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Truthlikeness for hypotheses expressed in terms of n quantitative variables

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Abstract

A qualitative theory of truthlikeness, based on a family of quantitative measures, is developed for hypotheses that are concerned with the values of a finite number of real-valued quantities. Representing hypotheses by subsets of ℝn, I first show that a straightforward application of the basic ideas of the similarity approach to truthlikeness does not work out for hypotheses with zero n-dimensional Lebesgue measure. However, it is easy to give a counterpart for the average measure preferred by Pavel Tichý and Graham Oddie in terms of Hausdorff measures. The task of finding analogies of the min-sum-measure preferred by Ilkka Niiniluoto is more interesting. I present and discuss analogies of two different types for this measure.

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Kieseppä, I.A. Truthlikeness for hypotheses expressed in terms of n quantitative variables. J Philos Logic 25, 109–134 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00247000

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