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  1. A false dichotomy in denying explanatoriness any role in confirmation.Marc Lange - forthcoming - Noûs.
    Roche and Sober (2013; 2014; 2017; 2019) have offered an important new argument that explanatoriness lacks confirmatory significance. My aim in this paper is not only to contend that their argument fails to show that in confirmation ‘there is nothing special about explanatoriness’ (Roche & Sober, 2017: 589), but also to reveal what is special confirmationwise about explanatoriness. I will argue that much of the heavy work in Roche and Sober's argument is done by the dichotomy into which they carve (...)
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  • Methods of Inference and Shaken Baby Syndrome.Nicholas Binney - 2023 - Philosophy of Medicine 4 (1).
    Exploring the early development of an area of medical literature can inform contemporary medical debates. Different methods of inference include deduction, induction, abduction, and inference to the best explanation. I argue that early shaken baby research is best understood as using abduction to tentatively suggest that infants with unexplained intracranial and ocular bleeding have been assaulted. However, this tentative conclusion was quickly interpreted, by some at least, as a general rule that infants with these pathological signs were certainly cases of (...)
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  • A New Model of Reasoning by Analogy.Shai Dothan - 2023 - Jus Cogens 5 (1):33-58.
    The paper suggests a novel methodology for determining the state of legal doctrine on a particular issue by legal scholars. This methodology is inspired by the philosophical field of phenomenology. In particular, the tool of eidetic reduction developed by Edmund Husserl is applied to reach inter-subjectively valid assessments of doctrine. The methodology developed here argues that scholars who wish to discover legal doctrine on a particular issue need to first define general paradigms that explain the relevant legal field. Then, they (...)
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  • 哲学の一般的方法としての「最良の説明への推論」.Ryo Ogawa - 2022 - Kagaku Tetsugaku 55 (1):1-1.
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  • Strong cognitivist weaknesses.Nathan Hauthaler - 2023 - Analytic Philosophy 64 (2):161-176.
    Marušić & Schwenkler (Analytic Philosophy, 59, 309) offer a simple and elegant defense of strong cognitivism about intention: the view that an intention to φ is a form of belief that one will φ. I show that their defense fails: however simple and elegant, it fails to account for various aspects about intention and its expression, and faces distinctive challenges of its own, including a dilemma and counterexample. These also undermine Marušić & Schwenkler's claim to a best-explanation type of account (...)
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  • Lässt sich die Induktion doch rechtfertigen? Eine kritische Diskussion von neuen Ansätzen zum Induktionsproblem.Claus Beisbart - 2022 - Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 76 (3):358-387.
    This paper discusses recent attempts to solve the problem of induction. Two broad strategies to escape Hume's fork can be distinguished. The first tries to localize the justification of specific inductions in uncontroversial empirical knowledge, e.g.mundane scientific knowledge (J. D. Norton) or perception (M. Lange). I argue that related attempts to (dis)solve the problem fail. The second strategy tries to put forward an argument in favor of induction. As a discussion of work by R. White shows, this argument can barely (...)
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  • Onko abduktio päättelyä parhaaseen selitykseen?Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2018 - Ajatus 75 (1):75-92.
    Charles S. Peirce luokitteli 1865 päättelyn lajit deduktioon, induktioon ja hypoteesiin, joista viimeksi mainittua hän luonnehti päättelynä vaikutuksista syihin tai päättelynä selitykseen. Hypoteesi on Peircelle induktion ohella tietoa laajentava päätelmä. 1890-luvun lopun kirjoituksissaan hän alkoi kutsua hypoteettista päättelyä uusilla nimillä ”retroduktio” ja ”abduktio”. Tässä vaiheessa Peirce kuvasi abduktiota tieteellisen päättelyn ensimmäisenä askeleena, mahdollisten arvausten esittämisenä, jonka tulokset on asetettava induktion kautta testeihin. Hänen tunnetuin kaavionsa abduktion loogiselle muodolle on vuodelta 1903: The surprising fact C is observed; But if A were (...)
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  • Turning biases into hypotheses through method: A logic of scientific discovery for machine learning.Maja Bak Herrie & Simon Aagaard Enni - 2021 - Big Data and Society 8 (1).
