Realism and the limits of explanatory reasoning
In The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism. London: Routledge. pp. 200-211 (2018)
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This chapter examines issues surrounding inference to the best explanation, its justification, and its role in different arguments for scientific realism, as well as more general issues concerning explanations’ ontological commitments. Defending the reliability of inference to the best explanation has been a central plank in various realist arguments, and realists have drawn various ontological conclusions from the premise that a given scientific explanation best explains some phenomenon. This chapter stresses the importance of thinking carefully about the nature of explanation in connection with evaluating realists’ appeals to explanatory reasoning and inference to the best explanation.
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| Keywords | Scientific realism Scientific Explanation Inference to the best explanation |
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References found in this work BETA
Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World.Wesley Salmon - 1984 - Princeton University Press.
Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience.Carl F. Craver - 2007 - Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
Realism and Explanatory Perspectivism.Juha Saatsi - forthcoming - In Michela Massimi & C. D. McCoy (eds.), Understanding Perspectivism: Scientific Challenges and Methodological Prospects. New York: Routledge.
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