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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.
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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 |
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.[1]
Gilles is a past President[1] and a current Vice-President[2] 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.[1]
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.[3]
- 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.[4]
- 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.
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