If semantics is the study of meanings, and the meaning of an expression e is understood as what speakers of the language must know use e competently, then a natural first guess is that the correct semantics of names will involve their referents. One might, initially, make the further supposition that the meaning of a name is just its referent. However, this sort of ‘Fido’-Fido view immediately ...

Linear regression is arguably one of the most widely used statistical methods. However, important problems, especially variable selection, remain a challenge for classical modes of inference. This paper develops a recently proposed framework of inferential models (IMs) in the linear regression context. In general, the IM framework is able to produce meaningful probabilistic summaries of the sta...

I defend the unpopular view that inference can create justification. I call this view inferential creationism. Inferential creationism has been favored by infinitists, who think that it supports infinitism. But it doesn’t. Finitists can and should accept creationism.

PURPOSE In communication disorders research, clinical groups are frequently described based on patterns of performance, but researchers often study only a few participants described by many quantitative and qualitative variables. These data are difficult to handle with standard inferential tools (e.g., analysis of variance or factor analysis) whose assumptions are unfit for these data. This art...