Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T23:27:19.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Case for “Qualitative Confirmation” for the Social and Behavioral Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Steven I. Miller  and
Marcel Fredericks
Steven I. Miller*
Affiliation:
School of Education Loyola University of Chicago
Marcel Fredericks
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology Loyola University of Chicago
*
†Send reprint requests to the authors, School of Education, Loyola University of Chicago, 820 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify the meaning and significance of “qualitative confirmation”. The need to do so is related to the fact that, without such a conceptualization, a large portion of the human sciences are relegated to a less than scientific status. Accordingly, “qualitative confirmation” is viewed as a proper subset of traditional confirmation theory. To establish such a case, a general Hempelian framework is utilized, but it is supplemented with two additional levels of confirmation. It is concluded that the final test for adequacy of such confirmation must rest on a subjective probability notion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 1991 , pp. 452 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 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.)

References

Achinstein, P. (1978), “Concepts of Evidence”, Mind 87: 22–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Achinstein, P. (ed.), (1983), The Concept of Evidence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Black, M. (1937), “Vagueness: An Exercise in Logical Analysis”, Philosophy of Science 4: 427–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BonJour, L. (1985), The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1962), Logical Foundations of Probability. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (ed.), (1983), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Vol. 10, Testing Scientific Theories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. (1975), “Vagueness, Truth and Logic”, Synthese 30: 265–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, D. (1983), Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H. G. (1976), Philosophical Hermeneutics. Translated and edited by Linge, D. E. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Garber, D. (1983), “Old Evidence and Logical Omniscience in Bayesian Confirmation Theory”, in J. Earman (ed.), pp. 99–131.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. (1975), “Relevant Evidence”, Journal of Philosophy 72: 403–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1983), “On Testing and Evidence”, in J. Earman (ed.), pp. 3–26.Google Scholar
Goguen, J. A. (1969), “The Logic of Inexact Concepts”, Synthese 19: 325–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, N. (1955), Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, A. (1983), “Retrospective Versus Prospective Testing of Aetiological Hypotheses in Freudian Theory”, in J. Earman (ed.), pp. 315–347.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. ([1945] 1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays. (Originally published in Mind 54: 1–26, 97–121.) New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. (1983), “Bayesianism with a Human Face”, in J. Earman (ed.), pp. 133–156.Google Scholar
Levinson, A. B. (1974), Knowledge and Society; An Introduction to the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. New York: Pegasus.Google Scholar
Longino, H. (1979), “Evidence and Hypothesis: An Analysis of Evidential Relations”, Philosophy of Science 46: 35–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mead, M. (1928), Coming of Age in Samoa; A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation. New York: W. Morrow.Google Scholar
Miller, S. I. and Fredericks, M. (1987), “The Confirmation of Hypotheses in Qualitative Research”, Methodika 1: 25–40.Google Scholar
Miller, S. I. and Fredericks, M. (1989), “Some Comments on the Projectibility of Anthropological Hypotheses”, Erkenntnis 30: 279–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, R. (1981), Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peacocke, C. (1981), “Are Vague Predicates Incoherent?”, Synthese 46: 121–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, D. C. (1987), Philosophy, Science and Social Inquiry: Contemporary Methodological Controversies in Social Science and Related Applied Fields of Research. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Popper, K. (1959), The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Rescher, N. (1970), Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ricoeur, P. (1977), “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text”, in F. Dallmayr and T. McCarthy (eds.), Understanding and Social Inquiry. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 316–334.Google Scholar
Rudner, R. S. (1966), Philosophy of Social Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Runciman, W. G. (1985), A Treatise on Social Theory. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. (1975), “Confirmation and Relevance”, in G. Maxwell and R. M. Anderson, Jr. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 6. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3–36.Google Scholar
Sanford, D. H. (1970), “Disjunctive Predicates”, American Philosophical Quarterly 7: 162–170.Google Scholar
Scheffler, I. (1963), The Anatomy of Inquiry; Philosophical Studies in the Theory of Science. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Swinburne, R. (1973), An Introduction to Confirmation Theory. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1988), Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Winch, P. (1958), The Idea of a Social Science. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar