The language dependence of accuracy

Eric Barnes

pp. 59-95

in: Synthese 84 (1), 1990.

Abstract

David Miller has demonstrated to the satisfaction of a variety of philosophers that the accuracy of false quantitative theories is language dependent (cf. Miller 1975). This demonstration renders the accuracy-based mode of comparison for such theories obsolete. The purpose of this essay is to supply an alternate basis for theory comparison which in this paper is deemed the ‘knowledge-based’ mode of quantitative theory comparison. It is argued that the status of a quantitative theory as knowledge depends primarily on the ‘soundness’ of the measurement procedure which produced the theory; such soundness is invariant, on my view, under Milleresque translations. This point is the basis for the linguistic invariance of ‘knowledgelikeness’. When the aim of science is not construed simply in terms of the ‘truthlikeness’ or accuracy of theories, but in terms of the knowledge such theories embody, Miller's language dependence problem is overcome. One result of this analysis is that the possibility of objective scientific progress is restored, a possibility that Miller's analysis has prima facie defeated.

Cited authors

Miller David