Results for 'Confirmation'

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  1. Measuring confirmation.David Christensen - 1999 - Journal of Philosophy 96 (9):437-461.
    The old evidence problem affects any probabilistic confirmation measure based on comparing pr(H/E) and pr(H). The article argues for the following points: (1) measures based on likelihood ratios also suffer old evidence difficulties; (2) the less-discussed synchronic old evidence problem is, in an important sense, the most acute; (3) prominent attempts to solve or dissolve the synchronic problem fail; (4) a little-discussed variant of the standard measure avoids the problem, in an appealing way; and (5) this measure nevertheless reveals (...)
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  2. Confirmation versus Falsificationism.Ray Scott Percival - 2015 - In Robin L. Cautin & Scott O. Lilienfeld (eds.), Encyclopedia of Clinical Psychology.
    Confirmation and falsification are different strategies for testing theories and characterizing the outcomes of those tests. Roughly speaking, confirmation is the act of using evidence or reason to verify or certify that a statement is true, definite, or approximately true, whereas falsification is the act of classifying a statement as false in the light of observation reports. After expounding the intellectual history behind confirmation and falsificationism, reaching back to Plato and Aristotle, I survey some of the main (...)
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  3.  85
    Confirmation, Coherence and the Strength of Arguments.Stephan Hartmann & Borut Trpin - 2023 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 45:1473-1479.
    Alongside science and law, argumentation is also of central importance in everyday life. But what characterizes a good argument? This question has occupied philosophers and psychologists for centuries. The theory of Bayesian argumentation is particularly suitable for clarifying it, because it allows us to take into account in a natural way the role of uncertainty, which is central to much argumentation. Moreover, it offers the possibility of measuring the strength of an argument in probabilistic terms. One way to do this, (...)
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  4. Explanation, confirmation, and Hempel's paradox.William Roche - 2017 - In Kevin McCain & Ted Poston (eds.), Best explanations: New essays on inference to the best explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 219-241.
    Hempel’s Converse Consequence Condition (CCC), Entailment Condition (EC), and Special Consequence Condition (SCC) have some prima facie plausibility when taken individually. Hempel, though, shows that they have no plausibility when taken together, for together they entail that E confirms H for any propositions E and H. This is “Hempel’s paradox”. It turns out that Hempel’s argument would fail if one or more of CCC, EC, and SCC were modified in terms of explanation. This opens up the possibility that Hempel’s paradox (...)
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  5. Confirmation.Alan Hájek & James M. Joyce - 2008 - In S. Psillos & M. Curd (eds.), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science. Routledge.
    Confirmation theory is intended to codify the evidential bearing of observations on hypotheses, characterizing relations of inductive “support” and “counter­support” in full generality. The central task is to understand what it means to say that datum E confirms or supports a hypothesis H when E does not logically entail H.
     
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  6. Confirming idealized theories and scientific realism.Chuang Liu - unknown
    Two types of idealization in theory construction are distinguished, and the distinction is used to give a critique of Ron Laymon's account of confirming idealized theories and his argument for scientific realism.
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  7.  98
    Why Confirm Laws?Barry Ward - forthcoming - The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    We argue that a particular approach to satisfying the broad predictive ambitions of the sciences demands law confirmation. On this approach we confirm non-nomic generalizations by confirming there are no actually realized ways of causing disconfirming cases. This gives causal generalizations a crucial role in prediction. We then show how rational judgements of relevant causal similarity can be used to confirm that causal generalizations themselves have no actual disconfirmers, providing a distinctive and clearly viable methodology for inductively confirming them. (...)
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  8. Confirmation theory.James Hawthorne - 2011 - In Prasanta S. Bandyopadhyay & Malcolm Forster (eds.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 7: Philosophy of Statistics. Elsevier.
    Confirmation theory is the study of the logic by which scientific hypotheses may be confirmed or disconfirmed, or even refuted by evidence. A specific theory of confirmation is a proposal for such a logic. Presumably the epistemic evaluation of scientific hypotheses should largely depend on their empirical content – on what they say the evidentially accessible parts of the world are like, and on the extent to which they turn out to be right about that. Thus, all theories (...)
     
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  9. Confirmation, transitivity, and Moore: the Screening-Off Approach.William Roche & Tomoji Shogenji - 2013 - Philosophical Studies (3):1-21.
    It is well known that the probabilistic relation of confirmation is not transitive in that even if E confirms H1 and H1 confirms H2, E may not confirm H2. In this paper we distinguish four senses of confirmation and examine additional conditions under which confirmation in different senses becomes transitive. We conduct this examination both in the general case where H1 confirms H2 and in the special case where H1 also logically entails H2. Based on these analyses, (...)
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  10. Confirmation and Induction.Franz Huber - 2007 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  11. Confirmation theory and the core of CORNEA.Paul Draper - 2014 - In Trent Dougherty & Justin McBrayer (eds.), Skeptical theism: New essays. Oxford, UK: pp. 132-141.
    Long before skeptical theism was called “skeptical theism,” Stephen Wykstra (1984) defended a version of it based on an epistemological principle he called CORNEA. In this paper, I use elementary confirmation theory to analyze CORNEA’s core. This enables me to show precisely what is right about Wykstra’s very influential defense of skeptical theism and, perhaps more importantly, precisely what is wrong with it. A key premise of that defense is that, on the assumption that God exists, we wouldn’t expect (...)
     
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  12. Seeking Confirmation Is Rational for Deterministic Hypotheses.Joseph L. Austerweil & Thomas L. Griffiths - 2011 - Cognitive Science 35 (3):499-526.
    The tendency to test outcomes that are predicted by our current theory (the confirmation bias) is one of the best-known biases of human decision making. We prove that the confirmation bias is an optimal strategy for testing hypotheses when those hypotheses are deterministic, each making a single prediction about the next event in a sequence. Our proof applies for two normative standards commonly used for evaluating hypothesis testing: maximizing expected information gain and maximizing the probability of falsifying the (...)
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  13.  53
    Can Confirmation Bias Improve Group Learning?Nathan Gabriel & Cailin O'Connor - unknown
    Confirmation bias has been widely studied for its role in failures of reasoning. Individuals exhibiting confirmation bias fail to engage with information that contradicts their current beliefs, and, as a result, can fail to abandon inaccurate beliefs. But although most investigations of confirmation bias focus on individual learning, human knowledge is typically developed within a social structure. How does the presence of confirmation bias influence learning and the development of consensus within a group? In this paper, (...)
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  14. Positive confirmation bias in the acquisition of information.Martin Jones & Robert Sugden - 2001 - Theory and Decision 50 (1):59-99.
    An experiment is reported which tests for positive confirmation bias in a setting in which individuals choose what information to buy, prior to making a decision. The design – an adaptation of Wason's selection task – reveals the use that subjects make of information after buying it. Strong evidence of positive confirmation bias, in both information acquisition and information use, is found; and this bias is found to be robust to experience. It is suggested that the bias results (...)
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  15.  78
    Confirmation by Explanation: A Bayesian Justification of IBE.Marko Tesic, Benjamin Eva & Stephan Hartmann - manuscript
    We provide a novel Bayesian justification of inference to the best explanation. More specifically, we present conditions under which explanatory considerations can provide a significant confirmatory boost for hypotheses that provide the best explanation of the relevant evidence. Furthermore, we show that the proposed Bayesian model of IBE is able to deal naturally with the best known criticisms of IBE such as van Fraassen?s?bad lot? argument.
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  16. Confirmation and justification. A commentary on Shogenji’s measure.David Atkinson - 2012 - Synthese 184 (1):49-61.
    So far no known measure of confirmation of a hypothesis by evidence has satisfied a minimal requirement concerning thresholds of acceptance. In contrast, Shogenji’s new measure of justification (Shogenji, Synthese, this number 2009) does the trick. As we show, it is ordinally equivalent to the most general measure which satisfies this requirement. We further demonstrate that this general measure resolves the problem of the irrelevant conjunction. Finally, we spell out some implications of the general measure for the Conjunction Effect; (...)
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  17. Confirmation and explaining how possible.Patrick Forber - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (1):32-40.
    Confirmation in evolutionary biology depends on what biologists take to be the genuine rivals. Investigating what constrains the scope of biological possibility provides part of the story: explaining how possible helps determine what counts as a genuine rival and thus informs confirmation. To clarify the criteria for genuine rivalry I distinguish between global and local constraints on biological possibility, and offer an account of how-possibly explanation. To sharpen the connection between confirmation and explaining how possible I discuss (...)
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  18.  67
    Confirmation based on analogical inference: Bayes meets Jeffrey.Christian J. Feldbacher-Escamilla & Alexander Gebharter - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (2):174-194.
    Certain hypotheses cannot be directly confirmed for theoretical, practical, or moral reasons. For some of these hypotheses, however, there might be a workaround: confirmation based on analogical reasoning. In this paper we take up Dardashti, Hartmann, Thébault, and Winsberg’s (in press) idea of analyzing confirmation based on analogical inference Baysian style. We identify three types of confirmation by analogy and show that Dardashti et al.’s approach can cover two of them. We then highlight possible problems with their (...)
