"Confirmation, Probability and Logical Empiricism"

Confirmation and probability were the objects of much attention on the part of logical empiricists. Their concern with confirmation imprints the debate on cognitive significance. Once the problems raised by general sentences (laws of nature) and predictive statements showed the inadequacy of the verification principle, and a more liberalized version of empiricism came into play, it led immediately to confirmation and probability. A whole array of theories of qualitative confirmation and probability (i.e. quantitative confirmation) were put forward by logical empiricists. The article surveys such theories and their recent developments.