Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:58:33.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Confirmational Holism and Bayesian Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

David Christensen
David Christensen*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Vermont
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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 in any adequate holistic confirmation theory. I then survey the prospects for constructing a formal epistemology that better accommodates holistic insights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 540 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by 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 would like to thank Hartry Field, Richard Jeffrey, Mark Kaplan, Hilary Kornblith, Derk Pereboom, and a referee for Philosophy of Science for helpful discussions and correspondence on these matters, and for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Vermont, 70 S. Williams Street, Burlington, VT 05401, USA.

References

Ayer, A. J. (1952), Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Chisholm, R. (1989), Theory of Knowledge. 3d ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Field, H. (1978), “A Note on Jeffrey Conditionalization”, Philosophy of Science 45: 361–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garber, D. (1980), “Discussion: Field and Jeffrey Conditionalization”, Philosophy of Science 47: 142–145.10.1086/288919CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, R. C. (1965), The Logic of Decision. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. C. (1975), “Carnap's Empiricism”, in Maxwell, G. and Anderson, R. M. Jr., (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 6, Induction, Probability, and Confirmation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 37–49.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. C. (1987), “Alias Smith and Jones: The Testimony of the Senses”, Erkenntnis 26: 391–399.10.1007/BF00167725CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, I. (1967), “Probability Kinematics”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 18: 197–209.10.1093/bjps/18.3.197CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, I. (1970), “Probability and Evidence”, in Swain, M., (ed.), M. Swain, Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 134–156.Google Scholar
Pollock, J. (1974), Knowledge and Justification. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. ([1951] 1961), “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in From a Logical Point of View. 2d ed. Revised. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 20–46.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1938), Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. (1975), Choice and Chance: An Introduction to Inductive Logic. 2d ed. Encino, CA: Dickenson.Google Scholar
Williams, M. (1977), Groundless Belief: An Essay on the Possibility of Epistemology. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar