Donald A. Gillies 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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After undergraduate studies in mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge, Gillies became a graduate student of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos 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 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 (of funds) 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.