Donald A. Gillies
 |
Donald A. Gillies | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 May 1944 |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University London School of Economics |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic |
| Institutions | University College London |
| Thesis | A critique of von Mises' theory of probability (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Imre Lakatos |
| Other academic advisors | Karl Popper |
| Doctoral students | David Corfield |
Main interests | Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of artificial intelligence |
Notable ideas | Non-Bayesian confirmation theory |
Donald Angus Gillies (/ˈɡɪliːz/; born 4 May 1944) is a British philosopher and historian of science and mathematics. He is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London.
Career
[edit]After undergraduate studies in mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge, Gillies became a graduate student of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos (his official PhD supervisor) at the London School of Economics, where he completed a PhD on the foundations of probability.[2]
Gilles is a past President[2] and a current Vice-President[3] of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. From 1982 to 1985 he was an editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.[2]
Gillies is probably best known for his work on Bayesian confirmation theory, his attempt to simplify and extend Popper’s theory of corroboration. He proposes a novel "principle of explanatory surplus", likening a successful theoretician to a successful entrepreneur. The entrepreneur generates a surplus (of income) over and above his initial investment (the outgoes) to meet the necessary expenses of the enterprise. Similarly, the theoretician generates a surplus (of explanations) over and above his initial investment (of assumptions) to make the necessary explanations of known facts. The size of this surplus is held to be a measure of the confirmation of the theory, but only in qualitative, rather than quantitative, terms.
Gillies has researched the philosophy of science, most particularly the foundations of probability; the philosophy of logic and mathematics; and the interactions of artificial intelligence with some aspects of philosophy, including probability, logic, causality and scientific method. In the philosophy of mathematics, he has developed a method of dealing with very large transfinite cardinals from an Aristotelian point of view.[4]
Books and articles (selection)
[edit]- Gillies, Donald and Chihara, Charles S. (1988). "An Interchange on the Popper-Miller Argument". Philosophical Studies, Volume 54, pp. 1–8.
- Gillies, Donald (1989). "Non-Bayesian Confirmation Theory and the Principle of Explanatory Surplus". The Philosophy of Science Association, PSA 1988, Volume 2, pp. 373–380.
- Gillies, Donald ed. (1992). Revolutions in Mathematics. Oxford Science Publications. The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, New York.
- Gillies, Donald (1996). "Artificial intelligence and scientific method". Oxford: Oxford University Press.[5]
- Gillies, Donald (2000). Philosophical Theories of Probability. London: Routledge.
- Gillies, Donald (2010). An objective Theory of Probability. London: Routledge.
- Gillies, Donald (2011). Frege, Dedekind, and Peano on the Foundations of Arithmetic. London: Routledge.
References
[edit]- ^ Corfield interviewed by McLarty - Thales + Friends
- ^ a b c Wenceslao J. González, Contemporary Perspectives in Philosophy and Methodology of Science. Netbiblo, 2006, ISBN 0-9729892-3-4; pp. v-vi
- ^ BSPS Officers and Committees 2009-2010 Archived 26 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine, British Society for the Philosophy of Science. Accessed January 25, 2010
- ^ Gillies, Donald (2015). "An Aristotelian approach to mathematical ontology". In Davis, Ernest; Davis, Philip J. (eds.). Mathematics, Substance and Surmise. Cham: Springer. pp. 147–176. ISBN 9783319214726.
- ^ Gillies, Donald A (2 May 2019). "Books". Donald A. Gillies Personal Website. Retrieved 28 August 2022.
External links
[edit]
- Philosophers of mathematics
- British philosophers of science
- Philosophers of probability
- British historians of mathematics
- 20th-century English mathematicians
- 21st-century English mathematicians
- Academics of University College London
- Living people
- 20th-century British philosophers
- 21st-century British philosophers
- 1944 births