Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:30:50.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward A Defensible Bootstrapping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Sam Mitchell
Sam Mitchell*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Mount Holyoke College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An amended bootstrapping can avoid Christensen's counterexamples. Earman and Edidin argue that Christensen's examples to bootstrapping rely on his failure to analyze background knowledge. I add an additional condition to bootstrapping that is motivated by Glymour's remarks on variety of evidence. I argue that it avoids the problems that the examples raise. I defend the modification against the charge that it is holistic, and that it collapses into Bayesianism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 241 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank an anonymous referee, David Christensen, Peter Achinstein, Michael Bishop, Jane Braaten, Philip Bricker, Michael Dietrich, Philip Kitcher, Stephen Leeds, Elizabeth Lloyd, Shaun Nichols and Richard Nunan for their help on this paper.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075, USA.

References

Achinstein, P. (ed.) (1983), The Concept of Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. ([1936] 1937), “Testability and Meaning”, Philosophy of Science 3; 4: 419–471; 1–40.10.1086/286432CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R. ([1950] 1962), Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, D. (1983), “Glymour on Evidential Relevance”, Philosophy of Science 50: 471–481.10.1086/289130CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen, D. (1990), “The Irrelevance of Bootstrapping”, Philosophy of Science 57: 644–662.10.1086/289584CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earman, J. (ed.) (1983), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Volume 10, Testing Scientific Theories. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Earman, J. (ed.) (1992), Bayes or Bust? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Edidin, A. (1988), “Discussion: From Relative Confirmation to Real Confirmation”, Philosophy of Science 55: 265–271.10.1086/289432CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, M. (1979), “Realism and Instrumentalism in 19th-Century Atomism”, Philosophy of Science 46: 1–34.10.1086/288848CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1975), “Relevant Evidence”, The Journal of Philosophy 72: 403–426.10.2307/2025011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980a), “Bootstraps and Probabilities”, The Journal of Philosophy 78: 691–702.10.5840/jphil198077118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980b), “Explanation, Tests, Unity and Necessity”, Nous 14: 31–50.10.2307/2214888CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. (1980c), Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Glymour, C. (1983), “Discussion: Revisions of Bootstrap Testing”, Philosophy of Science 50: 626–629.10.1086/289143CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, C. and Earman, J. (1988), “What Revisions Does Bootstrap Testing Need? A Reply”, Philosophy of Science 55: 260–264.Google Scholar
Grimes, T. (1987), “The Promiscuity of Bootstrapping”, Philosophical Studies 51: 101–107.10.1007/BF00353965CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (1978), “An Appraisal of Glymour's Confirmation Theory”, The Journal of Philosophy 75: 98–113.10.2307/2025688CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horwich, P. (1980), “The Dispensability of Bootstrap Conditions”, The Journal of Philosophy 77: 699–702.10.5840/jphil198077119CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, T. (1957), The Copernican Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T. ([1962] 1970), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd, E. (1983), “The Nature of Darwin's Support for the Theory of Natural Selection”, Philosophy of Science 50: 112–129.10.1086/289093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, E. (1988), The Structure and Confirmation of Evolutionary Theory. Westport: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. ([1953] 1980), “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in From a Logical Point of View: 9 Logico-Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2d ed. pp. 20–46.Google Scholar
Wylie, A. (1986), “Bootstrapping in Un-Natural Sciences, Archaeological Theory Testing”, in Fine, A. and Machamer, P., (eds.), A. Fine and P. Machamer, vol. 1. East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 314–321.Google Scholar
Zytkow, J. (1986), “Discussion: What Revisions Does Bootstrap Testing Need?”, Philosophy of Science 53: 101–109.10.1086/289294CrossRefGoogle Scholar