Coherence as a heuristic
(2008) In Mind 117(465). p.1-26- Abstract
- The impossibility results of Bovens and Hartmann (2003) and Olsson (2005) call into question the strength of the connection between coherence and truth. As part of the inquiry into this alleged link, I define a notion of degree of truth-conduciveness, relevant for measuring the usefulness of coherence measures as rules-of-thumb for assigning probabilities in situations of partial knowledge. I use the concept to compare the viability of some of the measures of coherence that have been suggested so far under different circumstances. It turns out that all of these, including the prior, are just about equally good in cases of very little knowledge. Nevertheless, there are differences in when they are applicable, and they also depart more from... (More)
- The impossibility results of Bovens and Hartmann (2003) and Olsson (2005) call into question the strength of the connection between coherence and truth. As part of the inquiry into this alleged link, I define a notion of degree of truth-conduciveness, relevant for measuring the usefulness of coherence measures as rules-of-thumb for assigning probabilities in situations of partial knowledge. I use the concept to compare the viability of some of the measures of coherence that have been suggested so far under different circumstances. It turns out that all of these, including the prior, are just about equally good in cases of very little knowledge. Nevertheless, there are differences in when they are applicable, and they also depart more from each other when more knowledge is added. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/950155
- author
- Angere, Staffan LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2008
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Coherence, probabilistic measures
- in
- Mind
- volume
- 117
- issue
- 465
- pages
- 1 - 26
- publisher
- Oxford University Press
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000253674800001
- scopus:57749141214
- ISSN
- 0026-4423
- DOI
- 10.1093/mind/fzn001
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c263bf43-45ff-4c7b-a06d-8993ae4c031a (old id 950155)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 14:13:06
- date last changed
- 2022-03-21 22:55:27
@article{c263bf43-45ff-4c7b-a06d-8993ae4c031a, abstract = {{The impossibility results of Bovens and Hartmann (2003) and Olsson (2005) call into question the strength of the connection between coherence and truth. As part of the inquiry into this alleged link, I define a notion of degree of truth-conduciveness, relevant for measuring the usefulness of coherence measures as rules-of-thumb for assigning probabilities in situations of partial knowledge. I use the concept to compare the viability of some of the measures of coherence that have been suggested so far under different circumstances. It turns out that all of these, including the prior, are just about equally good in cases of very little knowledge. Nevertheless, there are differences in when they are applicable, and they also depart more from each other when more knowledge is added.}}, author = {{Angere, Staffan}}, issn = {{0026-4423}}, keywords = {{Coherence; probabilistic measures}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{465}}, pages = {{1--26}}, publisher = {{Oxford University Press}}, series = {{Mind}}, title = {{Coherence as a heuristic}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzn001}}, doi = {{10.1093/mind/fzn001}}, volume = {{117}}, year = {{2008}}, }