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The Confirmational Significance of Agreeing Measurements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Casey Helgeson
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Abstract

Agreement between “independent” measurements of a theoretically posited quantity is intuitively compelling evidence that a theory is, loosely speaking, on the right track. But exactly what conclusion is warranted by such agreement? I propose a new account of the phenomenon’s epistemic significance within the framework of Bayesian epistemology. I contrast my proposal with the standard Bayesian treatment, which lumps the phenomenon under the heading of “evidential diversity.”

Type
General Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 80 , Issue 5 , December 2013 , pp. 721 - 732
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

For helpful feedback and discussion, I thank Martin Barrett, Malcolm Forster, Elliott Sober, Michael Titelbaum, Peter Vranas, and audiences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the London School of Economics, and the PSA 2012.

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