Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2022
An amended bootstrapping can avoid Christensen's counterexamples. Earman and Edidin argue that Christensen's examples to bootstrapping rely on his failure to analyze background knowledge. I add an additional condition to bootstrapping that is motivated by Glymour's remarks on variety of evidence. I argue that it avoids the problems that the examples raise. I defend the modification against the charge that it is holistic, and that it collapses into Bayesianism.
I would like to thank an anonymous referee, David Christensen, Peter Achinstein, Michael Bishop, Jane Braaten, Philip Bricker, Michael Dietrich, Philip Kitcher, Stephen Leeds, Elizabeth Lloyd, Shaun Nichols and Richard Nunan for their help on this paper.
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