Skip to main content
Log in

Confirmation of Scientific Hypotheses as Relations

  • Published:
Journal for General Philosophy of Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Summary

In spite of several attempts to explicate the relationship between a scientific hypothesis and evidence, the issue still cries for a satisfactory solution. Logical approaches to confirmation, such as the hypothetico-deductive method and the positive instance account of confirmation, are problematic because of their neglect of the semantic dimension of hypothesis confirmation. Probabilistic accounts of confirmation are no better than logical approaches in this regard. An outstanding probabilistic account of confirmation, the Bayesian approach, for instance, is found to be defective in that it treats evidence as a formal entity and this creates the problem of relevance of evidence to the hypothesis at issue, in addition to the difficulties arising from the subjective interpretation of probabilities. This essay purports to satisfy the need for a successful account of hypothesis confirmation by offering an original formulation based on the notion of instantiation of the relation urged by an hypothesis.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Carnap, R.: 1988, ‘The Nature of Theories’, in Klemke, E.D., Hollinger, R., and Kline, A.D. (eds.), Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science, Prometheus Books, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, N.: 1999, The Dappled World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, D.: 1990, ‘The Irrelevance of Bootstrapping’, Philosophy of Science 57, 644–662.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duhem, P.: 1954, The Aim and the Structure of Physical Theory, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Earman, J.: 1992, Bayes or Bust? The MIT Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eddington, A.: 1966, Space, Time and Gravitation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giere, R. N.: 1999, Science Without Laws, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glymour, C.: 1980, Theory and Evidence, Princeton University Press, New Jersey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helvoort, T.: 1994, ‘History of Virus Research in the Twentieth Century: The Problem of Conceptual Continuity’, History of Science 32, 185–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hempel, C. G.: 1965, Aspects of Scientific Explanation, The Free Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howson, C. and Urbach, P.: 1989, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, Open Court, Illinois.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kyburg, Jr. H. E.: 1983, Epistemology and Inference, University of Minnesota Press, .

  • Mayo, D. G.: 1996, Error and the Growth of Experimental Knowledge, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunan, R.: 1993, ‘Heuristic Novelty and the Asymmetry Problem in Bayesian Confirmation Theory’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 44, 17–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J. L.: 1986, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. R.: 1972, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Hutchinson, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prior, E. W., Pargetter, R., and Jackson, F.: 1982, ‘Three Theses About Dispositions’, American Philosophical Quarterly 19, 251–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Root-Bernstein, R. S.: 1983, ‘Mendel and Methodology’, History of Science 21, 275–295.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salmon, W. C.: 1966, The Foundations of Scientific Inference, University of Pittsburg Press, Pittsburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Suppe, F.: 1989, The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism, University of Illinois Press, Urbana.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Fraassen, B. C.: 1987, ‘The Semantic Approach to Scientific Theories’, in Nersessian, N. J. (ed.), The Process of Science, 105–124, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zahar, E.: 1973, ‘Why did Einstein’s Programme Supersede Lorentz’s?’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 24, 223–262.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aysel Dogan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dogan, A. Confirmation of Scientific Hypotheses as Relations. J Gen Philos Sci 36, 243–259 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-006-1065-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-006-1065-0

Key words

Navigation