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  19.  36
    Confirmation, transitivity, and Moore: the Screening-Off Approach.William Roche & Tomoji Shogenji - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 168 (3):797-817.
    It is well known that the probabilistic relation of confirmation is not transitive in that even if E confirms H1 and H1 confirms H2, E may not confirm H2. In this paper we distinguish four senses of confirmation and examine additional conditions under which confirmation in different senses becomes transitive. We conduct this examination both in the general case where H1 confirms H2 and in the special case where H1 also logically entails H2. Based on these analyses, (...)
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  20. Confirmation and relevance.Wesley C. Salmon - 1983 - In Peter Achinstein (ed.), The Concept of Evidence. Oxford University Press.
     
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  21. Confirmation, increase in probability, and partial discrimination: A reply to Zalabardo.William Roche - 2016 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (1):1-7.
    There is a plethora of confirmation measures in the literature. Zalabardo considers four such measures: PD, PR, LD, and LR. He argues for LR and against each of PD, PR, and LD. First, he argues that PR is the better of the two probability measures. Next, he argues that LR is the better of the two likelihood measures. Finally, he argues that LR is superior to PR. I set aside LD and focus on the trio of PD, PR, and (...)
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  22.  21
    Confirmation and explaining how possible.Patrick Forber - 2008 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (1):32-40.
    Confirmation in evolutionary biology depends on what biologists take to be the genuine rivals. Investigating what constrains the scope of biological possibility provides part of the story: explaining how possible helps determine what counts as a genuine rival and thus informs confirmation. To clarify the criteria for genuine rivalry I distinguish between global and local constraints on biological possibility, and offer an account of how-possibly explanation. To sharpen the connection between confirmation and explaining how possible I discuss (...)
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  23.  12
    Confirmation, Empirical Progress and Truth Approximation: Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers.Roberto Festa, Atocha Aliseda & Jeanne Peijnenburg (eds.) - 2005 - Rodopi.
    Theo AF Kuipers THE THREEFOLD EVALUATION OF THEORIES A SYNOPSIS OF FROM INSTRUMENTALISM TO CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM. ON SOME RELATIONS BETWEEN CONFIRMATION, EMPIRICAL PROGRESS, AND TRUTH APPROXIMATION (2000) ABSTRACT.
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  24.  88
    Confirmation via Analogue Simulation: What Dumb Holes Could Tell Us about Gravity.Radin Dardashti, Karim P. Y. Thébault & Eric Winsberg - 2017 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (1).
    In this article we argue for the existence of ‘analogue simulation’ as a novel form of scientific inference with the potential to be confirmatory. This notion is distinct from the modes of analogical reasoning detailed in the literature, and draws inspiration from fluid dynamical ‘dumb hole’ analogues to gravitational black holes. For that case, which is considered in detail, we defend the claim that the phenomena of gravitational Hawking radiation could be confirmed in the case that its counterpart is detected (...)
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  25. Carnap-confirmation, content-cutting, & real confirmation.Ken Gemes - 1989
    The attempt to explicate the intuitive notions of confirmation and inductive support through use of the formal calculus of probability received its canonical formulation in Carnap's The Logical Foundations of Probability. It is a central part of modern Bayesianism as developed recently, for instance, by Paul Horwich and John Earman. Carnap places much emphasis on the identification of confirmation with the notion of probabilistic favorable relevance. Notoriously, the notion of confirmation as probabilistic favorable relevance violates the intuitive (...)
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  26. Scientific Realism and Empirical Confirmation: a Puzzle.Simon Allzén - 2021 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90:153-159.
    Scientific realism driven by inference to the best explanation (IBE) takes empirically confirmed objects to exist, independent, pace empiricism, of whether those objects are observable or not. This kind of realism, it has been claimed, does not need probabilistic reasoning to justify the claim that these objects exist. But I show that there are scientific contexts in which a non-probabilistic IBE-driven realism leads to a puzzle. Since IBE can be applied in scientific contexts in which empirical confirmation has not (...)
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  27. Confirmation of ecological and evolutionary models.Elisabeth A. Lloyd - 1987 - Biology and Philosophy 2 (3):277-293.
    In this paper I distinguish various ways in which empirical claims about evolutionary and ecological models can be supported by data. I describe three basic factors bearing on confirmation of empirical claims: fit of the model to data; independent testing of various aspects of the model, and variety of evident. A brief description of the kinds of confirmation is followed by examples of each kind, drawn from a range of evolutionary and ecological theories. I conclude that the greater (...)
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  28.  47
    Comparative Confirmation and the Problem of Evil.Richard Otte - 2012 - In Jake Chandler & Victoria S. Harrison (eds.), Probability in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford University Press. pp. 127.
