Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-txr5j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-15T06:04:41.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Bootstrapping: A New Account of Evidential Relevance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Madison Culler
Madison Culler*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the adequacy of evidential relevance relations proposed by Glymour and others. These accounts incorporate, as a necessary condition, what I call the Positive Instance Condition (PIC): the evidence statement and auxiliary assumptions entail a “positive instance” of the hypothesis. I argue that any account which incorporates PIC as a necessary condition while allowing “bootstrap testing” is doomed to fail. A nonbootstrapping evidential relevance relation of similar form is proposed, and it is argued that, in addition to avoiding published counter examples, this new relation meets two general requirements which, if not met, would undermine the ability of any account that incorporates PIC to accord with our intuitions of evidential relevance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 561 - 579
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

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 Clark Glymour, Wesley Salmon, and especially John Earman for their time and helpful comments. Also, thanks to Ken Manders for reading over proofs of Lemmas 1 and 2.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Northern Arizona University, Box 6011, Flagstaff, AZ 86011.

References

Bogen, J. and Woodward, J. (1988), “Saving the Phenomena”, Philosophical Review 97: 303–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, D. (1983), “Glymour on Evidential Relevance”, Philosophy of Science 50: 471–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, D. (1990), “The Irrelevance of Bootstrapping”, Philosophy of Science 57: 644–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culler, M. (forthcoming), “The Path from Data to Phenomena”.Google Scholar
Earman, J. and Glymour, C. (1988), “What Revisions Does Bootstrapping Need? A Reply”, Philosophy of Science 55: 260–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebbinghaus, H.-D., et al. (1984), Mathematical Logic. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Edidin, A. (1981), “Glymour on Confirmation”, Philosophy of Science 48: 292–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edidin, A. (1983), “Bootstrapping Without Bootstraps”, in Earman, J., (ed.), J. Earman, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 43–54.Google Scholar
Edidin, A. (1989), “From Relative Confirmation to Real Confirmation”, Philosophy of Science 55: 265–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1975), “Relevant Evidence”, Journal of Philosophy 72: 403–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980), Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. (1983), “Revisions of Bootstrap Testing”, Philosophy of Science 50: 626–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. “Inductive Logic and the Semantics of Discovery”, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Grimes, T. (1987), “The Promiscuity of Bootstrapping”, Philosophical Studies 51: 101–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. (1965), “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation”, Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press, pp. 3–51.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (1978), “An Appraisal of Glymour's Confirmation Theory”, Journal of Philosophy 75: 98–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B. (1983), “Theory Comparison and Relevant Evidence”, in Earman, J. (ed.), Testing Scientific Theories Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 27–42.Google Scholar
Zytkow, J. (1986), “What Revisions Does Bootstrap Testing Need?”, Philosophy of Science 53: 101–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar