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Beyond Bayesianism: Comments on Hellman's “Bayes and Beyond”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Abstract

Against Hellman's (1997) recent claims, I argue that Bayesianism is unable to explain the value of generally successful aspects of scientific methodology, viz., deflecting blame from well-confirmed theories onto auxiliaries and preferring more-varied data. Such an explanation would require not just objectification of priors, but a reason to believe priors will generally fall on values that justify the practice. Given the track record on the objectification problem, adding further conditions on priors merely makes the Bayesian's problems even worse.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, 226 Major Williams Hall, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

References

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