Abstract
In a situation in which several explanations compete, is the one that is better qua explanation also the one we should regard as the more likely to be true? Realists usually answer in the affirmative. They then go on to argue that since realism provides the best explanation for the success of science, realism can be inferred to. Nonrealists, on the other hand, answer the above question in the negative, thereby renouncing the inference to realism. In this paper I separate the two issues. In the first section it is argued that a rationale can be provided for the inference to the best explanation; in the second, that this rationale cannot justify an inference to realism. The defence of the inference rests on the claim that our standards of explanatory power are subject to critical examination, which, in turn, should be informed by empirical considerations. By means of a comparison of the realist's explanation for the success of science with that of conventionalism and instrumentalism it is then shown that realism does not offer a superior explanation and should not, therefore, be inferred to.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achinstein, P.: 1983,The Nature of Explanation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Ben-Menahem, Y.: 1988, ‘Models of Science: Fictions or Idealizations’,Science in Context II, pp. 163–75.
Cartwright, N.: 1983,How the Laws of Physics Lie, Clarendon Press, Oxford, England.
Hacking, I.: 1983,Representing and Intervening, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
Harman, G.: 1965, ‘The Inference to the Best Explanation’,The Philosophical Review 74, 88–95.
Hempel, C. G.: 1965,Aspects of Scientific Explanation, The Free Press, New York.
Hempel, C. G.: 1966,The Philosophy of Natural Science, Prentice Hall, London.
Hempel, C. G. and Oppenheim, P.: 1948, ‘Studies in the Logic of Explanation’, reprinted in Hempel (1965), pp. 245–95.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1969, ‘Statistical Explanation vs. Statistical Inference’, in N.Rescher (ed.),Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 104–13.
Putnam, H.: 1975, ‘Explanation and Reference’,Philosophical Papers II, Cambridge, University Press, pp. 196–214.
Putnam, H.: 1978,Meaning and the Moral Sciences, Lecture II, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Sabra, A. I.: 1981,Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
Salmon, W. C.: 1984,Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
vanFraassen, B.: 1980,The Scientific Image, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
van Fraassen, B.: 1988,Laws and Symmetry, manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ben-Menahem, Y. The inference to the best explanation. Erkenntnis 33, 319–344 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00717590
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00717590