PHILOS 2 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Face Card, Inductive Reasoning, Logical Consequence
Document Summary
Lecture 17: paradox of confirmation by prof. sven bernecker. Taught at the universities of chicago, cuny, yale, princeton, and pittsburgh. Absolute confirmation: definitive proof, removal of beyond reasonable doubt. The verb to confirm is used in two ways: e. g. , all bachelors are unmarried. Incremental confirmation: provide evidence for, support, count in favor, increase the probability of: e. g. , all bachelors are happy. We will assume the incremental sense of to confirm. If a body of information constitutes some evidence (however slight) for a hypothesis, it (incrementally) confirms the hypothesis. The attempt to say when a body of information confirms a hypothesis is called a. Classificatory (qualitative) evidence evidence for or supports) a given hypothesis. If yes, then the datum provides classificatory evidence: e confirms h. Quantitative evidence: we assess the degree to which a body of information confirms or: e. g. , to what extent is galileo"s hypothesis about the lunar surface supported by supports a hypothesis. his telescopic observations.
