Inference to the Best ExplanationHow do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to the model of Inference to the Best Explanation, we work out what to infer from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In Inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves. The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contrastive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of Inference to the Best Explanation has also been updated throughout and includes a new bibliography. |
Contents
1 | |
5 | |
7 | |
11 | |
Explanation | 21 |
Reason familiarity deduction unification necessity | 23 |
The causal model | 30 |
Failed reductions and false differences | 37 |
Explanation as a guide to inference | 121 |
Improved coverage | 126 |
Explanatory obsessions | 128 |
From cause to explanation | 132 |
Loveliness and truth Voltaires objection | 142 |
The twostage process | 148 |
Is the best good enough? | 151 |
Prediction and prejudice | 164 |
Causal triangulation | 41 |
Inference to the Best Explanation | 55 |
Attractions and repulsions | 64 |
Contrastive inference | 71 |
Explanation and deduction | 82 |
The raven paradox | 91 |
The Method of Agreement | 99 |
Bayesian abduction | 103 |
The Bayesian and the explanationist should be friends | 107 |
Contrastive inference revisited | 117 |
The fudging explanation | 168 |
Actual and assessed support | 177 |
Truth and explanation | 184 |
A bad explanation | 192 |
The scientific evidence | 198 |
Conclusion | 207 |
Bibliography | 211 |
Index | 217 |
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Common terms and phrases
accommodation actual explanation apply argue argument from underconsideration auxiliaries background beliefs Bayes's theorem Bayesian Best Explanation cadaveric hypothesis cause chapter childbed fever compatible consequences consider constructive empiricism contracted paresis contrapositive contrastive explanation contrastive inference contrastive questions deductive deductive-nomological model Difference Condition Division entails epistemic evidence example explain the contrast explanationist explanatory considerations explanatory virtues fact and foil Fraassen fudging explanation give guide to inference guiding claim Hempel hypothetico-deductive model incompatible inductive justification inductive practices inductive support inferential practices Kahneman likeliest likeliness loveliness mechanism Method of Difference Mill's methods miracle argument model of explanation Monash not-Q objection observed phenomenon plausible posterior probability potential explanation premises principles prior prior probability problem problem of induction raven hypothesis raven paradox realist reason to believe relevant reliable requires scientific scientists seems selection Semmelweis Semmelweis's suggests suppose syphilis theory true truth explanation underdetermination unobservable van Fraassen version of Inference