How to Theorize about Statistical Evidence (and Really, about Everything Else): A comment on Allen

Abstract

This is a comment on a paper by Ronald Allen, in which he criticizes my earlier work on statistical evidence, and the entire philosophical discussion of which it is a part. In response I make several broad methodological points - about the point of theorizing, about the use of intuitions about hypothetical cases, and about idealizations - and point out some more specific mistakes in Allen's discussion of statistical evidence.