Hypothetico-Deductivism: Incomplete But Not Hopeless

Alleged counter-examples deployed in Park (2004) Erkenntnis 60: 229–240] against the account of selective hypothetico-deductive confirmation offered in Gemes (1998) Erkenntnis 49: 1–20] are shown to be ineffective. Furthermore, the reservations expressed in Gemes (1998) ibid] and (1993) Philosophy of Science 62: 477–487] about hypothetico-deductivism (H-D) are retracted and replaced with the conclusion that H-D is a viable account of confirmation that captures much of the practice of working scientists. However, because it cannot capture cases of inference to the best explanation and cases of the observational confirmation of statistical hypotheses, it is concluded that H-D cannot supply a complete theory of confirmation.