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Glymour on Evidential Relevance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

David Christensen*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, UCLA

Abstract

Glymour's “bootstrap” account of confirmation is designed to provide an analysis of evidential relevance, which has been a serious problem for hypothetico-deductivism. As set out in Theory and Evidence, however, the “bootstrap” condition allows confirmation in clear cases of evidential irrelevance. The difficulties with Glymour's account seem to be due to a basic feature which it shares with hypothetico-deductive accounts, and which may explain why neither can give a satisfactory analysis of evidential relevance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1983

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Paul Horwich, an anonymous referee, and especially Richard Healey for helpful discussions and/or comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

References

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Horwich, P. (1980), “The Dispensability of Bootstrap Conditions”, Journal of Philosophy LXXVII: 699702.10.5840/jphil198077119CrossRefGoogle Scholar