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The no miracles argument without the base rate fallacy
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1472-2958
2018 (English)In: Synthese, ISSN 0039-7857, E-ISSN 1573-0964, Vol. 195, no 9, p. 4063-4079Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

According to an argument by Colin Howson, the no-miracles argument (NMA) is contingent on committing the base-rate fallacy and is therefore bound to fail. We demonstrate that Howson’s argument only applies to one of two versions of the NMA. The other version, which resembles the form in which the argument was initially presented by Putnam and Boyd, remains unaffected by his line of reasoning. We provide a formal reconstruction of that version of the NMA and show that it is valid. Finally, we demonstrate that the use of subjective priors is consistent with the realist implication of the NMA and show that a core worry with respect to the suggested form of the NMA can be dispelled.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 195, no 9, p. 4063-4079
Keywords [en]
No miracles argument, Scientific realism, Base rate fallacy, Bayesianism
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-159344DOI: 10.1007/s11229-017-1408-xISI: 000444317800018OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-159344DiVA, id: diva2:1242209
Available from: 2018-08-27 Created: 2018-08-27 Last updated: 2022-02-26Bibliographically approved

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Dawid, Richard

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