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Reply to Linhart

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Jared L. Darlington*
Affiliation:
Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Extract

The passage criticized by Mr. Linhart as “misleading” may be clarified as follows. Linhart is quite right that a method of interval estimation including a formula equivalent to my VI may be based on inverse probability, and that probability values considerably greater than zero may be thus obtained. The method of inverse probability to which I refer in the criticized passage, however, is that of Carnap, according to which (as indicated in the preceding paragraph of my paper, and on p. 16) the inverse probability of a law on the basis of finite evidence is zero. My statement that “... our method of interval estimation is superior to that of inverse probability, in that the probability values yielded by the former are considerably greater than those given by the latter...” remains true, since it is Carnap's method, which is not an interval method, of which I am speaking.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1959 by Philosophy of Science Association

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References

1 Carnap is of course completely aware of the zero probability values yielded by his method, and attempts to repair this defect of his system with his “instance confirmation” and “qualified-instance confirmation,” discussed on pp. 23-24 of my paper.