Tractable Falsifiability

Maximal Falsifiability - Definitions, Algorithms, and Applications

Similarly to Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT), Minimum Satisfiability (MinSAT) is an optimization extension of the Boolean Satisfiability (SAT) decision problem. In recent years, both problems have been studied in terms of exact and approximation algorithms. In addition, the MaxSAT problem has been characterized in terms of Maximal Satisfiable Subsets (MSSes) and Minimal Correction Subsets (MCSe...

The Determinants of Knowability

Many propositions are not known to be true or false, and many phenomena are not understood. What determines what propositions and phenomena are perceived as knowable or unknowable? We tested whether factors related to scientific methodology (a proposition’s reducibility and falsifiability), its intrinsic metaphysics (the materiality of the phenomena and its scope of applicability), and its rela...

A mathematical framework for falsifiability

Empiricism and Intelligent Design I: Three Empiricist Challenges

Due to the logical relations between theism and intelligent design (ID), there are two challenges to theism that also apply to ID. In the falsifiability challenge, it is charged that theism is compatible with every observation statement and thus asserts nothing. I argue that the contentious assumptions of this challenge can be avoided without loss of precision by charging theism (and thus ID) d...

Carnap on empirical significance

Carnap’s search for a criterion of empirical significance is usually considered a failure. I argue that the results from two out of his three different approaches are at the very least problematic, but that one approach led to success. Carnap’s criterion of translatability into logical syntax is too vague to allow for definite results. His criteria for terms—introducibility by chains of reducti...