An impossibility theorem for verisimilitude

Authors: Zwart, Sjoerd¹; Franssen, Maarten²

Source: Synthese, Volume 158, Number 1, September 2007 , pp. 75-92(18)

Publisher: Springer

Key:

- Free Content

- New Content

- Subscribed Content

- Free Trial Content

Abstract:

In this paper, we show that Arrow's well-known impossibility theorem is instrumental in bringing the ongoing discussion about verisimilitude to a more general level of abstraction. After some preparatory technical steps, we show that Arrow's requirements for voting procedures in social choice are also natural desiderata for a general verisimilitude definition that places content and likeness considerations on the same footing. Our main result states that no qualitative unifying procedure of a functional form can simultaneously satisfy the requirements of Unanimity, Independence of irrelevant alternatives and Non-dictatorship at the level of sentence variables. By giving a formal account of the incompatibility of the considerations of content and likeness, our impossibility result makes it possible to systematize the discussion about verisimilitude, and to understand it in more general terms.

Keywords: Verisimilitude; Truthlikeness; Truth-content; Arrow's theorem; Preference aggregation; Min-sum measure

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-006-9051-y

Affiliations: 1: Email: s.d.zwart@tbm.tudelft.nl 2: Email: m.p.m.franssen@tbm.tudelft.nl

The full text electronic article is available for purchase. You will be able to download the full text electronic article after payment.

$47.00 plus tax Refund Policy