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SAFETY, STRENGTH, SIMPLICITY
NELSON GOODMAN
University of Pennsylvania
cases point to the opposite conclusion. The stated evidence also leaves un-
falsified the hypothesis:
(3) All maples whatsoever, and all sassafras trees in Eagleville, are
deciduous.
Now (3) is stronger than (2) but is less simple and acceptable. The expansion
made in (3) is as unwelcome as the exception made in (1). Hypothesis (2),
although it lies between (1) and (3) in safety and strength, is simpler than
and preferable to either.
This shows that neither safety nor strength is the measure of simplicity,
and that simplicity takes precedence over both as a factor in the choice of
hypotheses. The delicate problem of balancing safety and strength against
each other is significant only as between hypotheses of equal simplicity.
If neither safety nor strength determines simplicity, what does ? Formulation
of general standards for comparing the simplicity of hypotheses is a difficult
and neglected task. Here brevity is no reliable test; for since we can always,
by a calculated selection of vocabulary, translate any hypothesis into one of
minimal length, the simplicity of the vocabulary must also be appraised. I am
inclined to think that the standards of simplicity for hypotheses derive from
our classificatory habits as disclosed in our language, and that the relative
entrenchment of predicates underlies our judgment of relative simplicity;
but spelling this out takes some pains. Merely, to reject unfamiliar predicates
wholesale in favor of familiar ones would be to disallow the introduction
of needed new terms into scientific language. Furthermore, we must ordinarily
decide not merely which of two hypotheses is the simpler but which one
makes for the simpler total theory. I have discussed these matters in Fact,
Fiction, and Forecast2; and the criteria of projectibility I have outlined there
in terms of entrenchment is perhaps essentially a simplicity criterion. But
the whole matter wants more study. What is evident is that adequate canons
of induction must incorporate criteria of simplicity that cannot be given solely
in terms of strength or safety.
2
Harvard University Press, 1955; see especially Chapter IV.