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A Bayesian Account of the Virtue of Unification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Wayne C. Myrvold
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Abstract

A Bayesian account of the virtue of unification is given. On this account, the ability of a theory to unify disparate phenomena consists in the ability of the theory to render such phenomena informationally relevant to each other. It is shown that such ability contributes to the evidential support of the theory, and hence that preference for theories that unify the phenomena need not, on a Bayesian account, be built into the prior probabilities of theories.

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Type
Research Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , April 2003 , pp. 399 - 423
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

The author is grateful to Bill Harper, Sona Ghosh, and three anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science for helpful comments and suggestions.

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