Switch to: References

Citations of:

Is coherence truth conducive?

Analysis 59 (4):338–345 (1999)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. LA COHERENCIA EN LA ARGUMENTACIÓN JURÍDICA.Amalia Amaya - manuscript
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy.Alexander Max Bauer & Stephan Kornmesser (eds.) - 2023 - Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A Remark on Probabilistic Measures of Coherence.Sergi Oms - 2020 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 61 (1):129-140.
    In recent years, some authors have proposed quantitative measures of the coherence of sets of propositions. Such probabilistic measures of coherence (PMCs) are, in general terms, functions that take as their argument a set of propositions (along with some probability distribution) and yield as their value a number that is supposed to represent the degree of coherence of the set. In this paper, I introduce a minimal constraint on PMC theories, the weak stability principle, and show that any correct, coherent, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Robbers, pickpockets and average mutual firmness.Jakob Koscholke - 2020 - Analysis 80 (1):45-51.
    Mark Siebel has presented a compelling argument against Branden Fitelson’s probabilistic measure of coherence. The present paper shows how Siebel’s argument can be strengthened and thereby extended to an argument against a huge class of coherence measures from the literature including William Roche’s average mutual firmness account, which has not been challenged up to now.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • New Hope for Relative Overlap Measures of Coherence.Jakob Koscholke, Michael Schippers & Alexander Stegmann - 2019 - Mind 128 (512):1261-1284.
    Relative overlap measures of coherence have recently been shown to have two devastating properties: according to the plain relative overlap measure, the degree of coherence of any set of propositions cannot be increased by adding further propositions, and according to the refined relative overlap measure, no set can be more coherent than its most coherent two-element subset. This result has been taken to rule out relative overlap as a foundation for a probabilistic explication of coherence. The present paper shows that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Evidence of Evidence as Higher Order Evidence.Anna-Maria A. Eder & Peter Brössel - 2019 - In Mattias Skipper & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.), Higher-Order Evidence: New Essays. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 62-83.
    In everyday life and in science we acquire evidence of evidence and based on this new evidence we often change our epistemic states. An assumption underlying such practice is that the following EEE Slogan is correct: 'evidence of evidence is evidence' (Feldman 2007, p. 208). We suggest that evidence of evidence is best understood as higher-order evidence about the epistemic state of agents. In order to model evidence of evidence we introduce a new powerful framework for modelling epistemic states, Dyadic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The Epistemic Value of Expert Autonomy.Finnur Dellsén - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2):344-361.
    According to an influential Enlightenment ideal, one shouldn't rely epistemically on other people's say-so, at least not if one is in a position to evaluate the relevant evidence for oneself. However, in much recent work in social epistemology, we are urged to dispense with this ideal, which is seen as stemming from a misguided focus on isolated individuals to the exclusion of groups and communities. In this paper, I argue that that an emphasis on the social nature of inquiry should (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   17 citations  
  • Persistent Disagreement and Polarization in a Bayesian Setting.Michael Nielsen & Rush T. Stewart - 2021 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (1):51-78.
    For two ideally rational agents, does learning a finite amount of shared evidence necessitate agreement? No. But does it at least guard against belief polarization, the case in which their opinions get further apart? No. OK, but are rational agents guaranteed to avoid polarization if they have access to an infinite, increasing stream of shared evidence? No.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Nagelian Reduction and Coherence.Philippe van Basshuysen - 2014 - Romanian Journal of Analytic Philosophy 8 (1):63-94.
    It can be argued (cf. Dizadji‑Bahmani et al. 2010) that an increase in coherence is one goal that drives reductionist enterprises. Consequently, the question if or how well this goal is achieved can serve as an epistemic criterion for evaluating both a concrete case of a purported reduction and our model of reduction : what conditions on the model allow for an increase in coherence ? In order to answer this question, I provide an analysis of the relation between the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Coherence and probability: A probabilistic account of coherence.Roche William - 2013 - In Michal Araszkiewicz & Jaromír Šavelka (eds.), Coherence: Insights from Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Artificial Intelligence. Springer. pp. 59-91.
