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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2003 54(2):245-259; doi:10.1093/bjps/54.2.245
© 2003 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Quantitative Parsimony and Explanatory Power

Alan Baker1

1 Department of Philosophy, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH 45207, United States. bakerar{at}xavier.edu

The desire to minimize the number of individual new entities postulated is often referred to as quantitative parsimony. Its influence on the default hypotheses formulated by scientists seems undeniable. I argue that there is a wide class of cases for which the preference for quantitatively parsimonious hypotheses is demonstrably rational. The justification, in a nutshell, is that such hypotheses have greater explanatory power than less parsimonious alternatives. My analysis is restricted to a class of cases I shall refer to as additive. Such cases involve the postulation of a collection of qualitatively identical individual objects which collectively explain some particular observed phenomenon. Especially clear examples of this sort occur in particle physics.

1 Introduction

2 Particle physics: a case study

3 Three kinds of simplicity

4 Explanatory power

5 Explanation and non-observation

6 Parsimony and scientific methodology

7 Conclusions


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