    Machine learning systems have shown great potential for performing or supporting inferential reasoning through analyzing large data sets, thereby potentially facilitating more informed decision-making. However, a hindrance to such use of ML systems is that the predictive models created through ML are often complex, opaque, and poorly understood, even if the programs “learning” the models are simple, transparent, and well understood. ML models become difficult to trust, since lay-people, specialists, and even researchers have difficulties gauging the reasonableness, correctness, and reliability (...)
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  • Paul Thagard e a inferência da melhor explicação.Marcos Rodrigues da Silva - 2017 - Cognitio 18 (1):125.
    Este artigo pretende oferecer uma apresentação à tradução para o português de “Inference to the Best Explanation: Criteria for Theory Choice”, de Paul Thagard. Neste artigo, Thagard assume a importância epistemológica do argumento da inferência da melhor explicação e postula três critérios para a escolha de teorias científicas: consiliência, simplicidade e analogia. Nesta apresentação desse artigo fundamental para o desenvolvimento da inferência da melhor explicação, reconstruímos, na primeira seção, a concepção de Thagard. Em seguida, na segunda seção, sugerimos algumas discussões (...)
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  • Robert Alexy and the Dual Nature of Law.Torben Spaak - 2020 - Ratio Juris 33 (2):150-168.
    Robert Alexy's claim that law of necessity has a dual nature raises many interesting philosophical questions. In this article, I consider some of these questions, such as what the meaning of the correctness thesis is, whether Alexy's discourse theory supports this thesis, and whether the thesis is defensible; whether Alexy's argument from anarchy and civil war supports the claim that law of necessity has a real dimension; and what the implications are of the use of moral arguments, such as the (...)
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  • Editorial.Stephen Braude - 2012 - Journal of Scientific Exploration 26 (1).
    Composer and musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky published a fascinating and delightful book entitled Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven’s Time (Slonimsky 1965). The book is a collection of what Slonimsky called “biased, unfair, ill-tempered, and singularly unprophetic judgments” (p. 3) about famous composers and their works. We find, for example, the Gazette Musicale de Paris on August 1, 1847, saying of Verdi, “there has not yet been an Italian composer more incapable of producing what is commonly called (...)
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  • The Implications of Near-Death Experiences for Research into the Survival of Consciousness.David Rousseau - 2012 - Journal of Scientific Exploration 26 (1).
    It is generally supposed by psychical researchers that evidence suggestive of consciousness surviving bodily death would always be compatible with the so-called 'super-psi hypothesis', according to which living-agent psi is wholly responsible for the evidence. In this paper, I argue that, granted how super-psi is supposed to work, a case can be made for certain near-death experience cases to be incompatible with the super-psi hypothesis. From such a base, the explanatory impasse between the super-psi hypothesis and the survival hypothesis can (...)
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  • Minimal abductive solutions with explicit justification.Rodrigo Medina-Vega, Francisco Hernández-Quiroz & Fernando R. Velázquez-Quesada - 2021 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 29 (4):483-502.
    Abductive problems and their solutions are presented by means of justification logic. We introduce additional meta-constructions in order to generate and compare different solutions to the same abductive problem. Our approach has three advantages: (i) it makes structurally explicit the solution to an abductive problem (as it has a syntactic nature); (ii) it gives a precise meaning to the notion of evidence; (iii) it provides clear definitions and procedures for the comparison of solutions that can be adapted to different needs.
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  • Hume on unobservable entities.Silvio Seno Chibeni - 2018 - Doispontos 15 (1).
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  • La teleología aristotélica como una inferencia a la mejor explicación: un análisis epistemológico del principio de finalidad en el libro II de la Física de Aristóteles.Andrés L. Jaume - 2013 - Agora 32 (2).
    El presente artículo examina los argumentos aristotélicos en favor de la teleología para poner de manifiesto su estructura argumentativa que, a juicio del autor, es una inferencia a la mejor explicación. Finalmente se intenta relacionar la estrategia aristotélica con el tratamiento actual que se ha hecho de la finalidad desde la Filosofía de la Ciencia.
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  • A Scenario Approach to the Simonshaven Case.Peter J. van Koppen & Anne Ruth Mackor - 2020 - Topics in Cognitive Science 12 (4):1132-1151.
    Van Koppen and Mackor offer a scenario‐approach analysis of the case. They first explicate their approach, linking it to inference to the best explanation and theories of explanatory coherence. An important distinction in their analysis is between explaining known facts and predicting novel facts. They claim that their approach is cognitively feasible and stays close to descriptive theories of evidential reasoning. They want to keep it informal, so that legal professionals can apply it.
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  • A Values-based methodology in Policing.Jens Erik Paulsen - 2019 - Etikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 1:21-38.
    Professional work is currently based on explicit knowledge and evidence to a greater degree than in the past. Standardising professional services in this way requires repetitive scenarios and might be seen as a challenge to professional autonomy. In the context of policing, officers perform a range of familiar tasks, but they may also encounter novel challenges at any moment. Moreover, police tasks are not well-defined. Therefore, many missions require police officers to rely on common sense, tacit knowledge or gut feeling. (...)
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  • Explanatory and Creative Alternatives to the MDL priciple.Ismael García-Varea & José Hernández-Orallo - 2000 - Foundations of Science 5 (2):185-207.
    The Minimum Description Length principle is the modernformalisation of Occam's razor. It has been extensively and successfullyused in machine learning, especially for noisy and long sources ofdata. However, the MDL principle presents some paradoxes andinconveniences. After discussing all these, we address two of the mostrelevant: lack of explanation and lack of creativity. We present newalternatives to address these problems. The first one, intensionalcomplexity, avoids extensional parts in a description, so distributingcompression ratio in a more even way than the MDL principle. (...)
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  • El estatus epistémico de Los experimentos mentales en ciencias fácticas.Bruno Borge & Guadalupe Mettini - 2018 - Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 59 (140):341-364.
    RESUMEN Un experimento mental en ciencias fácticas consiste en la representación de un escenario imaginario. A partir de la presentación de condiciones iniciales y la postulación de una situación hipotética o contrafáctica, se solicita al lector que realice mentalmente alguna operación, manipule ciertas variables o ponga en funcionamiento algún aparato o instrumento. En virtud de este ejercicio sería posible, en principio, obtener nuevo conocimiento acerca de algún aspecto del mundo natural. El debate acerca de las funciones de los experimentos mentales (...)
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  • Best Before Date Necessity: A Reply to Psillos.Eduardo Castro - 2019 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 50 (1):163-169.
    This discussion paper is a reply to Stathis Psillos’ paper “Induction and Natural Necessities” :327–340, (2017), published in this journal. In that paper, he attempts to refute David Armstrong’s solution to the problem of induction. To accomplish this desideratum, he proposes that the best explanation for our observed regularities is a sort of “best before date” necessity. That is, necessary connections may break down and are not by default timeless. He develops arguments against my :67–82, (2014) defence of the necessitarian (...)
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  • Collaborating agents: Values, sociality, and moral responsibility.John M. Doris - 2018 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41.
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  • Inferências eliminativas e o problema das alternativas não concebidas.Marcos Rodrigues da Silva & Daiane Camila Castilho - 2015 - Filosofia Unisinos 16 (3):241-255.
    O argumento da inferência da melhor explicação enuncia que dado que uma evidência necessita de explicação e dado que uma hipótese, baseada em conhecimento anterior verdadeiro, ofereceu uma melhor explicação do que suas rivais para, conclui-se que temos boas razões para acreditar que H é verdadeira. Este argumento é apresentado com a finalidade de apresentar razões em favor da confiabilidade da metodologia científica: a melhor teoria teria emergido num contexto competitivo no qual foram eliminadas teorias rivais. Para antirrealistas, porém, este (...)
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  • Even for objectivists, sleeping beauty isn’t so simple.Kai Draper - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):29-37.
    Writing collectively as the Oscar Seminar in 2008, John Pollock and several colleagues advance an objectivist argument for a 1/3 solution to the Sleeping Beauty problem. In 2011, Joel Pust raises a serious objection to their argument to which Paul D. Thorn, a member of the Oscar Seminar, offers a subtle reply. I argue that the Oscar Seminar s argument for 1/3 is unsound. I do not, however, defend Pust’s objection. Rather I develop a new objection, one that is not (...)
