PhilSci Archive

The Objectivity of Subjective Bayesianism

Sprenger, Jan (2017) The Objectivity of Subjective Bayesianism. [Preprint]

This is the latest version of this item.

[img]
Preview
 Text
ObjectiveBayesianStatistics_v7.pdf
Download (441kB) | Preview

Abstract

Subjective Bayesianism is a major school of uncertain reasoning and statistical inference. It is often criticized for a lack of objectivity: (i) it opens the door to the influence of values and biases, (ii) evidence judgments can vary substantially between scientists, (iii) it is not suited for informing policy decisions. My paper rebuts these concerns by bridging the debates on scientific objectivity and statistical method. First, I show that the above concerns arise equally for standard frequentist inference. Second, I argue that the involved senses of objectivity are epistemically inert. Third, I show that Subjective Bayesianism promotes other, epistemically relevant senses of scientific objectivity---most notably by increasing the transparency of scientific reasoning.

Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |
Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Sprenger, Janj.sprenger@uvt.nl
Keywords: Bayesian inference, statistics, objectivity, frequentism, values in science
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Specific Sciences > Psychology
General Issues > Values In Science
Depositing User: Jan Sprenger
Date Deposited: 13 Jul 2017 13:35
Last Modified: 13 Jul 2017 13:35
Item ID: 13199
Subjects: General Issues > Confirmation/Induction
Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics
Specific Sciences > Psychology
General Issues > Values In Science
Date: 12 July 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13199

Available Versions of this Item

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item