© 1996 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
Articles |
Confirmation, Explanation, and Logical Strength
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA
Van Fraassen argues that explanatory power cannot be a conformational virtue. In this paper I will show that informational features of scientific theories can be positively relevant to their levels of conformation. Thus, in the cases where the explanatory power of a theory is tied to an informational feature of the theory, it can still be the case that the explanatory power of the theory is positively relevant to its level of confirmation.