Inference to the loveliest explanation

Barnes, Eric Christian

doi:10.1007/bf01090049

Cited by 39 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…I would emphasize strongly also that the term "mechanism" here should not be narrowly associated with a mechanistic, necessitarian, absolutely deterministic theory of the universe. 20 For an evaluation of these and other criteria suggested by Lipton, see Barnes (1995). search for truth and the search for understanding in a fundamental way. (Lipton 1991, p. 63) 21 Lipton suggests that the hypothesis that leads to the profoundest understanding may also be the likeliest to be true.…”

Section: Inference To the Best Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Barnes (1995) examines Lipton's account of inference to the loveliest explanation in detail. His article begins, however, with the assumption that abduction and IBE are the same: C. S. Peirce's discussion of 'abduction' is typically cited as the first attempt to argue that our willingness to infer that a hypothesis H is true is based on the judgment that H qualifies as a good explanation of the data which support it.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the distinction between Peirce’s abduction and Lipton’s Inference to the best explanation

Campos

2009

Synthese

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I argue against the tendency in the philosophy of science literature to link abduction to the inference to the best explanation (IBE), and in particular, to claim that Peircean abduction is a conceptual predecessor to IBE. This is not to discount either abduction or IBE. Rather the purpose of this paper is to clarify the relation between Peircean abduction and IBE in accounting for ampliative inference in science. This paper aims at a proper classification-not justification-of types of scientific reasoning. In particular, I claim that Peircean abduction is an in-depth account of the process of generating explanatory hypotheses, while IBE, at least in Peter Lipton's thorough treatment, is a more encompassing account of the processes both of generating and of evaluating scientific hypotheses. There is then a two-fold problem with the claim that abduction is IBE. On the one hand, it conflates abduction and induction, which are two distinct forms of logical inference, with two distinct aims, as shown by Charles S. Peirce; on the other hand it lacks a clear sense of the full scope of IBE as an account of scientific inference.

show abstract

Section: Inference To the Best Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

On the distinction between Peirce’s abduction and Lipton’s Inference to the best explanation

Campos

2009

Synthese

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, Lipton (1991, p. 61ff) has argued that in scientific abductions we do not prefer the likeliest explanation (i.e., that explanatory hypothesis which is most probable), but to the loveliest explanation (i.e., that explanatory hypothesis which offers the best potential explanation in terms of explanatory strength, precision, simplicity, etc.). On the other hand, Barnes (1995) has argued that in the examples discussed by Lipton the loveliness of the explanation goes hand in hand with its likeliness, while in those cases in which loveliness and likeness go apart, we usually do not prefer the loveliest but the likeliest explanation. One result of my paper which has a direct bearing on this debate will be that the evaluation criteria for abductions are different for different kinds of abductions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 93%

Patterns of abduction

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article describes abductions as special patterns of inference to the best explanation whose structure determines a particularly promising abductive conjecture (conclusion) and thus serves as an abductive search strategy (Sect. 1). A classification of different patterns of abduction is provided which intends to be as complete as possible (Sect. 2). An important distinction is that between selective abductions, which choose an optimal candidate from given multitude of possible explanations (Sects. 3-4), and creative abductions, which introduce new theoretical models or concepts (Sects. 5-7). While selective abduction has dominated the literature, creative abductions are rarely discussed, although they are essential in science. The article introduces several kinds of creative abductions, such as theoretical model abduction, common cause abduction and statistical factor analysis, and illustrates them by various real case examples. It is suggested to demarcate scientifically fruitful abductions from purely speculative abductions by the criterion of causal unification (Sect. 7.1).

show abstract

“…5 See Barnes (1995) for a sustained criticism along these lines directed specifically at Lipton. 6 See Douven (2011, sec.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

How Explanatory Reasoning Justifies Pursuit: A Peircean View of IBE

Nyrup¹

2015

Philos. of Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper defends an account of explanatory reasoning generally, and inference to the best explanation in particular, according to which it first and foremost justifies pursuing hypotheses rather than accepting them as true. This side-steps the problem of why better explanations should be more likely to be true. I argue that this account faces no analogous problems. I propose an account of justification for pursuit and show how this provides a simple and straightforward connection between explanatoriness and justification for pursuit.

show abstract

Inference to the loveliest explanation

Cited by 39 publications

References 17 publications

On the distinction between Peirce’s abduction and Lipton’s Inference to the best explanation

On the distinction between Peirce’s abduction and Lipton’s Inference to the best explanation

Patterns of abduction

How Explanatory Reasoning Justifies Pursuit: A Peircean View of IBE

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About