Philosophy of Science by Alexander Bird

Author:Alexander Bird
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2011-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

Criticisms of Inference to the Best Explanation

Anti-realism is motivated by epistemic concerns. Theories appear to postulate the existence of things that we cannot observe. In the earlier parts of the chapter, when discussing instrumentalism, we saw that one response to this is to reconstrue the meaning of theories so that it is no longer the case that they imply the existence of unobservables. In this way the problem is supposed to be dissolved away. However, as we have seen, the reconstrual just does not work. And so later versions of anti-realism, like van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, take theories at face value. The response to the epistemic problem of unobservables is, in essence, to give in to it. We cannot know theories to be true and we should not believe them to be so; we should take a weaker attitude to theories, namely one of acceptance—believing them to be empirically adequate. This is clearly sceptical, but the trick is to show that this scepticism is limited; later in this section, I shall suggest that it is not. The argument between the realist and the anti-realist is now about the power of the epistemic apparatus of science. The realist thinks it is stronger than the anti-realist takes it to be. In particular, the realist thinks that Inference to the Best Explanation has the power to deliver knowledge of, or at least justified belief in, unobservables; the anti-realist denies this. Earlier on, I argued that the anti-realist cannot expect Inference to the Best Explanation to deliver grounds for acceptance if it does not also deliver grounds for belief. Some tools give you all or nothing. Now I want to turn to the anti-realist’s arguments for thinking that Inference to the Best Explanation cannot deliver good grounds for belief.

Van Fraassen points out that Inference to the Best Explanation can only be any good if we have reason to think that we have thought of the best explanation. While the evidence could allow us to make a comparative judgement among those theories we have considered, it cannot tell us whether the truth is likely to be among them. Indeed, argues van Fraassen, it is likely not to be. For there must be many theories, perhaps not yet conceived of, which explain the evidence at least as well as our best theory. Most of these will be false, so it is reasonable to conclude that ours is likely to be false too. And so, van Fraassen concludes, we should reject the rule of Inference to the Best Explanation.

In fact I agree with van Fraassen that there is no good rule of Inference to the Best Explanation. Earlier on I emphasized that there is no model of explanation or confirmation. Correspondingly, there is no rule of Inference to the Best Explanation. I shall reiterate the point in the final chapter, where I argue that there is no such thing as the scientific method. But to say that Inference to the Best Explanation is not a rule is not to say that it is no good at all.

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