It is a well-known fact that theoretical virtues such as consistency\, \;unifying power\, simplicity\, coherence\, fertility\, and even elegance and \;beauty play an important role in scientific theory-choice. Philosophers are \;divided over how to interpret this. Early scientific realists held that some \;theoretical virtues are epistemic virtues\, but this view never gained wide \;acceptance among philosophers. Instead\, theoretical virtues have long been \;treated as pragmatic virtues. Recent developments\, however\, warrant renewed \;attention to theoretical virtues. In the model selection literature\, for \;instance\, it has been argued that the theoretical virtue of simplicity \;grounds the predictive power of models. It is furthermore claimed that \;simplicity needs to be traded-off against descriptive &lsquo\;fit&rsquo\;. That different \;theoretical virtues need to be traded-off against each other is course also \;a claim made by T.S. Kuhn. Kuhn furthermore held that the weight assigned to \;each virtue in theory-choice very much depends on personal preferences\, \;rendering theory-choice a highly subjective matter. A recent application of \;Arrow&rsquo\;s impossibility theorem to the problem of theory-choice has invited \;even less optimistic conclusions than these. But is theory-choice in science \;really as irrational as these considerations seem to imply? Might the \;traditional realist view about theoretical virtues being truth-conducive be \;resurrected in any way? Should our theories of confirmation not reflect the \;import of theoretical virtues in the practice of science? How can \;notoriously vague virtues such as simplicity\, coherence\, and fertility be \;made more precise? These are just some of the questions this workshop will \;try to elucidate.
The workshop is organized by Samuel Schindler (Aarhus)\, Giora Hon \;(Haifa/Konstanz)\, and James McAllister (Leiden). The workshop has been \;kindly sponsored by the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz. \;
The conference website can be found at: \;http://tinyurl.com/TVTC2012.
Please send any queries to \;samuel.schindler@ivs.au.dk.