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(1996) Synthese 109 (2).
Recently Samuel Richmond, generalizing Nelson Goodman, has proposed a measure of the simplicity of a theory that takes into account not only the polymorphicity of its models but also their internal homogeneity. By this measure a theory is simple if small subsets of its models exhibit only a few distinct (i.e., non-isomorphic) structures. Richmond shows that his measure, unlike that given by Goodman's theory of simplicity of predicates, orders the order relations in an intuitively satisfactory manner. In this note I formalize his presentation and suggest an improvement designed to overcome certain technical difficulties.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/BF00413770
Full citation:
Scott, B. M. (1996). Technical notes on a theory of simplicity. Synthese 109 (2), pp. 281-289.
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