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Independent Evidence About a Common Cause

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Abstract

To infer the state of a cause from the states of its effects, independent lines of evidence are preferable to dependent ones. This familiar idea is here investigated, the goal being to identify its presuppositions. Connections are drawn with Reichenbach's (1956) and Salmon's (1984) discussions of the principle of the common cause.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 275 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

My thanks to Ellery Eells, Malcolm Forster, and the anonymous referees of this journal for comments on an earlier draft.

References

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