Return to search

Can Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation be Friends?

Bas van Fraassen argues that inference to the best explanation (IBE) is a probabilistically incoherent rule (1989). Anyone following IBE is open to being Dutch booked. According to one of the most interesting and popular responses to van Fraassen’s argument, van Fraassen misrepresents IBE in probabilistic terms. With the proper probabilistic representation, it is claimed, IBE is not inconsistent with Bayesian rationality constraints. Building on the work of IBE’s proponents, I first propose a minimal account of what makes one explanation better than another. I then argue that, even on this minimal account, the alternative probabilistic model of IBE does not work, and hence fails to successfully respond to van Fraassen’s argument.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:digitalarchive.gsu.edu:philosophy_theses-1060
Date19 April 2010
CreatorsStewart, Rush Tyler
PublisherDigital Archive @ GSU
Source SetsGeorgia State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourcePhilosophy Theses

Page generated in 0.0018 seconds