PHILOS 8 Lecture 3: Theories of Qualitative Confirmation April 13, 2017
Document Summary
Theories that attempt to identify the conditions under which a hypothesis is confirmed or disconfirmed. Seek to specify the relation between evidence and hypothesis. Absolute confirmation: hypothesis h is highly supportive given evidence e. Incremental confirmation: e increases evidential support for h. For all things, if something is a raven then it is black. For any properties of f and gm the hypothesis that all fs and gs is confirmed by an instance of something that is both f and g. For any properties f and g, the hypothesis that all fs and gs is disconfirmed by an instance of something that is f and not g. Any incremental version of nicod"s criterion applied to hypothesis h. H is incrementally confirmed by the instance of something that is both a raven and black. H is totally disconfirmed by a instance of something that is a raven and not black.
