Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
Hostname: page-component-66d7dfc8f5-rwwkz Total loading time: 0.841 Render date: 2023-02-09T11:42:24.613Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": false } hasContentIssue true
  • English
Philosophy of Science Philosophy of Science

Article contents

Bayesianism and Irrelevant Conjunction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Patrick Maher
Get access Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Bayesian confirmation theory offers an explicatum for a pretheoretic concept of confirmation. The “problem of irrelevant conjunction” for this theory is that, according to some people's intuitions, the pretheoretic concept differs from the explicatum with regard to conjunctions involving irrelevant propositions. Previous Bayesian solutions to this problem consist in showing that irrelevant conjuncts reduce the degree of confirmation; they have the drawbacks that (i) they don't hold for all ways of measuring degree of confirmation and (ii) they don't remove the conflict with intuition but merely “soften the impact” (as Fitelson has written). A better solution, which avoids both these drawbacks, is to show that the intuition is wrong.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 515 - 520
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I thank Branden Fitelson and the referees for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

References

Carnap, Rudolf (1950), Logical Foundations of Probability, 2d ed., 1962. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Earman, John (1992), Bayes or Bust? A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fitelson, Branden (2002), “Putting the Irrelevance Back into the Problem of Irrelevant Conjunction”, Putting the Irrelevance Back into the Problem of Irrelevant Conjunction 69:611–622.Google Scholar
Gemes, Ken (1994), “A New Theory of Content I: Basic Content”, A New Theory of Content I: Basic Content 23:595–620.Google Scholar
Goodman, Nelson (1979), Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, 3d ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, James, and Fitelson, Branden (2004), “Re-solving Irrelevant Conjunction with Probabilistic Independence”, Re-solving Irrelevant Conjunction with Probabilistic Independence 71:505–514.Google Scholar
Horwich, Paul (1982), Probability and Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kuipers, Theo A. F. (2000), From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milne, Peter (1996), “Log $[ p( h/ eb) / p( h/ b) ]$ is the One True Measure of Confirmation”, Philosophy of Science 63:21–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicod, Jean (1923), Le Problème Logique de l'Induction. Paris: Alcan.Google Scholar
Nicod, Jean (1970), Geometry and Induction. [English translation of works originally published in French in 1923 and 1924.] Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rosenkrantz, R. D. (1994), “Bayesian Confirmation: Paradise Regained”, Bayesian Confirmation: Paradise Regained 45:467–476.Google Scholar
5
Cited by

Save article to Kindle

To save this article to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Bayesianism and Irrelevant Conjunction
Available formats
×

Save article to Dropbox

To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Bayesianism and Irrelevant Conjunction
Available formats
×

Save article to Google Drive

To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Bayesianism and Irrelevant Conjunction
Available formats
×
×

Reply to: Submit a response

Please enter your response.

Your details

Please enter a valid email address.

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *