Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-08T22:30:10.563Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Putting the Irrelevance Back Into the Problem of Irrelevant Conjunction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Branden Fitelson
Branden Fitelson*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, San José State University
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, San José State University, One Washington Square, San José, CA 95192-0096.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Naive deductive accounts of confirmation have the undesirable consequence that if E confirms H, then E also confirms the conjunction H & X, for any X—even if X is utterly irrelevant to H (and E). Bayesian accounts of confirmation also have this property (in the case of deductive evidence). Several Bayesians have attempted to soften the impact of this fact by arguing that—according to Bayesian accounts of confirmation— E will confirm the conjunction H & X less strongly than E confirms H (again, in the case of deductive evidence). I argue that existing Bayesian “resolutions” of this problem are inadequate in several important respects. In the end, I suggest a new-and-improved Bayesian account (and understanding) of the problem of irrelevant conjunction.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , December 2002 , pp. 611 - 622
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

‡

Thanks to Ellery Eells, Malcolm Forster, Ken Harris, Patrick Maher, Elliott Sober, and an anonymous referee of this journal for useful comments and suggestions.

References

Christensen, David (1999), “Measuring Confirmation”, Measuring Confirmation 96:437–461.Google Scholar
Earman, John (1992), Bayes or Bust: A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Eells, Ellery, and Fitelson, Branden (2000), “Measuring Confirmation and Evidence”, Measuring Confirmation and Evidence 97:663–672.Google Scholar
Eells, Ellery, and Fitelson, Branden (2002), “Symmetries and Asymmetries in Evidential Support”, Symmetries and Asymmetries in Evidential Support 107:129–142.Google Scholar
Festa, Roberto (1999), “Bayesian Confirmation” in Galavotti, Maria Carla and Pagnini, Alessandro (eds.) Experience, Reality, and Scientific Explanation. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 55–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitelson, Branden (1999), “The Plurality of Bayesian Measures of Confirmation and the Problem of Measure Sensitivity”, The Plurality of Bayesian Measures of Confirmation and the Problem of Measure Sensitivity 66 (Proceedings), S362–S378.Google Scholar
Fitelson, Branden (2001), Studies in Bayesian Confirmation Theory. Ph.D. Dissertation. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin-Madison (Philosophy). The Dissertation can be downloaded in its entirety from http://fitelson.org/thesis.pdf.Google Scholar
Glymour, Clark (1980), Theory and Evidence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Good, Irving John (1985), “Weight of Evidence: A Brief Survey”, in Bernardo, , José, , DeGroot, Morris, Lindley, Dennis and Smith, Adrian (eds.) Bayesian Statistics, 2. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 249–269.Google Scholar
Hempel, Carl (1945), “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation”, Studies in the Logic of Confirmation 54:1–26, 97–121.Google Scholar
Joyce, James (1999), The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kyburg, Henry (1983), “Recent Work in Inductive Logic”, in Machan, Tibor and Lucey, Kenneth (eds.) Recent Work in Philosophy. Lanham: Rowman & Allanheld, 87–150.Google Scholar
Milne, Peter (1996), “log[ p(h/ eb)/ p(h/ b)] is the One True Measure of Confirmation”, log[ p(h/ eb)/ p(h/ b)] is the One True Measure of Confirmation 63:21–26.Google Scholar
Popper, Karl (1954), “Degree of Confirmation”, Degree of Confirmation 5:143–149.Google Scholar
Rosenkrantz, Roger (1981), Foundations and Applications of Inductive Probability. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview.Google Scholar
Rosenkrantz, Roger (1994), “Bayesian confirmation: Paradise regained”, Bayesian confirmation: Paradise regained 45:467–476.Google Scholar
Skyrms, Brian (1992), Review of “Hypothetico-Deductivism is Hopeless” by Clark Glymour, “Relevance Logic Brings Hope for Hypothetico-Deductivism” by C. Kenneth Waters, and “Truth, Content and Hypothetico-Deductive Method” by Thomas Grimes, Journal of Symbolic Logic 57:756–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar