Over the years several non-equivalent probabilistic measures of coherence have been discussed in the philosophical literature. In this paper we examine these measures with respect to their empirical adequacy. Using test cases from the coherence literature as vignettes for psychological experiments we investigate whether the measures can predict the subjective coherence assessments of the participants. It turns out that the participants’ coherence assessments are best described by Roche’s coherence measure based on Douven and Meijs’ average mutual support approach and the (...) conditional probability. (shrink)

There are some candidates that have been thought to measure the degree to which evidence incrementally confirms a hypothesis. This paper provides an argument for one candidate—the log-likelihood ratio measure. For this purpose, I will suggest a plausible requirement that I call the Requirement of Collaboration. And then, it will be shown that, of various candidates, only the log-likelihood ratio measure \(l\) satisfies this requirement. Using this result, Jeffrey conditionalization will be reformulated so as to disclose explicitly what determines new (...) credences after experience. (shrink)

Starting from the sixties of the past century theory change has become a main concern of philosophy of science. Two of the best known formal accounts of theory change are the post-Popperian theories of verisimilitude (PPV for short) and the AGM theory of belief change (AGM for short). In this paper, we will investigate the conceptual relations between PPV and AGM and, in particular, we will ask whether the AGM rules for theory change are effective means for approaching the truth, (...) i.e., for achieving the cognitive aim of science pointed out by PPV. First, the key ideas of PPV and AGM and their application to a particular kind of propositional theories - the so called "conjunctive propositions" - will be illustrated. Afterwards, we will prove that, as far as conjunctive propositions are concerned, AGM belief change is an effective tool for approaching the truth. (shrink)

The so‐called problem of irrelevant conjunction has been seen as a serious challenge for theories of confirmation. It involves the consequences of conjoining irrelevant statements to a hypothesis that is confirmed by some piece of evidence. Following Hawthorne and Fitelson, we reconstruct the problem with reference to Bayesian confirmation theory. Then we extend it to the case of conjoining irrelevant statements to a hypothesis that is dis confirmed by some piece of evidence. As a consequence, we obtain and formally present (...) a novel and more troublesome problem of irrelevant conjunction. We conclude by indicating a possible solution based on a measure‐sensitive approach and by critically discussing a major alternative way to address the problem. *Received December 2008; revised August 2009. †To contact the authors, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Turin, via Sant'Ottavio 20, 10124 Turin, Italy; e‐mail: [email protected] ; [email protected] or [email protected]. (shrink)

According to Hempel's paradox, evidence (E) that an object is a nonblack nonraven confirms the hypothesis (H) that every raven is black. According to the standard Bayesian solution, E does confirm H but only to a minute degree. This solution relies on the almost never explicitly defended assumption that the probability of H should not be affected by evidence that an object is nonblack. I argue that this assumption is implausible, and I propose a way out for Bayesians. Introduction Hempel's (...) paradox, the standard Bayesian solution, and the disputed assumption Attempts to defend the disputed assumption Attempts to refute the disputed assumption A way out for Bayesians Conclusion. (shrink)

The Paradox of the Ravens (a.k.a,, The Paradox of Confirmation) is indeed an old chestnut. A great many things have been written and said about this paradox and its implications for the logic of evidential support. The first part of this paper will provide a brief survey of the early history of the paradox. This will include the original formulation of the paradox and the early responses of Hempel, Goodman, and Quine. The second part of the paper will describe attempts (...) to resolve the paradox within a Bayesian framework, and show how to improve upon them. This part begins with a discussion of how probabilistic methods can help to clarify the statement of the paradox itself. And it describes some of the early responses to probabilistic explications. We then inspect the assumptions employed by traditional (canonical) Bayesian approaches to the paradox. These assumptions may appear to be overly strong. So, drawing on weaker assumptions, we formulate a new-and-improved Bayesian confirmation-theoretic resolution of the Paradox of the Ravens. (shrink)

Hempel first introduced the paradox of confirmation in (Hempel 1937). Since then, a very extensive literature on the paradox has evolved (Vranas 2004). Much of this literature can be seen as responding to Hempel’s subsequent discussions and analyses of the paradox in (Hempel 1945). Recently, it was noted that Hempel’s intuitive (and plausible) resolution of the paradox was inconsistent with his official theory of confirmation (Fitelson & Hawthorne 2006). In this article, we will try to explain how this inconsistency affects (...) the historical dialectic about the paradox and how it illuminates the nature of confirmation. In the end, we will argue that Hempel’s intuitions about the paradox of confirmation were (basically) correct, and that it is his theory that should be rejected, in favor of a (broadly) Bayesian account of confirmation. (shrink)

Hempel's paradox of the ravens arises from the inconsistency of three prima facie plausible principles of confirmation. This paper uses Carnapian inductive logic to (a) identify which of the principles is false, (b) give insight into why this principle is false, and (c) identify a true principle that is sufficiently similar to the false one that failure to distinguish the two might explain why the false principle is prima facie plausible. This solution to the paradox is compared with a variety (...) of other responses and is shown to differ from all of them. (shrink)

Simple random sampling resolutions of the raven paradox relevantly diverge from scientific practice. We develop a stratified random sampling model, yielding a better fit and apparently rehabilitating simple random sampling as a legitimate idealization. However, neither accommodates a second concern, the objection from potential bias. We develop a third model that crucially invokes causal considerations, yielding a novel resolution that handles both concerns. This approach resembles Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) and relates the generalization’s confirmation to confirmation of an (...) associated law. We give it an objective Bayesian formalization and discuss the compatibility of Bayesianism and IBE. (shrink)

This paper presents a symmetry condition for probabilistic measures of confirmation which is weaker than commutativity symmetry, disconfirmation commutativity symmetry but also antisymmetry. It is based on the idea that for any value a probabilistic measure of confirmation can assign there is a corresponding case where degrees of confirmation are symmetric. It is shown that a number of prominent confirmation measures such as Carnap’s difference function, Rescher’s measure of confirmation, Gaifman’s confirmation rate and Mortimer’s inverted difference function do not satisfy (...) this condition and instead exhibit a previously unnoticed and rather puzzling behavior in certain cases of disconfirmation. This behavior also carries over to probabilistic measures of information change, causal strength, explanatory power and coherence. (shrink)

It is widely thought that Bayesian confirmation theory has provided a solution to Hempel's Paradox (the Ravens Paradox). I discuss one well‐known example of this approach, by John Mackie, and argue that it is unconvincing. I then suggest an alternative solution, which shows that the Bayesian approach is altogether mistaken. Nicod's Condition should be rejected because a generalisation is not confirmed by any of its instances if it is not law‐like. And even law‐like non‐basic empirical generalisations, which are expressions of (...) assumed underlying causal regularities, are not so confirmed if they are absurd in the light of our causal background knowledge or if their instances are not also possible instances of the relevant causal claim. (shrink)

How can we determine the adequacy of a probabilistic coherence measure? A widely accepted approach to this question besides formulating adequacy constraints is to employ paradigmatic test cases consisting of a scenario providing a joint probability distribution over some specified set of propositions coupled with a normative coherence assessment for this set. However, despite the popularity of the test case approach, a systematic evaluation of the proposed test cases is still missing. This paper’s aim is to change this. Using a (...) custom written computer program for the necessary probabilistic calculations a large number of coherence measures in an extensive collection of test cases is examined. The result is a detailed overview of the test case performance of any probabilistic coherence measures proposed so far. It turns out that none of the popular coherence measures such as Shogenji’s, Glass’ and Olsson’s, Fitelson’s or Douven and Meijs’ but two rather unnoticed measures perform best. This, however, does not mean that the other measures can be rejected straightforwardly. Instead, the results presented here are to be understood as a contribution among others to the project of finding adequate probabilistic coherence measures. (shrink)

To clarify and illuminate the place of probability in science Ellery Eells and James H. Fetzer have brought together some of the most distinguished philosophers ...

Tacking by conjunction is a deep problem for Bayesian confirmation theory. It is based on the insight that to each hypothesis h that is confirmed by a piece of evidence e one can ‘tack’ an irrelevant hypothesis h′ so that h∧h′ is also confirmed by e. This seems counter-intuitive. Existing Bayesian solution proposals try to soften the negative impact of this result by showing that although h∧h′ is confirmed by e, it is so only to a lower degree. In this (...) article we outline some problems of these proposals and develop an alternative solution based on a new concept of confirmation that we call genuine confirmation. After pointing out that genuine confirmation is a necessary condition for cumulative confirmation we apply this notion to the tacking by conjunction problem. We consider both the question of what happens when irrelevant hypotheses are added to a hypothesis h that is confirmed by e as well as the question of what happens when h is disconfirmed. The upshot of our discussion will be that genuine confirmation provides a robust solution for each of the different perspectives. _1_ Introduction _2_ Tacking by Conjunction: Existing Solution Proposals _3_ Genuine Confirmation _3.1_ Content elements and content parts _3.2_ Qualitative genuine confirmation _3.3_ Quantitative genuine confirmation _4_ Tacking by Conjunction: The Case of Confirmation _5_ Tacking by Conjunction: The Case of Disconfirmation _6_ Tacking by Conjunction: Adding Multiple Hypotheses _7_ Conclusion Appendix. (shrink)

We explore the grammar of Bayesian confirmation by focusing on some likelihood principles, including the Weak Law of Likelihood. We show that none of the likelihood principles proposed so far is satisfied by all incremental measures of confirmation, and we argue that some of these measures indeed obey new, prima facie strange, antilikelihood principles. To prove this, we introduce a new measure that violates the Weak Law of Likelihood while satisfying a strong antilikelihood condition. We conclude by hinting at some (...) relevant links between the likelihood principles considered here and other properties of Bayesian confirmation recently explored in the literature. (shrink)

Confirmation of a hypothesis by evidence can be measured by one of the so far known incremental measures of confirmation. As we show, incremental measures can be formally defined as the measures of confirmation satisfying a certain small set of basic conditions. Moreover, several kinds of incremental measure may be characterized on the basis of appropriate structural properties. In particular, we focus on the so-called Matthew properties: we introduce a family of six Matthew properties including the reverse Matthew effect; we (...) further prove that incremental measures endowed with reverse Matthew effect are possible; finally, we shortly consider the problem of the plausibility of Matthew properties. (shrink)

This is a two tiered investigation. On the one hand, the author presents a systematic account of the philosophy of Hilary Putnam. Being the first comprehensive account to be published in the German-speaking world, the author traces the development of Putnam's realism and philosophy of language and their connections from the early 1950's to 2000. Contrary to the popular view of the discontinuity of Putnam's philosophy, he demonstrates that Putnam maintains certain semantic, pragmatic and epistemological foundations for the rational confirmability, (...) fallibility and self-corrigibility of theoretical knowledge in the empirical sciences as a constant around which many other philosophical assumptions are allowed to vary under critical examination. The resulting view of Putnam's philosophical "position" is decidedly "anti-metaphysical" (contrary to the common association of his philosophy of language with e.g. Kripke's understanding of realism), but not fully "deflationary" (contrary to the reclamation of his criticism of realist metaphysics as Quinean or Rortyan skepticism). On the other hand, the author generalizes, in the second and third parts of the book, Putnam's now famous theory of meaning and reference to develop a framework for the pragmatics of semantic continuity and discontinuity, as well as conceptual change within general terms in empirical settings, like natural kind terms, theoretical terms in natural sciences and commonsense classifications. The third part presents, develops and defends the basic normative premisses as a pragmatic alternative to both, metaphysical (Kripke, Devitt) and sceptical approaches (Quine, Kuhn). The main result here is that many (if not all) preconditions for the semantic bahvior of 'rigid' general terms are not, as usually assumed, ontological in nature, but can be usefully framed as part of the pragmatics of general terms in epistemic practices counting with rational revisability. (shrink)