Explication usually plays the role of the method of language revision. The paper sticks to the Carnapian project of explication and develops some of the formal requirements imposed on the explicatum. However, it departs from Carnap’s view when it comes to how to construe the simplicity condition. It is suggested that in some cases the simplicity condition, which in the Carnapian project plays the derived role with respect to the other three conditions—the similarity, exactness, and fruitfulness conditions—may be substantive for (...) the overall evaluation of explications. Based on a case study of three different explications of the H-D concept of confirmation :391–437, 1991; Erkenntnis 41:183–188, 1994; Gemes in Philos Sci 60:477–487, 1993; Erkenntnis 49:1–20, 1998; Sprenger in Philos Compass 6:497–508, 2011), we show that there are cases where competing explicata of a common explicandum satisfy the first three conditions equally well. In those cases, then, the simplicity condition is supposed to make the difference. However, instead of using Carnap’s construal of simplicity, we suggest a Principle of instrumental simplicity according to which, ceteris paribus, the simpler the explicatum is, the more likely is its ‘survival’ in competition with other explicata. Moreover, it is suggested that whereas the similarity, exactness and fruitfulness conditions are, in some sense, formal criteria, the simplicity condition is rather tested empirically. (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.

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)

Since Christensen refuted the Bootstrap theory of confirmation in 1990, there have been some trials to improve the Hypothetico-Deductive theory of confirmation. After some trials, Gemes (1998) declared that his revised version completely overcame the difficulties of Hypothetico-Deductivism without generating any new difficulties. In this paper, I will assert that Gemes's revised version encounters some new difficulties, so it cannot be a true alternative to the Bootstrap theory of confirmation and to classical Hypothetico-Deductivism. Also I will assert that, in principle, (...) such new difficulties cannot be overcome by any trials dependent only on formal logic. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of evidential holism, a prominent position in epistemology and the philosophy of science which claims that experiments only ever confirm or refute entire theories. The position is historically associated with W.V. Quine, and it is at once both popular and notorious, as well as being largely under-described. But even though there’s no univocal statement of what holism is or what it does, philosophers have nevertheless made substantial assumptions about its content and its truth. Moreover they (...) have drawn controversial and important conclusions from these assumptions. In this paper I distinguish three types of evidential holism and argue that the most oft-cited and controversial thesis is entirely unmotivated. The other two theses are much overlooked, but are well-motivated and free from controversial implications. (shrink)

Derivational robustness may increase the degree to which various pieces of evidence indirectly confirm a robust result. There are two ways in which this increase may come about. First, if one can show that a result is robust, and that the various individual models used to derive it also have other confirmed results, these other results may indirectly confirm the robust result. Confirmation derives from the fact that data not known to bear on a result are shown to be relevant (...) when it is shown to be robust. Second, robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it increases the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it. This may happen when it strengthens the connection between the core and the robust result by showing that auxiliaries are not responsible for the result. (shrink)

This paper develops a semantical model - theoretic account of (logical) content complementing the syntactically specified account of content developed in "A New Theory of Content I", JPL 23: 596-620, 1994. Proofs of Completeness are given for both propositional and quantificational languages (without identity). Means for handling a quantificational language with identity are also explored. Finally, this new notion of content is compared, in respect of both logical properties and philosophical applications, to alternative partitions of the standard consequence class relation (...) proposed by Stelzner, Schurz and Wiengartner. (shrink)