Reichenbach’s Posits Reposited

Erkenntnis 69 (1):93-108 (2008)
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Abstract

Reichenbach’s use of ‘posits’ to defend his frequentistic theory of probability has been criticized on the grounds that it makes unfalsifiable predictions. The justice of this criticism has blinded many to Reichenbach’s second use of a posit, one that can fruitfully be applied to current debates within epistemology. We show first that Reichenbach’s alternative type of posit creates a difficulty for epistemic foundationalists, and then that its use is equivalent to a particular kind of Jeffrey conditionalization. We conclude that, under particular circumstances, Reichenbach’s approach and that of the Bayesians amount to the same thing, thereby presenting us with a new instance in which chance and credence coincide.

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Jeanne Peijnenburg
University of Groningen

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References found in this work

Scientific reasoning: the Bayesian approach.Peter Urbach & Colin Howson - 1993 - Chicago: Open Court. Edited by Peter Urbach.
The theory of probability.Hans Reichenbach - 1949 - Berkeley,: University of California Press.
The foundations of scientific inference.Wesley C. Salmon - 1967 - [Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Logical Empiricism: [Foreword].Richard Creath - 1948 - Synthese 7 (6B):457-457.

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