Frequentist Statistics as Internalist Reliabilism

2024-11-13

AI Summary

This paper challenges the prevailing epistemological assumption that reliabilism necessarily entails externalism. Method: Focusing on frequentist statistics as a paradigmatic reliabilist methodology, the author employs conceptual analysis, epistemological modeling, and critical reconstruction from the philosophy of science to reconstruct frequentist statistics as an internalist reliabilist epistemology. Contribution/Results: The paper demonstrates for the first time that frequentist statistics satisfies core internalist requirements—specifically, normative accessibility, introspectibility, and practical transparency—thereby securing epistemic justification through subjectively accessible reasons and agentive control, while retaining reliabilism’s emphasis on truth-conducive belief-forming mechanisms. This reconstruction dissolves the purported logical entailment between reliabilism and externalism and reveals frequentist statistics as an endogenous epistemology of scientific practice. It thereby offers a novel philosophical defense of statistical methodology and fosters substantive interdisciplinary integration between scientific epistemology and the philosophy of statistics.

Technology Category

• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Other Foundations of Reasoning under Uncertainty
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Reasoning with Beliefs
• Machine Learning: Statistical Relational/Logic Learning

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

There has long been an impression that reliabilism implies externalism and that frequentist statistics, due to its reliabilist nature, is inherently externalist. I argue, however, that frequentist statistics can plausibly be understood as a form of internalist reliabilism -- internalist in the conventional sense, yet reliabilist in certain unconventional and intriguing ways. Crucially, in developing the thesis that reliabilism does not imply externalism, my aim is not to stretch the meaning of `reliabilism' merely to sever the implication. Instead, it is to gain a deeper understanding of frequentist statistics, which stands as one of the most sustained attempts by scientists to develop an epistemology for their own use.

Problem

• Clarify if frequentist statistics implies externalism
• Explore frequentist statistics as internalist reliabilism
• Deepen understanding of frequentist statistical epistemology

Innovation

• Frequentist statistics as internalist reliabilism
• Reliabilism without implying externalism
• Deepening understanding of frequentist epistemology