Can there be a Bayesian explanationism? On the prospects of a productive partnership

Abstract

In this paper, I consider the relationship between Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) and Bayesianism, both of which are well-known accounts of the nature of scientific inference. In section 1, I give a brief overview of Bayesianism and IBE. In section 2, I argue that IBE in its most prominently defended forms is difficult to reconcile with Bayesianism because not all of the items that feature on popular lists of "explanatory virtues"-by means of which IBE ranks competing explanations-have confirmational import. Rather, some of the items that feature on these lists are "informational virtues"-properties that do not make a hypothesis H1 more probable than some competitor H2 given evidence E, but that, roughly-speaking, give that hypothesis greater informative content. In section 3, I consider as a response to my argument a recent version of compatibilism which argues that IBE can provide further normative constraints on the objectively correct probability function. I argue that this response does not succeed, owing to the difficulty of defending with any generality such further normative constraints. Lastly, in section 4, I propose that IBE should be regarded, not as a theory of scientific inference, but rather as a theory of when we ought to "accept" H, where the acceptability of H is fixed by the goals of science and concerns whether H is worthy of commitment as research program. In this way, IBE and Bayesianism, as I will show, can be made compatible, and thus the Bayesian and the proponent of IBE can be friends.

Humean laws, explanatory circularity, and the aim of scientific explanation

“…And this seems problematic, as if e is helping to explain why e itself occurred. 5 As I mentioned before, Loewer (2012) has suggested that this circularity worry can be circumvented by noting that there are two different kinds of explanation occurring here. On the one hand, the Lorentz force law scientifically explains the occurrence of e, but on the other hand, e helps to metaphysically explain the lawhood of the Lorentz force law.…”

“…For example, according to the BSA, it must be part of a systematization of all the particular matters of fact that best balances simplicity and strength. 5 That is not to say that all cases of self-explanation are unacceptable. Perhaps in some outré time travel scenarios, for example, we would have to admit that self-explanation can occur.…”

“…Similar sorts of worries sometimes arise about the other explanatory virtues. For example, Cabrera (2017) argues that the virtue of precision cannot be appropriately conceived as truth-conducive, for the simple fact that a more precise hypothesis provides more information, and thus is less likely to be true, on probabilistic grounds, than a less precise hypothesis. In the most extreme case, we could compare the probabilities of two hypotheses H 1 and H 2 , where H 2 is strictly a precisification of H 1 .…”

A Verisimilitude Framework for Inductive Inference, with an Application to Phylogenetics

“…By treating these frameworks as normative, it is possible to get a better understanding of when and why, exactly, an inferential rule or principle may be expected to lead scientists towards the truth. In this way, philosophers have in recent years given likelihoodist or Bayesian accounts of, for example, inference to the best explanation (Cabrera [2017]), the comparative method in historical linguistics (Okayasu [2017]), parsimony reasoning (Sober [2015]), 'no-alternatives' style arguments (Dawid et al [2015]), and robustness analysis (Schupbach [2018]).…”

Cladistic Parsimony, Historical Linguistics and Cultural Phylogenetics

“…What sort of conclusion can be justified on the basis of IBE and its relationship to the most popular approach to theory confirmation, Bayesianism, is a complicated matter. See Cabrera, , for a discussion.…”