“Evidential Support First, Probability Second” – Shyam Nair (Arizona State University)
Friday, May 9, 2025
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Royce Hall 314
RSVP HERE
Join us on May 9, 2025 in Royce 314 for a colloquium with Shyam Nair, Arizona State University. The talk will take place from 4:00PM – 6:00PM with a reception to follow.
Evidential Support First, Probability Second
Is E evidence for H? Is E better evidence for H than E’ is for H’? These questions have been studied by approaches that make use of probabilities. They (i) provide an account of what Pr is intended to represent and (ii) on this understanding of Pr, claim that E is evidence for H iff Pr(H|E) > Pr(E). Though there are many differences among the approaches, they are all reductive accounts of evidential support: what it is for E to be evidence for H is understood in terms of whatever the theory says Pr represents where Pr itself is not a representation of evidential support. This talk is about how to accept that E is evidence for H iff Pr(H|E) > Pr(H) while rejecting reductivism and about why this matters.
Shyam Nair is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He is primarily interested in ethics, epistemology, and logic. His research concerns issues at the intersection of these fields.
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