James is polite and punctual (and useless): a Bayesian formalisation of faint praise
Harris, A.J.L. and Corner, A.J. and Hahn, Ulrike (2013) James is polite and punctual (and useless): a Bayesian formalisation of faint praise. Thinking & Reasoning 19 (3-4), pp. 414-429. ISSN 1354-6783.
Abstract
“Damned by faint praise” is the phenomenon whereby weak positive information leads to a negative change in belief. This seemingly conflicts with normative Bayesian predictions, which prescribe that positive information should only exert a positive change in belief. We argue that the negative belief change is due to an inference from critical missing evidence; that is, an implicit argument from ignorance. Such an inference is readily incorporated within a version of Bayes’ theorem incorporating the concept of epistemic closure. This reformalisation provides a general theoretical framework for the phenomenon that clearly outlines those conditions under which it should be observed, and its conceptual relationship with other argumentation phenomena.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | belief revision, Bayesian probability, argumentation, persuasion, testimony, pragmatics |
| School: | School of Science > Psychological Sciences |
| Research Centres and Institutes: | Birkbeck Knowledge Lab |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Jun 2015 08:43 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2016 13:39 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/12301 |
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