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Reason, Judgement and Bayes's Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Harold I. Brown
Harold I. Brown*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA.
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Abstract

This paper argues that when used judiciously Bayes's law has a role to play in the evaluation of scientific hypotheses. Several examples are presented in which a rational response to evidence requires a judgement whether to apply Bayes's law or whether, for example, to redistribute prior probabilities. The paper concludes that reflection on Bayes's law illustrates how an adequate account of the rational evaluation of hypotheses requires an account of judgement—a point which several philosophers have noted despite few attempts to develop an adequate theory of judgement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 351 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1994

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Footnotes

†

I want to thank C. A. Hooker and an anonymous Philosophy of Science referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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