    In this chapter probability and confirmation theory are used to investigate the problem of evil, concentrating on whether a theist should consider our ignorance of a good reason for God to permit evil to support a non-religious alternative over a typical theist's beliefs. It is argued that according to Likelihoodism, our ignorance of a good reason does not favor a competing hypothesis over the religious view that there is an incomprehensible good reason for God to permit evil. Bayesian accounts (...)
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  29. Seeking confirmation: A puzzle for norms of inquiry.Jared A. Millson - 2020 - Analysis 80 (4):683-693.
    Like other epistemic activities, inquiry seems to be governed by norms. Some have argued that one such norm forbids us from believing the answer to a question and inquiring into it at the same time. But another, hither-to neglected norm seems to permit just this sort of cognitive arrangement when we seek to confirm what we currently believe. In this paper, I suggest that both norms are plausible and that the conflict between them constitutes a puzzle. Drawing on the felicity (...)
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  30. Bayesian confirmation.Roberto Festa - 1999 - In M. C. Galavotti & A. Pagnini (eds.), Experience, Reality, and Scientific Explanation. Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 55–87.
  31.  39
    Confirmation, Complexity and Social Laws.Harold Kincaid - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:299-307.
    I defend the prospect of good science in the social sciences by looking at the obstacles to social laws. I criticize traditional approaches, which rule for or against social laws on primarily conceptual grounds, and argue that only a close analysis of actual empirical research can decide the issue. To that end, I focus on problems caused by the ceteris paribus nature of social generalizations, outline a variety of ways those problems might be handled, and then examine in detail the (...)
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  32.  51
    Allocating confirmation with derivational robustness.Aki Lehtinen - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (9):2487-2509.
    Robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it is shown to depend on confirmed rather than disconfirmed assumptions. Although increasing the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it in such a case, robustness may also be irrelevant for confirmation, or may even disconfirm. Whether or not it confirms depends on the available data and on what other results have already been established.
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  33. The Confirmation of Singular Causal Statements by Carnap’s Inductive Logic.Yusuke Kaneko - 2012 - Logica Year Book 2011.
    The aim of this paper is to apply inductive logic to the field that, presumably, Carnap never expected: legal causation. Legal causation is expressible in the form of singular causal statements; but it is distinguished from the customary concept of scientific causation, because it is subjective. We try to express this subjectivity within the system of inductive logic. Further, by semantic complement, we compensate a defect found in our application, to be concrete, the impossibility of two-place predicates (for causal relationship) (...)
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  34. Probability, confirmation, and the conjunction fallacy.Vincenzo Crupi, Branden Fitelson & Katya Tentori - 2007 - Thinking and Reasoning 14 (2):182 – 199.
    The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt to provide a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proved challenging. Here we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides, Osherson, Bonini, & Viale, 2002) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgements observed experimentally are typically guided by sound assessments of _confirmation_ relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main (...)
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  35. Probabilistic confirmation theory and bayesian reasoning.Timothy McGrew - manuscript
    This brief annotated bibliography is intended to help students get started with their research. It is not a substitute for personal investigation of the literature, and it is not a comprehensive bibliography on the subject. For those just beginning to study probabilistic confirmation theory and Bayesian reasoning, I suggest the starred items as good places to start your reading.
     
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  36. Confirmational holism and bayesian epistemology.David Christensen - 1992 - Philosophy of Science 59 (4):540-557.
    Much contemporary epistemology is informed by a kind of confirmational holism, and a consequent rejection of the assumption that all confirmation rests on experiential certainties. Another prominent theme is that belief comes in degrees, and that rationality requires apportioning one's degrees of belief reasonably. Bayesian confirmation models based on Jeffrey Conditionalization attempt to bring together these two appealing strands. I argue, however, that these models cannot account for a certain aspect of confirmation that would be accounted for (...)
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  37. Measuring Confirmation and Evidence.Ellery Elles & Branden Fitelson - 2000 - Journal of Philosophy 97 (12):663-672.
  38.  42
    The confirmation of scientific hypotheses.John Earman - 1992 - In .
  39. Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory.Branden Fitelson - 2001 - Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison
    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 (...)
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  40. Bayesian Confirmation: A Means with No End.Peter Brössel & Franz Huber - 2015 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (4):737-749.
    Any theory of confirmation must answer the following question: what is the purpose of its conception of confirmation for scientific inquiry? In this article, we argue that no Bayesian conception of confirmation can be used for its primary intended purpose, which we take to be making a claim about how worthy of belief various hypotheses are. Then we consider a different use to which Bayesian confirmation might be put, namely, determining the epistemic value of experimental outcomes, (...)
