4.6 Article

The Bayesian who knew too much

Journal

SYNTHESE
Volume 192, Issue 5, Pages 1527-1542

Publisher

SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0647-3

Keywords

Bayesian confirmation theory; Imprecise credence; Ignorance; Indifference; Principle of indifference; Doomsday argument; Anthropic reasoning

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In several papers, John Norton has argued that Bayesianism cannot handle ignorance adequately due to its inability to distinguish between neutral and disconfirming evidence. He argued that this inability sows confusion in, e.g., anthropic reasoning in cosmology or the Doomsday argument, by allowing one to draw unwarranted conclusions from a lack of knowledge. Norton has suggested criteria for a candidate for representation of neutral support. Imprecise credences (families of credal probability functions) constitute a Bayesian-friendly framework that allows us to avoid inadequate neutral priors and better handle ignorance. The imprecise model generally agrees with Norton's representation of ignorance but requires that his criterion of self-duality be reformulated or abandoned.

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