Hypothetico‐Deductive Confirmation

Philosophy Compass 6 (7):497-508 (2011)
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Abstract

Hypothetico-deductive (H-D) confirmation builds on the idea that confirming evidence consists of successful predictions that deductively follow from the hypothesis under test. This article reviews scope, history and recent development of the venerable H-D account: First, we motivate the approach and clarify its relationship to Bayesian confirmation theory. Second, we explain and discuss the tacking paradoxes which exploit the fact that H-D confirmation gives no account of evidential relevance. Third, we review several recent proposals that aim at a sounder and more comprehensive formulation of H-D confirmation. Finally, we conclude that the reputation of hypothetico-deductive confirmation as outdated and hopeless is undeserved: not only can the technical problems be addressed satisfactorily, the hypothetico-deductive method is also highly relevant for scientific practice.

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Jan Sprenger
University of Turin

Citations of this work

Hypothetico‐Deductive Confirmation.Jan Sprenger - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (7):497-508.
Allocating confirmation with derivational robustness.Aki Lehtinen - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2487-2509.
Assessing Scientific Theories: The Bayesian Approach.Stephan Hartmann & Radin Dardashti - 2019 - In Dawid Richard, Dardashti Radin & Thebault Karim (eds.), Epistemology of Fundamental Physics: Why Trust a Theory? Cambridge University Press. pp. 67–83.

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References found in this work

Logical foundations of probability.Rudolf Carnap - 1950 - Chicago]: Chicago University of Chicago Press.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.Willard V. O. Quine - 1951 - Philosophical Review 60 (1):20–43.
Theory and Evidence.Clark N. Glymour - 1980 - Princeton University Press.

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