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A More Fulfilling (and Frustrating) Take on Reflexive Predictions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Matthew Kopec
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Abstract

Even though social scientists continue to discuss the problems posed by self-fulfilling and self-frustrating predictions, philosophers of science have ignored the topic since the 1970s. Back then, the prevailing view was that the methodological problems posed by reflexive predictions are either minor or easily avoided. I believe that this consensus was premature, ultimately relying on an overly narrow understanding of the phenomenon. I present an improved way to understand reflexive predictions (framed in probabilistic terms) and show that, once such predictions are understood this way, the methodological problems they pose may turn out to be neither minor nor easily avoided.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 78 , Issue 5 , December 2011 , pp. 1249 - 1259
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank John Basl, Malcolm Forster, Michael Goldsby, Casey Helgeson, and Joel Velasco for helpful comments and, especially, Dan Hausman, Elliott Sober, and Peter Vranas for discussions that helped me develop the project. I would also like to thank audiences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and at the 2010 meeting of the PSA in Montreal for helpful questions and comments.

References

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