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)

In this paper I revisit R. M. Martin’s logic of belief. As with much of Martin’s work, his formal studies into belief and belief reports have gone largely unnoticed. However, in my article I suggest reasons for thinking that these studies warrant revisiting. One reason is that Martin adopted an account of the notion of belief which was more comprehensive than that employed by most rival theorists. Another reason is that Martin couched his theory in a formal pragmatics which utilised (...) a pragmatical meta-language. This method resulted in a rather novel approach which may turn out to be more enlightening than many popular alternative accounts. Martin was a constructivistic nominalist whose approach to philosophical analysis was characterised by a commitment to first-order extensional systems. Yet in the statement of his theory of belief he employed a platonistic syntax simply for the reason that this kind of syntax is a little easier to implement than one which is nominalistic. However Martin also supposed that a fully nominalised version of his theory could be developed. In my article I investigate whether it can. I do this by sketching an inscriptional pragmatics, where this pragmatical system presupposes an inscriptional semantics of the kind developed by Martin himself. While further work is required, I think that a nominalisation of Martin’s logic of belief may be developed. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the applicability of the theory of projection for Anthropological hypotheses. The claim is made that Goodman's classic statement of the problem does not apply in its entirety to actual Anthropological hypotheses. The recent Freeman-Mead debate is employed as a framework for the discussion, illustrating that the issue of projectibility, while central for the social sciences, is best used as a backdrop to illustrate several important methodological problems. For Anthropology, and other related social (...) sciences, the central methodological problem, which is directly related to the projectibility one, is the development and justification of evidence-rules that can be used for a theory of confirmation. A preliminary attempt is then made to articulate the nature of these rules within the general Hempelian framework of qualitative confirmation. (shrink)