Culturas Cientificas (Apr 2018)

Abduction, Bayesianism and Best Explanations in Physics

  • Andrés Rivadulla

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 1, no. 1

Abstract

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This article claims the validity of abductive reasoning, or inference to the best explanation, as a practice of discovery of explanatory scientific hypotheses. Along the way to achieve this objective I present here a series of arguments that question the feasibility of Bayesianism as a theory of scientific confirmation. Having solved this issue, I resort to an episode of contemporary astrocosmology that I interpret as an eloquent example of the effectiveness of abductive methodology in contemporary theoretical physics.

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