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In this paper I adduce a new argument in support of the claim that IBE is an autonomous (indispensable) form of inference, based on a familiar, yet surprisingly, under-discussed, problem for Hume’s theory of induction. I then use some insights thereby gleaned to argue for the (reductionist) claim that induction is really IBE, and draw some normative conclusions.  相似文献   

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David H. Glass 《Synthese》2007,157(3):275-296
This paper considers an application of work on probabilistic measures of coherence to inference to the best explanation (IBE). Rather than considering information reported from different sources, as is usually the case when discussing coherence measures, the approach adopted here is to use a coherence measure to rank competing explanations in terms of their coherence with a piece of evidence. By adopting such an approach IBE can be made more precise and so a major objection to this mode of reasoning can be addressed. Advantages of the coherence-based approach are pointed out by comparing it with several other ways to characterize ‘best explanation’ and showing that it takes into account their insights while overcoming some of their problems. The consequences of adopting this approach for IBE are discussed in the context of recent discussions about the relationship between IBE and Bayesianism.  相似文献   

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Putting inference to the best explanation in its place   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
This paper discusses the nature and the status of inference to the best explanation (IBE). We (1) outline the foundational role given IBE by its defenders and the arguments of critics who deny it any place at all; (2) argue that, on the two main conceptions of explanation, IBE cannot be a foundational inference rule; (3) sketch an account of IBE that makes it contextual and dependent on substantive empirical assumptions, much as simplicity seems to be; (4) show how that account avoids the critics' complaints and leaves IBE an important role; and (5) sketch how our account can clarify debates over IBE in arguments for scientific realism.The general line of argumentation developed in this paper owes much to the most recent work of Elliot Sober on simplicity and confirmation; we want to acknowledge that dependence directly. Since writing this paper, we have also come across Yemima Ben-Menahem: 1990, The Inference to the Best Explanation,Erkenntnis 33, 319–44, whose general approach parallels our own. Helpful comments were made on earlier drafts by George Graham, Romane Clark, Yemima Ben-Menahem, and an anonymous referee.  相似文献   

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Pettigrew  Richard 《Synthese》2021,199(5-6):12407-12438
Synthese - In a series of papers over the past twenty years, and in a new book, Igor Douven (sometimes in collaboration with Sylvia Wenmackers) has argued that Bayesians are too quick to reject...  相似文献   

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Gregor Betz 《Synthese》2013,190(16):3553-3578
This article discusses how inference to the best explanation (IBE) can be justified as a practical meta-argument. It is, firstly, justified as a practical argument insofar as accepting the best explanation as true can be shown to further a specific aim. And because this aim is a discursive one which proponents can rationally pursue in—and relative to—a complex controversy, namely maximising the robustness of one’s position, IBE can be conceived, secondly, as a meta-argument. My analysis thus bears a certain analogy to Sellars’ well-known justification of inductive reasoning (Sellars, In: Essays in honour of Carl G. Hempel, 1969); it is based on recently developed theories of complex argumentation (Betz, In: Theorie dialektischer Strukturen, 2010a).  相似文献   

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A tacit assumption in the field of consciousness studies is that the more empirical evidence a theory can explain, the better it fares when weighed against competitors. If one wants to take seriously the potential for empirical evidence to move forward debates in consciousness studies, there is a need to gather, organize, validate, and compare evidence. We present an inference to the best explanation (IBE) process on the basis of empirical support that is applicable in debates between competing theories of consciousness. Our proposed IBE process consists in four steps: Assimilate, Compile, Validate, and Compare. Until now, the vast majority of the work in the field has consisted in gathering empirical evidence for theories i.e., the assimilation step. To illustrate the feasibility of our proposed IBE process, and what it may look like when applied in practice, we deliver a complete collection (the compilation step) of empirical support for the distinction between A-Consciousness and P-Consciousness and the overflow hypothesis. Finally, we offer an example of the validation step, by scrutinizing the interpretation of aphantasics’ performance on retro-cue paradigms offered in the literature in support of the overflow hypothesis. The compilation we deliver here is the first effort in the IBE process, the end result of which — hopefully — will be the ability of the research community to carry out side-by-side comparisons of theories and the empirical phenomena they claim to explain, i.e., the comparison step.  相似文献   

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Arguing for mathematical realism on the basis of Field’s explanationist version of the Quine–Putnam Indispensability argument, Alan Baker has recently claimed to have found an instance of a genuine mathematical explanation of a physical phenomenon. While I agree that Baker presents a very interesting example in which mathematics plays an essential explanatory role, I show that this example, and the argument built upon it, begs the question against the mathematical nominalist.  相似文献   

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Adolfas Mackonis 《Synthese》2013,190(6):975-995
This article generalizes the explanationist account of inference to the best explanation (IBE). It draws a clear distinction between IBE and abduction and presents abduction as the first step of IBE. The second step amounts to the evaluation of explanatory power, which consist in the degree of explanatory virtues that a hypothesis exhibits. Moreover, even though coherence is the most often cited explanatory virtue, on pain of circularity, it should not be treated as one of the explanatory virtues. Rather, coherence should be equated with explanatory power and considered to be derivable from the other explanatory virtues: unification, explanatory depth and simplicity.  相似文献   

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The ability to understand the goals that drive another person’s actions is an important social and cognitive skill. This is no trivial task, because any given action may in principle be explained by different possible goals (e.g., one may wave ones arm to hail a cab or to swat a mosquito). To select which goal best explains an observed action is a form of abduction. To explain how people perform such abductive inferences, Baker, Tenenbaum, and Saxe (2007) proposed a computational-level theory that formalizes goal inference as Bayesian inverse planning (BIP). It is known that general Bayesian inference–be it exact or approximate–is computationally intractable (NP-hard). As the time required for computationally intractable computations grows excessively fast when scaled from toy domains to the real world, it seems that such models cannot explain how humans can perform Bayesian inferences quickly in real world situations. In this paper we investigate how the BIP model can nevertheless explain how people are able to make goal inferences quickly. The approach that we propose builds on taking situational constraints explicitly into account in the computational-level model. We present a methodology for identifying situational constraints that render the model tractable. We discuss the implications of our findings and reflect on how the methodology can be applied to alternative models of goal inference and Bayesian models in general.  相似文献   

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Lutz  Matt 《Philosophical Studies》2020,177(7):1811-1828
Philosophical Studies - In this paper, I provide a novel explanationist framework for thinking about peer disagreement that solves many of the puzzles regarding disagreement that have troubled...  相似文献   

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Inference to the loveliest explanation   总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2  
Eric Barnes 《Synthese》1995,103(2):251-277
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Conclusion Tooley's speculative theory, I have tried to show, is beset with difficulties. I warned that this theory threatens to fail in its goal of illuminating the possible nature of a necessitation relation if it employs radical principles about parts and wholes and universals. Secondly, I argued that regardless of how we interpret the crucial phrase existing only as a part of, the speculative theory cannot solve the inference problem without appealing to such radical principles. Finally, I considered and rejected a version of Tooley's speculative theory that attempts to solve the inference problem using the Indiscernibility of Identicals.I conclude that the speculative theory fails. Tooley must fall back to the stipulative theory and live with the lack of an illuminating solution to the inference problem. But this is not to admit defeat. While it would be nice to have a more complete account of its workings, we may view the introduction of the necessitation relation as a theoretical posit, analogous to the positing of subatomic particles in physics to account for various data.I would like to thank Phillip Bricker for his persistent help with this paper. I would also like to thank David Lewis and an anonymous referee for Philosophical Studies for their comments.  相似文献   

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