Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory

Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison (2001)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

According to Bayesian confirmation theory, evidence E (incrementally) confirms (or supports) a hypothesis H (roughly) just in case E and H are positively probabilistically correlated (under an appropriate probability function Pr). There are many logically equivalent ways of saying that E and H are correlated under Pr. Surprisingly, this leads to a plethora of non-equivalent quantitative measures of the degree to which E confirms H (under Pr). In fact, many non-equivalent Bayesian measures of the degree to which E confirms (or supports) H have been proposed and defended in the literature on inductive logic. I provide a thorough historical survey of the various proposals, and a detailed discussion of the philosophical ramifications of the differences between them. I argue that the set of candidate measures can be narrowed drastically by just a few intuitive and simple desiderata. In the end, I provide some novel and compelling reasons to think that the correct measure of degree of evidential support (within a Bayesian framework) is the (log) likelihood ratio. The central analyses of this research have had some useful and interesting byproducts, including: (i ) a new Bayesian account of (confirmationally) independent evidence, which has applications to several important problems in con- firmation theory, including the problem of the (confirmational) value of evidential diversity, and (ii ) novel resolutions of several problems in Bayesian confirmation theory, motivated by the use of the (log) likelihood ratio measure, including a reply to the Popper-Miller critique of probabilistic induction, and a new analysis and resolution of the problem of irrelevant conjunction (a.k.a., the tacking problem).

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
173 (#140,698)

6 months
10 (#281,857)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Branden Fitelson
Northeastern University

Citations of this work

Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures.Patrick Suppes - 2002 - CSLI Publications (distributed by Chicago University Press).
Measuring coherence.Igor Douven & Wouter Meijs - 2007 - Synthese 156 (3):405 - 425.
Symmetries and asymmetries in evidential support.Ellery Eells & Branden Fitelson - 2002 - Philosophical Studies 107 (2):129 - 142.
Bayesian Epistemology.Stephan Hartmann & Jan Sprenger - 2010 - In Sven Bernecker & Duncan Pritchard, The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. New York: Routledge. pp. 609-620.

View all 99 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references