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Theoretical Virtues: Do Scientists Think What Philosophers Think They Ought to Think?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2022

Samuel Schindler Open the ORCID record for Samuel Schindler [Opens in a new window]
Samuel Schindler*
Affiliation:
Centre for Science Studies, Department of Mathematics, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 118, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
*
Email: samuel.schindler@css.au.dk
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Abstract

Theoretical virtues play an important role in the acceptance and belief of theories in science and philosophy. Philosophers have well-developed views on which virtues ought and ought not to influence one’s acceptance and belief. But what do scientists think? This paper presents the results of a quantitative study with scientists from the natural and social sciences and compares their views to those held by philosophers. Some of the more surprising results are: (i) all three groups have a preference order regarding theoretical virtues, making theory choice a much more determinate matter than what has sometimes been suggested; (ii) the preference orders are very similar for the three groups; (iii) simplicity is viewed as an epistemic virtue particularly by social scientists (but not by philosophers); and (iv) syntactic parsimony is preferred to ontological parsimony by all three groups.

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Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 542 - 564
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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