Bayesian Confirmation: A Means with No End

Brössel, Peter; Huber, Franz

doi:10.1093/bjps/axu004

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Second, as has recently been pointed out by Brössel and Huber (2014), confirmation measures also have an application in experimental design. More precisely, from a Bayesian point of view, the best experiment to conduct is the one that can be expected to have the greatest onfirmational impact, where the expectation is calculated over the prior probabilities of the possible evidence, given the candidate experimental design.…”

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Confirmation and the ordinal equivalence thesis

Vassend

2017

Synthese

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According to a widespread but implicit thesis in Bayesian confirmation theory, two confirmation measures are considered equivalent if they are ordinally equivalent -call this the "ordinal equivalence thesis" (OET). I argue that adopting OET has significant costs. First, adopting OET renders one incapable of determining whether a piece of evidence substantially favors one hypothesis over another. Second, OET must be rejected if merely ordinal conclusions are to be drawn from the expected value of a confirmation measure. Furthermore, several arguments and applications of confirmation measures given in the literature already rely on a rejection of OET. I also contrast OET with stronger equivalence theses and show that they do not have the same costs as OET. On the other hand, adopting a thesis stronger than OET has costs of its own, since a rejection of OET ostensibly implies that people's epistemic states have a very fine-grained quantitative structure. However, Isuggest that the normative upshot of the paper in fact has a conditional form, and that other Bayesian norms can also fruitfully be construed as having a similar conditional form.

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confidence: 87%

Confirmation and the ordinal equivalence thesis

Vassend

2017

Synthese

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“…In particular, if explanation turns out to be a merely subjective, psychological phenomenon, then, on Schupbach's account, so would the confirmation provided by RA. However, whether this latter claim is plausible is not obvious (Brössel & Huber, 2015;Sober, 2008). More generally, a concern for Schupbach's account is the fact that it ties the confirmatory nature of RA to the nature of explanation.…”

Section: Idealizations Partitions and Robustnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Idealizations and Partitions: A Defense of Robustness Analysis

Fuller

Schulz

2021

Euro Jnl Phil Sci

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We argue that the robustness analysis of idealized models can have confirmational power. This responds to concerns recently raised in the literature (especially by Odenbaugh & Alexandrova), according to which (a) the robustness analysis of models whose idealizations are not discharged is unable to confirm the causal mechanisms underlying these models, and (b) the robustness analysis of models whose idealizations are discharged is unnecessary. In response, we make clear that, where idealizations sweep out, in a specific way, the space of possibilities-which is sometimes, though not always, the case-they can be holistically discharged. In turn, this can be used to show that the robustness analysis of idealized models can have confirmational force after all.

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Inductive Logic

Crupi

2015

J Philos Logic

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Bayesian Confirmation: A Means with No End

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

Confirmation and the ordinal equivalence thesis

Confirmation and the ordinal equivalence thesis

Idealizations and Partitions: A Defense of Robustness Analysis

Inductive Logic

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