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Confirmational Holism and Bayesian Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

David Christensen
David Christensen*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Vermont
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Abstract

Much contemporary epistemology is informed by a kind of confirmational holism, and a consequent rejection of the assumption that all confirmation rests on experiential certainties. Another prominent theme is that belief comes in degrees, and that rationality requires apportioning one's degrees of belief reasonably. Bayesian confirmation models based on Jeffrey Conditionalization attempt to bring together these two appealing strands. I argue, however, that these models cannot account for a certain aspect of confirmation that would be accounted for in any adequate holistic confirmation theory. I then survey the prospects for constructing a formal epistemology that better accommodates holistic insights.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 59 , Issue 4 , December 1992 , pp. 540 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Hartry Field, Richard Jeffrey, Mark Kaplan, Hilary Kornblith, Derk Pereboom, and a referee for Philosophy of Science for helpful discussions and correspondence on these matters, and for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Vermont, 70 S. Williams Street, Burlington, VT 05401, USA.

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