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Evidential Diversity and the Triangulation of Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jaakko Kuorikoski  and
Caterina Marchionni
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Abstract

The article argues for the epistemic rationale of triangulation, namely, the use of multiple and independent sources of evidence. It claims that triangulation is to be understood as causal reasoning from data to phenomenon, and it rationalizes its epistemic value in terms of controlling for likely errors and biases of particular data-generating procedures. This perspective is employed to address objections against triangulation concerning the fallibility and scope of the inference, as well as problems of independence, incomparability, and discordance of evidence. The debate on the existence of social preferences is used as an illustrative case.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 227 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This article was presented at the Causality and Experimentation in the Sciences conference in Paris 2013, the CamPos seminar in Cambridge 2014, the British Society for Philosophy of Science conference in Cambridge 2014, the Evidence in Science and Epistemology workshop in Helsinki 2014, and the Working Seminar on Robustness Analysis in Helsinki 2014. We thank the audiences in these meetings for their comments. We would especially like to thank Casey Helgeson, Chiara Lisciandra, Aki Lehtinen, Jonah Schupbach, Kent Staley, Jacob Stegenga, and two anonymous referees for their invaluable constructive critiques. This research has been supported by the Academy of Finland. Caterina carried out part of this work while visiting the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics.

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