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Oracles, Aesthetics, and Bayesian Consensus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jeffrey A. Barrett
Jeffrey A. Barrett*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Abstract

In order for Bayesian inquiry to count as objective, one might argue that it must lead to a consensus among those who use it and share evidence, but presumably this is not enough. It has been proposed that one should also require that the consensus be reached from very different initial opinions by conditioning only on basic experimental evidence, evidence free from subjective, social, or psychological influence. I will argue here, however, that this notion of objectivity in Bayesian inquiry is too narrow.

Type
Confirmation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 63 , Issue S3 , 1996 , pp. S273 - S280
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1996

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Brian Skyrms and Ermanno Bencivenga for comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

‡

Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92717.

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