Support for Geometric Pooling

Review of Symbolic Logic 16 (1):298-337 (2023)
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Abstract

Supra-Bayesianism is the Bayesian response to learning the opinions of others. Probability pooling constitutes an alternative response. One natural question is whether there are cases where probability pooling gives the supra-Bayesian result. This has been called the problem of Bayes-compatibility for pooling functions. It is known that in a common prior setting, under standard assumptions, linear pooling cannot be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. We show by contrast that geometric pooling can be nontrivially Bayes-compatible. Indeed, we show that, under certain assumptions, geometric and Bayes-compatible pooling are equivalent. Granting supra-Bayesianism its usual normative status, one upshot of our study is thus that, in a certain class of epistemic contexts, geometric pooling enjoys a normative advantage over linear pooling as a social learning mechanism. We discuss the philosophical ramifications of this advantage, which we show to be robust to variations in our statement of the Bayes-compatibility problem.

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Author Profiles

Rush T. Stewart
University of Rochester
Jean Baccelli
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

Social epistemology.Alvin I. Goldman - 2001 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Updating on the evidence of others.Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (10):2539-2562.
Geometric Pooling: A User's Guide.Richard Pettigrew & Jonathan Weisberg - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
Social epistemology.Alvin Goldman - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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Reflection and disagreement.Adam Elga - 2007 - Noûs 41 (3):478–502.
Experts: Which ones should you trust?Alvin I. Goldman - 2001 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1):85-110.
Belief and the Will.Bas C. van Fraassen - 1984 - Journal of Philosophy 81 (5):235-256.
Belief and the will.Bas C. van Fraassen - 2010 - In Antony Eagle (ed.), Philosophy of Probability: Contemporary Readings. New York: Routledge. pp. 235-256.

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