How Explanatory Reasoning Justifies Pursuit: A Peircean View of IBE

Nyrup, Rune

doi:10.1086/683262

Cited by 43 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…The problem of making sense of the evaluation of the 'potential' of new theories and methods has recently generated an interesting philosophical literature about 'heuristic appraisal' (Nickles 2006) and the so-called 'context of pursuit' (Nyrup 2015;Straßer 2013, 2014). A similar study may illuminate the reasons for why some scientists may keep on thinking that the pre-existing, well-established disciplines are better suited to solve the recalcitrant problems, while others decide to move toward an emerging and potentially successful one.…”

Section: Specialty-incommensurabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific revolutions, specialization and the discovery of the structure of DNA: toward a new picture of the development of the sciences

Politi

2017

Synthese

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In his late years, Thomas Kuhn became interested in the process of scientific specialization, which does not seem to possess the destructive element that is characteristic of scientific revolutions. It therefore makes sense to investigate whether and how Kuhn's insights about specialization are consistent with, and actually fit, his model of scientific progress through revolutions. In this paper, I argue that the transition toward a new specialty corresponds to a revolutionary change for the group of scientists involved in such a transition. I will clarify the role of the scientific community in revolutionary changes and characterize the incommensurability across specialties as possessing both semantic and methodological aspects. The discussion of the discovery of the structure of DNA will serve both as an illustration of my main argument and as reply to one criticism raised against Kuhn-namely, that his model cannot capture cases of revolutionary yet non-disruptive episodes of scientific progress. Revisiting Kuhn's ideas on specialization will shed new light on some often overlooked features of scientific change.

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Section: Specialty-incommensurabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific revolutions, specialization and the discovery of the structure of DNA: toward a new picture of the development of the sciences

Politi

2017

Synthese

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“…However, concerns of this nature should be assuaged in that (1) the processes we theorize are consistent with extant background knowledge both within the motor carrier industry and, more broadly, from many disciplines, (2) the theory we put forward is relatively parsimonious (see Table ), and (3) our theory explains a wider array of empirical findings than other theories of owner–operator safety. Thus, our theory can, at minimum, be considered a promising candidate worthy of further pursuit (Laudan ; Nyrup ) and, more strongly, be viewed as the best explanation for the empirical evidence of owner–operator safety (Thagard ; Lipton ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling Alternative Theories for the Safety of Owner–Operators

Miller

Golicic

Fugate

2018

J of Business Logistics

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Motor carrier safety is an important concern of shippers, carriers, policy makers, consignees, insurance providers, and the motoring public. One aspect of carrier safety that has garnered substantial attention is whether carriers making greater use of owner–operators are more or less safe vis‐à‐vis carriers making greater use of employee drivers. Currently, conflicting theoretical predictions exist regarding the direction of this relationship. In this article, we offer a reconciliation of the alternative theoretical predictions by developing a coherent theory that merges sociological rational choice theory and theory regarding motor carrier safety. We subject our theory to empirical testing by fitting a series of seemingly unrelated regression models to a vector of safety measures tracked as part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program. Our results are consistent with our proposed theory of owner—operator safety and provide meaningful theoretical and managerial implications and directions for future research.

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“…At the very least, if it is rational to believe H1, 30 The views of Dawes (2013) and Nyrup (2014), both of whom sketch a deflated view of IBE, are similar to the one that I advocate below, although differing in the details. My approach, however, is unique in that I propose reconceiving the nature of IBE as a solution to the problem of sorting out IBE's relationship to Bayesianism.…”

Section: Acceptance Non-epistemic Values and The Goals Of Sciencementioning

confidence: 61%

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

Cabrera

2015

Synthese

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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.

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How Explanatory Reasoning Justifies Pursuit: A Peircean View of IBE

Cited by 43 publications

References 13 publications

Scientific revolutions, specialization and the discovery of the structure of DNA: toward a new picture of the development of the sciences

Scientific revolutions, specialization and the discovery of the structure of DNA: toward a new picture of the development of the sciences

Reconciling Alternative Theories for the Safety of Owner–Operators

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

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