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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1994 45(2):605-630; doi:10.1093/bjps/45.2.605
© 1994 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Comparing Theories by their Positive and Negative Contents

ISABELLA C. BURGER1 and JOHANNES HEIDEMA2

1Department of Mathematics, Rand Afrikaans University Johannesburg, South Africa
2Department of Mathematics, University of South Africa Pretoria, South Africa

The ‘positive content’ and the ‘negative content’ (relative to the actual world) of a propositional theory are defined. A theory is ‘closer to the truth’ the logically stronger its positive content and the logically weaker its negative content. This proposal delivers the same verisimilar preordering of theories that has been defined by Brink and Heidema as a ‘power ordering’. The preordering may be collapsed to a partial ordering and then embedded into a complete distributive lattice. The preordering may also be refined to a partial ordering by employing the ‘convex content’ and the ‘non-convex content’ of each theory. Philosophical implications and historical relations are discussed.


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