Inference to the Best Explanation - Couverture souple

Lipton, Peter

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0415100291 ISBN 13 : 9780415100298

Editeur : Routledge, 1993

Synopsis

How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to this work, we infer the hypothesis that would, if correct, provide the best explanation of the available evidence. Articulating the model of "Inference to the Best Explanation" requires an account of what makes one explanation better than another. Lipton distinguishes between the explanation best supported by the evidence - the likeliest explanation - and the explanation that would, if true, provide the most understanding - the loveliest explanation. He argues that an illuminating version of "Inference to the Best Explanation" must rely on the latter notion, and provides a new account of what makes one explanation lovelier than another. He does this by analyzing the structure of contrastive explanations, explanations that answer the form "why P rather than Q?". The analysis of contrastive explanation is then shown to support a strong version of "Inference to the Best Explanation" that reveals how explanatory considerations can be a guide to inference.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to the model of Inference to the Best Explanation, we work out what to infer from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In Inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves.

The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contrastive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of Inference to the Best Explanation has also been updated throughout and includes a new bibliography.

Biographie de l'auteur

Peter Lipton is Hans Rausing Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Date d'édition: 1993
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0415100291
• ISBN 13: 9780415100298
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 208
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible