Hypothetico-deductive (H-D) confirmation builds on the idea that confirming evidence consists of successful predictions that deductively follow from the hypothesis under test. This article reviews scope, history and recent development of the venerable H-D account: First, we motivate the approach and clarify its relationship to Bayesian confirmation theory. Second, we explain and discuss the tacking paradoxes which exploit the fact that H-D confirmation gives no account of evidential relevance. Third, we review several recent proposals that aim at a sounder and (...) more comprehensive formulation of H-D confirmation. Finally, we conclude that the reputation of hypothetico-deductive confirmation as outdated and hopeless is undeserved: not only can the technical problems be addressed satisfactorily, the hypothetico-deductive method is also highly relevant for scientific practice. (shrink)

Hypothetico-deductivists have struggled to develop qualitative confirmation theories not raising the so-called tacking by disjunction paradox. In this paper, I analyze the difficulties yielded by the paradox and I argue that the hypothetico-deductivist solutions given by Gemes (1998) and Kuipers (2000) are questionable because they do not fit such analysis. I then show that the paradox yields no difficulty for the Bayesian who appeals to the Total Evidence Condition. I finally argue that the same strategy is unavailable to the hypothetico-deductivist.

Alleged counter-examples deployed in Park [Erkenntnis 60: 229–240] against the account of selective hypothetico-deductive confirmation offered in Gemes [Erkenntnis 49: 1–20] are shown to be ineffective. Furthermore, the reservations expressed in Gemes [ibid] and [Philosophy of Science 62: 477–487] about hypothetico-deductivism are retracted and replaced with the conclusion that H-D is a viable account of confirmation that captures much of the practice of working scientists. However, because it cannot capture cases of inference to the best explanation and cases of the (...) observational confirmation of statistical hypotheses, it is concluded that H-D cannot supply a complete theory of confirmation. (shrink)

One way to show that text interpretation can be treated as a scientific problem is to show that the standards that are currently used in the natural sciences when dealing with problems not involving meaningful material can also be successfully employed in the case of text interpretation. These standards involve intersubjective intelligibility, testability with the use of evidence, rational argumentation, and making methodological decisions aiming at the attainment of truth, accuracy, simplicity and other epistemic values. In the case of text (...) interpretation—despite the fact that we deal with meaningful material—hypotheses can be formulated, consequences can be drawn by deduction, and these can be tested against empirical data. This claim is substantiated by the provision of an example of a scientific text. (shrink)