Abstract

This paper discusses an assumption on which explanationist accounts of the evidential support relation rely with a focus on McCain’s recent account. Explanationist accounts define the relation of evidential support in terms of relations of best explanation that hold between the evidence a subject possesses and the propositions she believes. Such a definition presupposes that the explanatory virtues of what best explains a subject’s body of evidence is indicative of its truth. Yet, recent cases offered in the literature against McCain’s account show that there is no straightforward way of vindicating this assumption.