], p. 448 ff.
Niiniluoto [1982], p. 294.
ibid.
The example was originally contained in correspondence to Niiniluoto and it is reported in his [1979a], p. 371.
Niiniluoto [1979a], p. 372.
ibid., p. 375.
See note 9.
I communicated this counterexample to the d-sequence approach to Tichy in [1977]. He acknowledged it in his [1978a]. Niiniluoto also acknowledged the error in his [1978b], p. 317.
Oddie [1981], pp. 245-6. Niiniluoto’s reply, by way of an isotope example, is discussed below, section 4.5.
Tuomela [1978].
Oddie [1981], pp. 246–8.
This argument is challenged by Urbach [ 1983 ]. For a full analysis of Urbach’s paper see section 6. 4.
See Tichy [1978b] for several such examples.
The condition that linkages be fair is elaborated in Oddie [1979a].
Niiniluoto [1979a], p. 375.
An attempt has been made, at Otago University, to programme the distance measure presented here. Although the computer gave correct results in simple cases, in more complicated cases the computer took an enormous amount of time to achieve what can be done intuitively in a much shorter time.
This was proved in conjunction with Gerard Liddell of the Mathematics Department, Otago University. The proof has not yet been published.
Niiniliioto ([1982], p. 290) complains that at this point I violate my own methodology: ‘It seems clear that in distinguishing “clear-cut” examples from “borderline cases” reference to existing definitions is permitted by Oddie. In other words, one may use putative general principles about verisimilitude in evaluating whether a given example is a “clear-cut” one or not—and this is an instance of methods which, according to Oddie’s own understanding of the nature of explication, leads to a policy of “anything goes”.’ Of course the mere fact that two theories disagree over an example does not justify the claim that the example is not clear-cut. If it did then it would indeed follow that no theory could be rejected in favour of any other—anything goes. Rather, in this case, it is simply that I do not have any strong intuition on the matter, and the claim that it is a borderline case (and not simply a deficiency on my part) is confirmed by the fact that three very closely related, only subtly different, attempts to capture the notion of closeness of fit yield three completely different judgements.
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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Oddie, G. (1986). Truthlikeness by Distributive Normal Forms. In: Likeness to Truth. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 30. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4658-3_4
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