•  280
    Empirical simplicity as testability
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 23 (1): 25-33. 1972.
  •  73
  •  41
    Is intertheoretic reduction feasible?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33 (1): 17-40. 1982.
  •  35
    A problem posed
    Foundations of Physics 5 (1): 89-91. 1975.
    E. T. Jaynes' resolution of Bertrand's paradox in terms of invariance principles is criticized. An experimental setup is considered which generates general solutions to Bertrand's problem by rotating a line around a point a distancer+d from a circle of radiusr. The general solution obtained is neither translationally nor scale invariant, but depends on the value ofr/d. Only in the limitr/d » 0, when the line is just translating across the circle, is the distribution translationally invariant and…Read more
  •  23
    Another shot at the canons of induction
    Mind 84 (334): 177-191. 1975.
    On the three most widely discussed contemporary justifications of induction, the inductive justification, the pragmatic justification, and the analytic justification (or dissolution of the problem), none has received widespread acceptance. There are specific problems with each of these approaches and a general problem that affects all three. The purpose of this paper is to provide a fourth justification of induction which is less problematic than or at least problematic in different ways from-th…Read more
  •  13
    Freedom? Nothingness? Time? Fluxus and the Laboratory of Ideas
    Theory, Culture and Society 29 (7-8): 372-398. 2012.
    At the 50-year anniversary of Fluxus, Ken Friedman looks back on the activities and achievements of a laboratory for art, architecture, design, and music. This article examines the political and economic context of the 1950s against which Fluxus emerged to become the most radical and experimental art project of the 1960s, thoroughly international in structure, with women as well as men in central roles. The article examines the hermeneutical interface of life and art through 12 Fluxus ideas: glo…Read more
  •  7
    The book attempts to develop an account of simplicity in terms of testability, and to use this account to provide an adequate characterization of induction, one immune to the class of problems suggested by Nelson Goodman. It is then shown that the past success of induction, thus characterized, constitutes evidence for its future success. A qualitative measure of confirmation is developed, and this measure - along with the considerations of simplicity - is used to provide an account of the consil…Read more