Variety of Evidence
Erkenntnis 85 (1):183-223 (2020)
Abstract
Varied evidence confirms more strongly than less varied evidence, ceteris paribus. This epistemological Variety of Evidence Thesis enjoys widespread intuitive support. We put forward a novel explication of one notion of varied evidence and the Variety of Evidence Thesis within Bayesian models of scientific inference by appealing to measures of entropy. Our explication of the Variety of Evidence Thesis holds in many of our models which also pronounce on disconfirmatory and discordant evidence. We argue that our models pronounce rightly. Against a backdrop of failures of the Variety of Evidence Thesis, the intuitive case for the Variety of Evidence Thesis emerges strengthened. Our models do however not support the general case for the thesis since our explication of it fails to hold in certain cases. The parameter space of this failure is explored and an explanation for the failure is offered.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Philosophy of science and the replicability crisis.Felipe Romero - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (11).
Bayes Nets and Rationality.Stephan Hartmann - 2021 - In The Handbook of Rationality. Boston, Massachusetts, USA:
The variety of evidence thesis and its independence of degrees of independence.Jürgen Landes - 2020 - Synthese 198 (11):1-31.
Confirmation by Robustness Analysis: A Bayesian Account.Lorenzo Casini & Jürgen Landes - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-43.
Variety of evidence and the elimination of hypotheses.Jürgen Landes - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (2):1-17.