Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T20:48:43.018Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bayesianism, Convergence and Social Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Michael J. Shaffer
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Following the standard practice in sociology, cultural anthropology and history, sociologists, historians of science and some philosophers of science define scientific communities as groups with shared beliefs, values and practices. In this paper it is argued that in real cases the beliefs of the members of such communities often vary significantly in important ways. This has rather dire implications for the convergence defense against the charge of the excessive subjectivity of subjective Bayesianism because that defense requires that communities of Bayesian inquirers share a significant set of modal beliefs. The important implication is then that given the actual variation in modal beliefs across individuals, either Bayesians cannot claim that actual theories have been objectively confirmed or they must accept that such theories have been confirmed relative only to epistemically insignificant communities.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 2008, pp. 203 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, Barry. 2003. “Thomas Kuhn and the Problem of Social Order in Science.” In Nickles, T. (ed.), Thomas Kuhn, pp. 122–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barnes, Barry and Bloor, David. 1982. “Relativism, Rationalism and the Sociology of Knowledge.” In Hollis, M. and Lukes, S. (eds.), Rationality and Relativism, pp. 21–47. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bird, Alexander. 2000. Thomas Kuhn. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloor, David. 1991. Knowledge and Social Imagery. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Brown, James. 1989. The Rational and the Social. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Doob, J. L. 1971. “What is a Martingale?” American Mathematical Monthly 78: 451–62.Google Scholar
Earman, John. 1992. Bayes or Bust? Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Feyerabend, Paul. 1975. Against Method. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. 2001. The Dynamics of Reason. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar
Fuller, Steven. 2000. Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History of our Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gaifman, H. and Snir, M.. 1982. “Probabilities Over Rich Languages,” Journal of Symbolic Logic 47: 495–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J.. 2002. Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haack, Susan. 1998. Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hankinson Nelson, Lynn. 1993. “Epistemological Communities.” In Alcoff, L. and Potter, E. (eds.), Feminist Epistemologies, pp. 121–59. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoyningen-Huene, Paul. 1993. Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Howson, Colin and Urbach, Peter. 1993. Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach. 2nd ed. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Hull, David. 1988. Science as a Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1993. The Advancement of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962/1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas. 1977. “Objectivity, Value Judgment and Theory Choice.” In his The Essential Tension, pp. 320–39. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kukla, Andre. 2000. Social Construction and the Philosophy of Science. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kusch, Martin. 2002. Knowledge by Agreement: The Programme of Communitarian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakatos, Imre. 1977. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Vol. 1: Philosophical Papers. Worral, J. and Currie, G. (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rescher, Nicholas. 1993. Pluralism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1991. Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Savage, Leonard J. 1954. The Foundations of Statistics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick. 1994. Socializing Epistemology. New York: Roman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick. 1999. “Social Epistemology.” In Greco, J. and Sosa, E. (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, pp. 354–82. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Shimony, Abner. 1970. “Scientific Inference.” Reprinted in his Search for a Naturalistic World View, pp. 183–273. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Siegel, Harvey. 1987. Relativism Refuted. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, Daniel. 1996. Explaining Culture. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar