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Epistemic Utility and the Evaluation of Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Isaac Levi
Isaac Levi*
Affiliation:
Columbia University
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Abstract

William K. Goosens claims to show that my account of epistemic utility runs into serious difficulties when confronted with certain attractive conditions of adequacy for the evaluation of experiments. I show that those conditions of adequacy which are, indeed, acceptable to both of us are satisfied by the procedures for evaluating experiments mandated by combining my theory of epistemic utilities with the approach to evaluating experiments on which Goosens' argument is based. In particular, I demonstrate that my theory does not violate the requirement that an “ideal experiment” be no worse than any alternative experiment.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , September 1977 , pp. 368 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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