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  41.  20
    Confirmation by analogy.Francesco Nappo - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-26.
    This paper proposes a framework for representing in Bayesian terms the idea that analogical arguments of various degrees of strength may provide inductive support to yet untested scientific hypotheses. On this account, contextual information plays a crucial role in determining whether, and to what extent, a given similarity or dissimilarity between source and target may confirm an empirical hypothesis over a rival one. In addition to showing confirmation by analogy compatible with the adoption of a Bayesian standpoint, the proposal (...)
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  42.  77
    Novel Confirmation and the Underdetermination of Scientific Theory Building.Richard Dawid - unknown
    The extra value of novel confirmation over accommodation is explained based on an analysis of the underdetermination of scientific theory building. Novel confirmation can provide information on the number of possible scientific alternatives to a predictively successful theory. This information, in turn, can raise the probability that the given theory is true or will be empirically viable in the future.
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  43. Confirmation and law-likeness.Elliott Sober - 1988 - Philosophical Review 97 (1):93-98.
    Nelson Goodman suggests that a generalization of the form “all A’s are B” is confirmable by an observed instance only if the generalization is law-like. Jackson and Pargetter deny this and give examples of how accidental generalizations can be confirmed. A possible response from Goodman appears to make these accidental generalizations look law-like, but I show it’s defective. And Jackson and Pargetter's substitute nomological condition fares no better than Goodman’s. Because of the multiplicity of possible background assumptions, I doubt that (...)
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  44. Confirmation, semantics, and the interpretation of scientific theories.Richard Boyd - 1991 - In Richard Boyd, Philip Gasper & J. D. Trout (eds.), The Philosophy of Science. MIT Press. pp. 3--35.
     
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  45.  45
    Probability, Confirmation, and Simplicity. [REVIEW]P. J. M. - 1966 - Review of Metaphysics 20 (2):385-386.
    As inductive logic and the philosophy of probability theory have become of wider interest, it has become clear that a book of readings in these and related topics would be useful for courses since most of the important articles are scattered and inaccessible. The editors have fashioned an extensive collection of papers in four main areas: the meaning of probability, confirmation theory, simplicity of theories and structures, the justification of induction. Each chapter is preceded by an introduction which sets (...)
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  46. Falsificationist confirmation.Jan Sprenger - unknown
    Existing accounts of hypothetico-deductive confirmation are able to circumvent the classical objections, but the confirmation of conjunctions of hypotheses brings them into trouble. Therefore this paper develops a new, falsificationist account of qualitative confirmation by means of Ken Gemes ' theory of content parts. The new approach combines the hypothetico-deductive view with falsificationist and instance confirmation principles. It is considerably simpler than the previous suggestions and gives a better treatment of conjunctive hypotheses while solving the tacking (...)
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  47.  12
    The Confirmation of Common Component Causes.Malcolm R. Forster - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:3 - 9.
    This paper aims to show how Whewell's notions of consilience and unification-explicated in more modern probabilistic terms provide a satisfying treatment of cases of scientific discovery Which require the postulatioin component causes to explain complex events. The results of this analysis support the received view that the increased unification and generality of theories leads to greater testability, and confirmation if the observations are favorable. This solves a puzzle raised by Cartwright in How the Laws of Physics Lie about the (...)
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  48. Confirmation and Reduction: a Bayesian Account.Foad Dizadji-Bahmani, Roman Frigg & Stephan Hartmann - 2011 - Synthese 179 (2):321-338.
    Various scientific theories stand in a reductive relation to each other. In a recent article, we have argued that a generalized version of the Nagel-Schaffner model (GNS) is the right account of this relation. In this article, we present a Bayesian analysis of how GNS impacts on confirmation. We formalize the relation between the reducing and the reduced theory before and after the reduction using Bayesian networks, and thereby show that, post-reduction, the two theories are confirmatory of each other. (...)
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  49. Confirmation in the Cognitive Sciences: The Problematic Case of Bayesian Models. [REVIEW]Frederick Eberhardt & David Danks - 2011 - Minds and Machines 21 (3):389-410.
    Bayesian models of human learning are becoming increasingly popular in cognitive science. We argue that their purported confirmation largely relies on a methodology that depends on premises that are inconsistent with the claim that people are Bayesian about learning and inference. Bayesian models in cognitive science derive their appeal from their normative claim that the modeled inference is in some sense rational. Standard accounts of the rationality of Bayesian inference imply predictions that an agent selects the option that maximizes (...)
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  50.  34
    Theory-confirmation and history.John Worrall - 2005 - In .
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