Abstract

The recent theories of truthlikeness have not paid attention to the distinction between lawlike and accidental generalizations. L.J. Cohen has expressed this by saying that science aims at legisimilitude rather than verisimilitude. G. Oddie has given a reply to Cohen by defining the notion of legisimilitude in terms of higher-order logics. This paper gives a different reply to Cohen by treating laws as physically necessary generalizations and by defining the notion of legisimilitude as closeness to a suitably chosen lawlike sentence.