    I develop a probabilistic account of coherence, and argue that at least in certain respects it is preferable to (at least some of) the main extant probabilistic accounts of coherence: (i) Igor Douven and Wouter Meijs’s account, (ii) Branden Fitelson’s account, (iii) Erik Olsson’s account, and (iv) Tomoji Shogenji’s account. Further, I relate the account to an important, but little discussed, problem for standard varieties of coherentism, viz., the “Problem of Justified Inconsistent Beliefs.”.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • An Impossibility Result for Coherence Rankings.Luc Bovens & Stephan Hartmann - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 128 (1):77-91.
    If we receive information from multiple independent and partially reliable information sources, then whether we are justified to believe these information items is affected by how reliable the sources are, by how well the information coheres with our background beliefs and by how internally coherent the information is. We consider the following question. Is coherence a separable determinant of our degree of belief, i.e. is it the case that the more coherent the new information is, the more justified we are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Guest editor’s introduction.Erik J. Olsson - 2007 - Synthese 157 (3):267-274.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On the Evidential Import of Unification.Wayne C. Myrvold - 2017 - Philosophy of Science 84 (1):92-114.
    This paper discusses two senses in which a hypothesis may be said to unify evidence. One is the ability of the hypothesis to increase the mutual information of a set of evidence statements; the other is the ability of the hypothesis to explain commonalities in observed phenomena by positing a common origin for them. On Bayesian updating, it is only mutual information unification that contributes to the incremental support of a hypothesis by the evidence unified. This poses a challenge for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • Bayesian Epistemology.Erik J. Olsson - 2012 - In Sven Ove Hansson & Vincent F. Hendricks (eds.), Introduction to Formal Philosophy. Cham: Springer. pp. 431-442.
    Bayesian epistemology provides a formal framework within which concepts in traditional epistemology, in particular concepts relating to the justification of our beliefs, can be given precise definitions in terms of probability. The Bayesian approach has contributed clarity and precision to a number of traditional issues. A salient example is the recent embedding of the so-called coherentist theory of epistemic justification in a Bayesian framework shedding light on the relation between coherence and truth as well as on the concept of coherence (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Experimental Explication.Jonah N. Schupbach - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (3):672-710.
    Two recently popular metaphilosophical movements, formal philosophy and experimental philosophy, promote what seem to be conflicting methodologies. Nonetheless, I argue that the two can be mutually supportive. I propose an experimentally-informed variation on explication, a powerful formal philosophical tool introduced by Carnap. The resulting method, which I call “experimental explication,” provides the formalist with a means of responding to explication's gravest criticism. Moreover, this method introduces a philosophically salient, positive role for survey-style experiments while steering clear of several objections that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   46 citations  
  • Evaluating Test Cases for Probabilistic Measures of Coherence.Jakob Koscholke - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (1):155-181.
    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 (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • (1 other version)Bayesian Cognitive Science, Unification, and Explanation.Stephan Hartmann & Matteo Colombo - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (2).
    It is often claimed that the greatest value of the Bayesian framework in cognitive science consists in its unifying power. Several Bayesian cognitive scientists assume that unification is obviously linked to explanatory power. But this link is not obvious, as unification in science is a heterogeneous notion, which may have little to do with explanation. While a crucial feature of most adequate explanations in cognitive science is that they reveal aspects of the causal mechanism that produces the phenomenon to be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   44 citations  
  • Coherence, Probability and Explanation.William Roche & Michael Schippers - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (4):821-828.
    Recently there have been several attempts in formal epistemology to develop an adequate probabilistic measure of coherence. There is much to recommend probabilistic measures of coherence. They are quantitative and render formally precise a notion—coherence—notorious for its elusiveness. Further, some of them do very well, intuitively, on a variety of test cases. Siebel, however, argues that there can be no adequate probabilistic measure of coherence. Take some set of propositions A, some probabilistic measure of coherence, and a probability distribution such (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Demystifying Dilation.Arthur Paul Pedersen & Gregory Wheeler - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (6):1305-1342.
    Dilation occurs when an interval probability estimate of some event E is properly included in the interval probability estimate of E conditional on every event F of some partition, which means that one’s initial estimate of E becomes less precise no matter how an experiment turns out. Critics maintain that dilation is a pathological feature of imprecise probability models, while others have thought the problem is with Bayesian updating. However, two points are often overlooked: (1) knowing that E is stochastically (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   34 citations  
  • Assessing Theories: The Coherentist Approach.Peter Brössel - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):593-623.
    In this paper we show that the coherence measures of Olsson (J Philos 94:246–272, 2002), Shogenji (Log Anal 59:338–345, 1999), and Fitelson (Log Anal 63:194–199, 2003) satisfy the two most important adequacy requirements for the purpose of assessing theories. Following Hempel (Synthese 12:439–469, 1960), Levi (Gambling with truth, New York, A. A. Knopf, 1967), and recently Huber (Synthese 161:89–118, 2008) we require, as minimal or necessary conditions, that adequate assessment functions favor true theories over false theories and true and informative (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Sollten wir klassische Überzeugungssysteme durch bayesianische ersetzen?Thomas Bartelborth - 2013 - Logos: Freie Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie 3:2--68.
    In der neueren Erkenntnistheorie wird der Bayesianismus immer populärer. In diesem Ansatz werden Überzeugungen mit Glaubensgraden versehen. Dazu möchte ich der Frage nachgehen, ob wir den klassischen Ansatz in der Erkennnistheorie mit seinen kategorischen Überzeugungen komplett durch einen bayesianischen mit einem probabilistischen Überzeugungssystem ersetzen könnten. Um das zu klären, rekonstruiere ich zunächst beide Modelle unserer Überzeugungssysteme und vergleiche sie dann im Hinblick darauf, wie leistungsfähig sie jeweils dafür sind, erkenntnistheoretische Probleme zu lösen und als Grundlage für Entscheidungen zu dienen. Dabei (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Anomalies and Coherence: A Case Study from Astronomy. [REVIEW]Ulrich Gähde - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (2):347-359.
    In recent decades, the concept of coherence has become one of the key concepts in philosophy. Although there is still no consensus about how to explicate coherence, it is widely accepted that the appearance of anomalies significantly lowers the coherence of a propositional or belief system. In this paper, the relationship between coherence and anomalies is analysed by looking at a specific case study from astronomy. It concerns anomalies that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century during the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Coherence and Confirmation through Causation.Gregory Wheeler & Richard Scheines - 2013 - Mind 122 (485):135-170.
    Coherentism maintains that coherent beliefs are more likely to be true than incoherent beliefs, and that coherent evidence provides more confirmation of a hypothesis when the evidence is made coherent by the explanation provided by that hypothesis. Although probabilistic models of credence ought to be well-suited to justifying such claims, negative results from Bayesian epistemology have suggested otherwise. In this essay we argue that the connection between coherence and confirmation should be understood as a relation mediated by the causal relationships (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Coherentism, truth, and witness agreement.William A. Roche - 2010 - Acta Analytica 25 (2):243-257.
    Coherentists on epistemic justification claim that all justification is inferential, and that beliefs, when justified, get their justification together (not in isolation) as members of a coherent belief system. Some recent work in formal epistemology shows that “individual credibility” is needed for “witness agreement” to increase the probability of truth and generate a high probability of truth. It can seem that, from this result in formal epistemology, it follows that coherentist justification is not truth-conducive, that it is not the case (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • On coherent sets and the transmission of confirmation.Franz Dietrich & Luca Moretti - 2005 - Philosophy of Science 72 (3):403-424.
    In this paper, we identify a new and mathematically well-defined sense in which the coherence of a set of hypotheses can be truth-conducive. Our focus is not, as usual, on the probability but on the confirmation of a coherent set and its members. We show that, if evidence confirms a hypothesis, confirmation is “transmitted” to any hypotheses that are sufficiently coherent with the former hypothesis, according to some appropriate probabilistic coherence measure such as Olsson’s or Fitelson’s measure. Our findings have (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  • (1 other version)On Fitelson's measure of coherence.Mark Siebel - 2004 - Analysis 64 (2):189–190.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Ways in which coherence is confirmation conducive.Luca Moretti - 2007 - Synthese 157 (3):309 - 319.
    Recent works in epistemology show that the claim that coherence is truth conducive – in the sense that, given suitable ceteris paribus conditions, more coherent sets of statements are always more probable – is dubious and possibly false. From this, it does not follows that coherence is a useless notion in epistemology and philosophy of science. Dietrich and Moretti (Philosophy of science 72(3): 403–424, 2005) have proposed a formal of account of how coherence is confirmation conducive—that is, of how the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Bayesian Epistemology.Stephan Hartmann & Jan Sprenger - 2010 - In Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. New York: Routledge. pp. 609-620.
    Bayesian epistemology addresses epistemological problems with the help of the mathematical theory of probability. It turns out that the probability calculus is especially suited to represent degrees of belief (credences) and to deal with questions of belief change, confirmation, evidence, justification, and coherence. Compared to the informal discussions in traditional epistemology, Bayesian epis- temology allows for a more precise and fine-grained analysis which takes the gradual aspects of these central epistemological notions into account. Bayesian epistemology therefore complements traditional epistemology; it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • The foundationalism–coherentism opposition revisited: The case for complementarism. [REVIEW]Yves Bouchard - 2007 - Foundations of Science 12 (4):325-336.
    In this paper, I show the complementarity of foundationalism and coherentism with respect to any efficient system of beliefs by means of a distinction between two types of proposition drawn from an analogy with an axiomatic system. This distinction is based on the way a given proposition is acknowledged as true, either by declaration (F-proposition) or by preservation (C-proposition). Within such a perspective, i.e., epistemological complementarism, not only can one see how the usual opposition between foundationalism and coherentism is irrelevant, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The defeasible nature of coherentist justification.Staffan Angere - 2007 - Synthese 157 (3):321 - 335.
    The impossibility results of Bovens and Hartmann (2003, Bayesian epistemology. Oxford: Clarendon Press) and Olsson (2005, Against coherence: Truth, probability and justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) show that the link between coherence and probability is not as strong as some have supposed. This paper is an attempt to bring out a way in which coherence reasoning nevertheless can be justified, based on the idea that, even if it does not provide an infallible guide to probability, it can give us an (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • The Possibility of Coherentism and the Stringency of Ceteris Paribus Conditions.Jonah N. Schupbach - 2015 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 30 (1):43.
    In, I put forward a “possibility result” for Bayesian Coherentism, showing that there exist plausible sets of ceteris paribus conditions that imply that coherence is truth-conducive. Against this result, Schubert argues that the specific ceteris paribus conditions I consider are “jointly inconsistent”. In this article, I prove to the contrary that these conditions can consistently be enforced while allowing degrees of coherence to vary. Next, I consider a related criticism, inspired by Olsson’s constraints on ceteris paribus conditions. This leads to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Against relative overlap measures of coherence.Jakob Koscholke & Michael Schippers - 2016 - Synthese 193 (9).
    Coherence is the property of propositions hanging or fitting together. Intuitively, adding a proposition to a set of propositions should be compatible with either increasing or decreasing the set’s degree of coherence. In this paper we show that probabilistic coherence measures based on relative overlap are in conflict with this intuitive verdict. More precisely, we prove that according to the naive overlap measure it is impossible to increase a set’s degree of coherence by adding propositions and that according to the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Keynes’s Coefficient of Dependence Revisited.Peter Brössel - 2015 - Erkenntnis 80 (3):521-553.
    Probabilistic dependence and independence are among the key concepts of Bayesian epistemology. This paper focuses on the study of one specific quantitative notion of probabilistic dependence. More specifically, section 1 introduces Keynes’s coefficient of dependence and shows how it is related to pivotal aspects of scientific reasoning such as confirmation, coherence, the explanatory and unificatory power of theories, and the diversity of evidence. The intimate connection between Keynes’s coefficient of dependence and scientific reasoning raises the question of how Keynes’s coefficient (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • On the Truth-Conduciveness of Coherence.William Roche - 2014 - Erkenntnis 79 (3):647-665.
    I argue that coherence is truth-conducive in that coherence implies an increase in the probability of truth. Central to my argument is a certain principle for transitivity in probabilistic support. I then address a question concerning the truth-conduciveness of coherence as it relates to (something else I argue for) the truth-conduciveness of consistency, and consider how the truth-conduciveness of coherence bears on coherentist theories of justification.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • The degree of epistemic justification and the conjunction fallacy.Tomoji Shogenji - 2012 - Synthese 184 (1):29-48.
    This paper describes a formal measure of epistemic justification motivated by the dual goal of cognition, which is to increase true beliefs and reduce false beliefs. From this perspective the degree of epistemic justification should not be the conditional probability of the proposition given the evidence, as it is commonly thought. It should be determined instead by the combination of the conditional probability and the prior probability. This is also true of the degree of incremental confirmation, and I argue that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   44 citations  
  • Presentists can believe in closed timelike curves.Bradley Monton - 2003 - Analysis 63 (3):199–202.
    It is often thought that presentism is incompatible with time travel. I will argue that this common view is incorrect. Specifically, I will argue that presentism is compatible with some stories that involve closed timelike curves, and that some of these stories are time-travel stories.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • (1 other version)A probabilistic theory of coherence.Branden Fitelson - 2003 - Analysis 63 (3):194–199.
    Let E be a set of n propositions E1, ..., En. We seek a probabilistic measure C(E) of the ‘degree of coherence’ of E. Intuitively, we want C to be a quantitative, probabilistic generalization of the (deductive) logical coherence of E. So, in particular, we require C to satisfy the following..
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   86 citations  
  • Probabilistic measures of coherence and the problem of belief individuation.Luca Moretti & Ken Akiba - 2007 - Synthese 154 (1):73 - 95.
    Coherentism in epistemology has long suffered from lack of formal and quantitative explication of the notion of coherence. One might hope that probabilistic accounts of coherence such as those proposed by Lewis, Shogenji, Olsson, Fitelson, and Bovens and Hartmann will finally help solve this problem. This paper shows, however, that those accounts have a serious common problem: the problem of belief individuation. The coherence degree that each of the accounts assigns to an information set (or the verdict it gives as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Measuring coherence.Igor Douven & Wouter Meijs - 2007 - Synthese 156 (3):405 - 425.
    This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the notion of coherence by explicating in probabilistic terms, step by step, what seem to be our most basic intuitions about that notion, to wit, that coherence is a matter of hanging or fitting together, and that coherence is a matter of degree. A qualitative theory of coherence will serve as a stepping stone to formulate a set of quantitative measures of coherence, each of which seems to capture well the aforementioned (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   96 citations  
  • Fading Foundations: Probability and the Regress Problem.Jeanne Peijnenburg - 2017 - Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Edited by Jeanne Peijnenburg.
    This Open Access book addresses the age-old problem of infinite regresses in epistemology. How can we ever come to know something if knowing requires having good reasons, and reasons can only be good if they are backed by good reasons in turn? The problem has puzzled philosophers ever since antiquity, giving rise to what is often called Agrippa's Trilemma. The current volume approaches the old problem in a provocative and thoroughly contemporary way. Taking seriously the idea that good reasons are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Unification and Confirmation.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2016 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 31 (1):107-123.
    According to the traditional requirement, formulated by William Whewell in his account of the “consilience of inductions” in 1840, a scientific hypothesis should have unifying power in the sense that it explains and predicts several mutually independent phenomena. Variants of this notion of consilience or unification include deductive, inductive, and approximate systematization. Inference from surprising phenomena to their theoretical explanations was called abduction by Charles Peirce. As a unifying theory is independently testable by new kinds of phenomena, it should also (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • (1 other version)Reliability conducive measures of coherence.Erik J. Olsson & Stefan Schubert - 2007 - Synthese 157 (3):297-308.
    A measure of coherence is said to be truth conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood of truth. Recent impossibility results strongly indicate that there are no (non-trivial) probabilistic coherence measures that are truth conducive. Indeed, this holds even if truth conduciveness is understood in a weak ceteris paribus sense (Bovens & Hartmann, 2003, Bayesian epistemology. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Olsson, 2005, Against coherence: Truth probability and justification. Oxford: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Justification by Coherence from Scratch.Tomoji Shogenji - 2005 - Philosophical Studies 125 (3):305-325.