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  • Science and Ethics: Demarcation, Holism and Logical Consequences.Nick Zangwill - 2010 - European Journal of Philosophy 18 (1):126-138.
    I argue that attempts to demarcation ethics from science are not jeopardized by the fact that conjunctions of moral claims may have empirically verifiable logical consequences.
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  • Realism and the Epistemological Significance of Inference to the Best Explanation.Hamid Vahid - 2001 - Dialogue 40 (3):487-508.
    RÉSUMÉMalgré son usage très répandu, l'inférence à la meilleure explication a souvent été considérée avec suspicion par des théoriciens d'allégeances diverses. On lui a reproché à maintes reprises defaire reposer son recours à la simplicité et ses autres vertus explicatives sur des présuppositions métaphysiques douteuses. J'aborde ces questions, dans le présent article, dans le contexte d'une discussion large de l'usage de l'IME pour fonder notre croyance au monde extérieur. Distinguant entre la légitimité et l'efficacité de l'IME, je soutiendrai qu'elle constitue (...)
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  • Chimpanzee mind reading: Don't stop believing.Kristin Andrews - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (1):e12394.
    Since the question “Do chimpanzees have a theory of mind?” was raised in 1978, scientists have attempted to answer it, and philosophers have attempted to clarify what the question means and whether it has been, or could be, answered. Mindreading or theory of mind refers to the ability to attribute mental states to other individuals. Some versions of the question focus on whether chimpanzees engage in belief reasoning or can think about false belief, and chimpanzees have been given nonverbal versions (...)
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  • Explicating and Negotiating Bias in Interdisciplinary Argumentation Using Abductive Tools: PAPER.K. Laursen Bethany - unknown
    Interdisciplinary inquiry hinges upon abductive arguments that integrate various kinds of information to identify explanations worthy of future study or use. Integrative abduction poses unique challenges, including different kinds of data, too many patterns, too many explanations, mistaken meanings across disciplinary lines, and cognitive, pragmatic, and social biases. Argumentation tools can help explicate and negotiate bias as interdisciplinary investigators sift and winnow candidate patterns and processes in search of the best explanation.
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  • Empirismo construtivo e realismo ontológico.Rodolfo Petrônio Araújo - 2011 - Synesis 3 (2):88-116.
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  • An epistemic and dynamic approach to abductive reasoning: Abductive problem and abductive solution.Fernando R. Velázquez-Quesada, Fernando Soler-Toscano & Ángel Nepomuceno-Fernández - 2013 - Journal of Applied Logic 11 (4):505-522.
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  • Reasoning Processes as Epistemic Dynamics.Olga Pombo - 2015 - Axiomathes 25 (1):41-60.
    This work proposes an understanding of deductive, default and abductive reasoning as different instances of the same phenomenon: epistemic dynamics. It discusses the main intuitions behind each one of these reasoning processes, and suggest how they can be understood as different epistemic actions that modify an agent’s knowledge and/or beliefs in a different way, making formal the discussion with the use of the dynamic epistemic logic framework. The ideas in this paper put the studied processes under the same umbrella, thus (...)
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  • A Brief History of the Theory of Resonance and of its Interpretation.Valeria Mosini - 2000 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 31 (4):569-581.
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  • Explanation Arguments for Scientific Realism and Theism – Faulty or Restricted in Scope?Jacob Busch - 2010 - SATS 11 (2):161-180.
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  • Grades of Probability Modality in the Law of Evidence.Lennart Åqvist - 2010 - Studia Logica 94 (3):307-330.
    The paper presents an infinite hierarchy PR m [ m = 1, 2, . . . ] of sound and complete axiomatic systems for modal logic with graded probabilistic modalities , which are to reflect what I have elsewhere called the Bolding-Ekelöf degrees of evidential strength as applied to the establishment of matters of fact in law-courts. Our present approach is seen to differ from earlier work by the author in that it treats the logic of these graded modalities not (...)
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  • Abductive Reasoning in Peirce's and Davidson's Account of Interpretation.Uwe Wirth - 2005 - Semiotica 2005 (153 - 1/4):199-208.
