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Inference to the Best Explanation
Abstract
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.
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Citations
Cited by
Social Theory of International Politics
Wendt, A. (1999) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511612183 · Cited by 7,664
Mendelian randomization: genetic anchors for causal inference in epidemiological studies
Davey Smith, G., & Hemani, G. (2014) · Human Molecular Genetics · doi:10.1093/hmg/ddu328 · Cited by 4,677
Metaphysical Dependence: Grounding and Reduction
Rosen, G. (2010) · Modality · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199565818.003.0007 · Cited by 1,285
Seth, A. K., & Bayne, T. (2022) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41583-022-00587-4 · Cited by 880
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
(2024) · Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-23161-2_300700 · Cited by 819
Metadata
- Authors
- Lipton, P.
- Venue
- Routledge eBooks
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2003-10-04
- OpenAlex
- W2101114811
- Cited by
- 2,130
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 103.59
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Inference to the Best Explanation. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.4324/9780203470855
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Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
