What's Wrong With Our Theories of Evidence?

Reiss, Julian

doi:10.1387/theoria.10782

What's Wrong With Our Theories of Evidence?

Reiss, Julian

Authors

Julian Reiss

Abstract

This paper reviews all major theories of evidence such as the Bayesian theory, hypothetico-deductivism, satisfaction theories, error-statistics, Achinstein's explanationist theory and Cartwright's argument theory. All these theories fail to take adequate account of the context in which a hypothesis is established and used. It is argued that the context of an inquiry determines important facts about what evidence is, and how much and what kind has to be collected to establish a hypothesis for a given purpose.

Citation

Reiss, J. (2014). What's Wrong With Our Theories of Evidence?. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 29(2), 283-306. https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.10782

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	May 1, 2014
Deposit Date	May 16, 2015
Publicly Available Date	May 27, 2015
Journal	Theoria.
Print ISSN	0495-4548
Electronic ISSN	2171-679X
Publisher	Universidad del Pais Vasco
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	29
Issue	2
Pages	283-306
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1387/theoria.10782
Keywords	Scientific method, Evidence, Bayesian confirmation theory, Error statistics, Contextualism.