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  • A Bayesian Approach to Informal Argument Fallacies.Ulrike Hahn & Mike Oaksford - 2006 - Synthese 152 (2):207-236.
    We examine in detail three classic reasoning fallacies, that is, supposedly ``incorrect'' forms of argument. These are the so-called argumentam ad ignorantiam, the circular argument or petitio principii, and the slippery slope argument. In each case, the argument type is shown to match structurally arguments which are widely accepted. This suggests that it is not the form of the arguments as such that is problematic but rather something about the content of those examples with which they are typically justified. This (...)
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  • Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy?Alan Gilbert - 1992 - Political Theory 20 (1):8-37.
    The government itself, which is the only mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable [with the standing army] to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure. Henry Thoreau, in “Civil Disobedience” It is easy to say — and often (...)
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  • Inference from the best systematization.Nicholas Rescher - 2016 - Mind and Society 15 (2):147-154.
    In recent decades “inference to the best explanation” has become a fashionable mode of reasoning. It is, however, highly problematic and flawed in ways that the article expounds. Instead, so it is argued, a process of inference from the best systematization of the relevant determinable facts is a far more plausible and promising procedure.
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  • Probability and rational choice.David Botting - 2014 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 18 (1):01.
    In this paper I will discuss the rationality of reasoning about the future. There are two things that we might like to know about the future: which hypotheses are true and what will happen next. To put it in philosophical language, I aim to show that there are methods by which inferring to a generalization and inferring to the next instance can be shown to be normative and the method itself shown to be rational, where this is due in part (...)
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  • Conductive arguments and the ‘inference to the best explanation’.Dean Goorden & Thomas Fischer - unknown
    I will demonstrate that conductive arguments are found in the inference to the best explana-tion as it is used in science. Conductive arguments, I argue, operate on two levels: the first is in the con-struction of hypotheses; the second is through the competition of hypotheses. By constructing arguments based on observations of facts, all possible factors are taken into account and a judgment is made based on our weighing of considerations: conductive argumentation.
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  • COI Stories: Explanation and Evidence in the History of Science.Michel Janssen - 2002 - Perspectives on Science 10 (4):457-522.
    . This paper takes as its point of departure two striking incongruities between scientific practice and trends in modern history and philosophy of science. Many modern historians of science are so preoccupied with local scientific practices that they fail to recognize important non-local elements. Many modern philosophers of science make a sharp distinction between explanation and evidence, whereas in scientific practice explanatory power is routinely used as evidence for scientific claims. I draw attention to one specific way in.
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  • La hipótesis del cuanto de luz y la relatividad especial¿ Por qué Einstein no las relacionó en 1905?Alejandro Cassini & Marcelo Leonardo Levinas - 2007 - Scientiae Studia 5 (4):425-452.
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  • Explanations make inconsistencies harder to detect.Sangeet Khemlani & P. N. Johnson-Laird - 2010 - In S. Ohlsson & R. Catrambone (eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
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  • Eschewing Entities: Outlining a Biology Based Form of Structural Realism.Steven French - 2013 - In Vassilios Karakostas & Dennis Dieks (eds.), EPSA11 Perspectives and Foundational Problems in Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 371--381.
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  • On the testability of ECHO.D. C. Earle - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):474-474.
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  • When weak explanations prevail.Carl Bereiter & Marlene Scardamalia - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):468-469.
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  • Explanatory coherence as a psychological theory.P. C.-H. Cheng & M. Keane - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):469-470.
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  • Two problems for the explanatory coherence theory of acceptability.L. Jonathan Cohen - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):471-471.
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  • Texting ECHO on historical data.Jan M. Zytkow - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):489-490.
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  • Coherence and abduction.Paul O'Rorke - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3):484-484.
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  • Explanation—Opening Address.J. J. C. Smart - 1990 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 27:1-19.
    It is a pleasure for me to give this opening address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy Conference on ‘Explanation’ for two reasons. The first is that it is succeeded by exciting symposia and other papers concerned with various special aspects of the topic of explanation. The second is that the conference is being held in my old alma mater, the University of Glasgow, where I did my first degree. Especially due to C. A. Campbell and George Brown there was (...)
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