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Is Evidential Support the Same as Increase-in-Probability?

Evidential support is often equated with confirmation, where evidence supports hypothesis H if and only if it increases the probability of H. This article argues against this received view. As the author shows, support is a comparative notion in the sense that increase-in-probability is not. A piece...

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Published in:Grazer Philosophische Studien Vol. 99; no. 2; pp. 135 - 159
Main Author: Tokhadze, Tamaz
Format: Article
Published: Brill Academic Publishers 2022
Subjects:
Probability theory
Hypothesis
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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        atl: Is Evidential Support the Same as Increase-in-Probability?
      aug:
        au: Tokhadze, Tamaz
        affil: University of Sussex, Falmer, UK
      su:
        Probability theory
        Hypothesis
      sug:
        subj:
          Probability theory
          Hypothesis
      keyword:
        confirmation
        evidence
        measure sensitivity
        measures of confirmation
        support
      ab: Evidential support is often equated with confirmation, where evidence supports hypothesis H if and only if it increases the probability of H. This article argues against this received view. As the author shows, support is a comparative notion in the sense that increase-in-probability is not. A piece of evidence can confirm H, but it can confirm alternatives to H to the same or greater degree; and in such cases, it is at best misleading to conclude that the evidence supports H. The author puts forward an alternative view that defines support in terms of measures of degree of confirmation. The proposed view is both sufficiently comparative and able to accommodate the increase-in-probability aspect of support. The author concludes that the proposed measure-theoretic approach to support provides a superior alternative to the standard confirmatory approach.
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    language: English
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