Eugine_Nier comments on Mixed Reference: The Great Reductionist Project - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 December 2012 12:26AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 December 2012 12:53:53AM 2 points [-]

The claim might just need correction to say, "Many philosophers say that simplicity is a good thing but the requirement is not enforced very well by philosophy journals" or something like that. I think I believe you, but do you have an example citation anyway? (SEP entries or other ungated papers are in general good; I'm looking for an example of an idea being criticized due to lack of metaphysical parsimony.) In particular, can we find e.g. anyone criticizing modal logic because possibility shouldn't be basic because metaphysical parsimony?

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 06 December 2012 06:22:31AM 2 points [-]

In particular, can we find e.g. anyone criticizing modal logic because possibility shouldn't be basic because metaphysical parsimony?

Why shouldn't it? I haven't seen any reduction of it that deals with this objection.