    In this paper we make three points about justification of propositions by coherence “from scratch”, where pieces of evidence that are coherent have no individual credibility. First, we argue that no matter how many pieces of evidence are coherent, and no matter what relation we take coherence to be, coherence does not make independent pieces of evidence with no individual credibility credible. Second, we show that an intuitively plausible informal reasoning for justification by coherence from scratch is deficient since it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Methodological naturalism and epistemic internalism.Gregory Wheeler & Luís Moniz Pereira - 2008 - Synthese 163 (3):315-328.
    Epistemic naturalism holds that the results or methodologies from the cognitive sciences are relevant to epistemology, and some have maintained that scientific methods are more compatible with externalist theories of justification than with internalist theories. But practically all discussions about naturalized epistemology are framed exclusively in terms of cognitive psychology, which is only one of the cognitive sciences. The question addressed in this essay is whether a commitment to naturalism really does favor externalism over internalism, and we offer reasons for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Against Probabilistic Measures of Coherence.Mark Siebel - 2005 - Erkenntnis 63 (3):335-360.
    It is shown that the probabilistic theories of coherence proposed up to now produce a number of counter-intuitive results. The last section provides some reasons for believing that no probabilistic measure will ever be able to adequately capture coherence. First, there can be no function whose arguments are nothing but tuples of probabilities, and which assigns different values to pairs of propositions {A, B} and {A, C} if A implies both B and C, or their negations, and if P(B)=P(C). But (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • Plausibilistic coherence.John R. Welch - 2014 - Synthese 191 (10):2239-2253.
    Why should coherence be an epistemic desideratum? One response is that coherence is truth-conducive: mutually coherent propositions are more likely to be true, ceteris paribus, than mutually incoherent ones. But some sets of propositions are more coherent, while others are less so. How could coherence be measured? Probabilistic measures of coherence exist; some are identical to probabilistic measures of confirmation, while others are extensions of such measures. Probabilistic measures of coherence are fine when applicable, but many situations are so information-poor (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Irrelevant conjunction and the ratio measure or historical skepticism.J. Brian Pitts - 2013 - Synthese 190 (12):2117-2139.
    It is widely believed that one should not become more confident that all swans are white and all lions are brave simply by observing white swans. Irrelevant conjunction or “tacking” of a theory onto another is often thought problematic for Bayesianism, especially given the ratio measure of confirmation considered here. It is recalled that the irrelevant conjunct is not confirmed at all. Using the ratio measure, the irrelevant conjunction is confirmed to the same degree as the relevant conjunct, which, it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • New Axioms for Probability and Likelihood Ratio Measures.Vincenzo Crupi, Nick Chater & Katya Tentori - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1):189-204.
    Probability ratio and likelihood ratio measures of inductive support and related notions have appeared as theoretical tools for probabilistic approaches in the philosophy of science, the psychology of reasoning, and artificial intelligence. In an effort of conceptual clarification, several authors have pursued axiomatic foundations for these two families of measures. Such results have been criticized, however, as relying on unduly demanding or poorly motivated mathematical assumptions. We provide two novel theorems showing that probability ratio and likelihood ratio measures can be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • Coherence reasoning and reliability: a defense of the Shogenji measure.Stefan Schubert - 2012 - Synthese 187 (2):305-319.
    A measure of coherence is said to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood that the witnesses are reliable. Recently, it has been proved that several coherence measures proposed in the literature are reliability conducive in a restricted scenario (Olsson and Schubert 2007, Synthese 157:297–308). My aim is to investigate which coherence measures turn out to be reliability conducive in the more general scenario where it is any finite (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Coherence of the contents and the transmission of probabilistic support.Tomoji Shogenji - 2013 - Synthese 190 (13):2525-2545.
    This paper examines how coherence of the contents of evidence affects the transmission of probabilistic support from the evidence to the hypothesis. It is argued that coherence of the contents in the sense of the ratio of the positive intersection reduces the transmission of probabilistic support, though this negative impact of coherence may be offset by other aspects of the relations among the contents. It is argued further that there is no broader conception of coherence whose impact on the transmission (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations