The heuristic conception of inference to the best explanation.
An influential suggestion about the relationship between Bayesianism and inference to the best explanation (IBE) holds that IBE functions as a heuristic to approximate Bayesian reasoning. While this view promises to unify Bayesianism and IBE in a very attractive manner, important elements of the vie...
| Published in: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 175; no. 7; pp. 1745 - 1767 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Jul2018
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=129928820&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 129928820 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2018 vid: 175 iid: 7 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 129928820 10.1007/s11098-017-0933-2 ppf: 1745 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 502KB tig: atl: The heuristic conception of inference to the best explanation. aug: au: Dellsén, Finnur affil: School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland su: Heuristic Theory of knowledge Reasoning Inference (Logic) Hypothesis sug: subj: Heuristic Theory of knowledge Reasoning Inference (Logic) Hypothesis keyword: Absolute versus comparative probabilities Bayesianism Inference to the best explanation Inferential heuristics Working hypotheses ab: An influential suggestion about the relationship between Bayesianism and inference to the best explanation (IBE) holds that IBE functions as a heuristic to approximate Bayesian reasoning. While this view promises to unify Bayesianism and IBE in a very attractive manner, important elements of the view have not yet been spelled out in detail. I present and argue for a heuristic conception of IBE on which IBE serves primarily to locate the most probable available explanatory hypothesis to serve as a working hypothesis in an agent’s further investigations. Along the way, I criticize what I consider to be an overly ambitious conception of the heuristic role of IBE, according to which IBE serves as a guide to absolute probability values. My own conception, by contrast, requires only that IBE can function as a guide to the comparative probability values of available hypotheses. This is shown to be a much more realistic role for IBE given the nature and limitations of the explanatory considerations with which IBE operates. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2018. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2018 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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