Galileo, Aristotle, and Some Difficulties with Quantitative Laws

Abstract

I shall conclude my monograph by addressing a more general problem than that of comparing hypotheses concerned with the values of n quantities. Below, I shall discuss the problem of comparing theories concerned with quantitative laws. This new problem is better suited for being discussed in the of a historical example than the earlier one. This is because, if one actually compared with some definition of verisimilitude two hypotheses that were concerned with the values of some particular n quantities which characterize an actual empirical system, one would have to give numerical values to the quantities. Now, the philosophical relevance of detailed numerical computations concerned with, say, one particular experimental setup like the one discussed in Section 1.1. might well be doubted. However, when laws are being compared, such numerical computations are not needed.