Toward a defensible bootstrapping

Philosophy of Science 62 (2):241-260 (1995)
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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.

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Samuel Mitchell
Mount Holyoke College

References found in this work

Testability and meaning (part 1).Rudolf Carnap - 1936 - Philosophy of Science 3 (4):420-71.
Testability and meaning (part 2).Rudolf Carnap - 1937 - Philosophy of Science 4 (4):1-40.
Theory and Evidence.Clark Glymour - 1980 - Ethics 93 (3):613-615.

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