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Inconsistent Theories as Scientific Objectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Dilip B. Madan
Dilip B. Madan*
Affiliation:
Department of Economic Statistics, University of Sydney
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Abstract

Theories are conceptualized as predictors of phenomena using computable functions acting on prior world information. Formally, the concept of bounded prior world recursive function is defined and used as a candidate for a potential theory. An artificial world of fact is then constructed for which there exist two inconsistent best theories, in that they cannot be improved upon, and these theories are maximally inconsistent in that every best theory is a compromise. It is argued that in such a world the scientific objective would be to find these maximally inconsistent theories. The construction is motivated as an attempt to illustrate the status of theory in the social sciences and in economics, in particular.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , September 1983 , pp. 453 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1983

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Footnotes

†

The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of a referee in observing and conjecturing a fundamental difference between bpw recursion theory and recursion theory as demonstrated in the appendix.

References

Feyerabend, P. K. (1962), “Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism” in Feigl, Herbert and Maxwell, Grover (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Lachlan, A. H. (1968), “On the Lattice of Recursively Enumerable Sets”, Transactions of the American Mathematics Society 130: 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, H. Jr. (1967), Theory of recursive functions and effective computability. New York: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar