The Other Kind of Confirmation
Also known as In Praise of Instance Confirmation
Abstract:
It is argued that the relation of instance confirmation has a role to play in sci-
entific methodology that complements, rather than competing with, a mod-
ern account of inductive support such as Bayesian confirmation theory. When
an instance confirms a hypothesis, it provides inductive support, but it also
provides two things that other inductive supporters normally do not: first, a
connection to empirical data
that makes science epistemically special, and
second, inductive support not only for the hypothesis as a whole, but for its
parts. Further, when it is conceived in the right way, instance confirmation
can duck the arguments most often thought to refute it. A causal account of
instantiation, thus of instance confirmation, is offered that looks to deliver on
all of the foregoing promises.
See a PDF version of the paper.