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October 2004

Volume 71, Number 4
Philosophy of Science, 71 (October 2004) pp. 505–514
0031-8248/2004/7104-0005$10.00
DOI: 10.1086/423626

Discussion: Re-solving Irrelevant Conjunction with Probabilistic Independence*

James Hawthorne and

Branden Fitelson

Naive deductivist accounts of confirmation have the undesirable consequence that if E confirms H, then E also confirms the conjunction H·X, for any X—even if X is completely irrelevant to E and H. Bayesian accounts of confirmation may appear to have the same problem. In a recent article in this journal Fitelson (2002) argued that existing Bayesian attempts to resolve of this problem are inadequate in several important respects. Fitelson then proposes a new-and-improved Bayesian account that overcomes the problem of irrelevant conjunction, and does so in a more general setting than past attempts. We will show how to simplify and improve upon Fitelson's solution.

*Received October 2003; revised January 2004.

†To contact the author write to James Hawthorne, Department of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma, 605 Dale Hall Tower, Norman, OK 73019; e-mail: ; or Branden Fitelson, University of California-Berkeley, 314 Moses Hall #2390, Berkeley, CA 94720-2390; e-mail: .

Cited by

Daniel Steel. (2007) Bayesian Confirmation Theory and The Likelihood Principle. Synthese 156:1, 53-77
Online publication date: 30-Apr-2007.
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Vincenzo Crupi, Katya Tentori, and Michel Gonzalez. (2007) On Bayesian Measures of Evidential Support: Theoretical and Empirical Issues. Philosophy of Science 74:2, 229-252
Online publication date: 1-Apr-2007.
Patrick Maher. (2004) Bayesianism and Irrelevant Conjunction. Philosophy of Science 71:4, 515-520
Online publication date: 1-Oct-2004.
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