Confirmation

In this article I briefly introduce a Hybrid Theory of Induction (HTI) and illustrate the kind of work it can do for us. I do so by exploring a particular kind of causal inference in comparative group studies from the perspective of the HTI. I show how the HTI provides a useful common framework to understand ongoing debates, methodological guidance for practitioners and conceptual guidance in assessing the strength of our inductive inferences.

In this essay I examine Roche and Sober’s (R&S) thesis that explanation is evidentially irrelevant, clarify the nodal points of disagreement, and defend explanationism. To do this, I utilize William Lycan’s categories of explanationism (2002) and a distinction between per se explanatoriness and particular explanatoriness. These help show that even if there are cases where explanation identification does not raise the probability of a hypothesis, ferocious explanationism is not even in principle challenged by R&S. Further, R&S’ challenge to inference to best explanation proves too much and ultimately fails.

Frank Cabrera argues that informational explanatory virtues—specifically, mechanism, precision, and explanatory scope—cannot be confirmational virtues, since hypotheses that possess them must have a lower probability than less virtuous, entailed hypotheses. We argue against Cabrera’s characterization of confirmational virtue and for an alternative on which the informational virtues clearly are confirmational virtues. Our illustration of their confirmational virtuousness appeals to aspects of causal inference, suggesting that causal inference has a role for the explanatory virtues. We briefly explore this possibility, delineating a path from Mill’s method of agreement to Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE).

Replication of a finding is a sign – for some, the only sign – of scientific truth. Evidential discordance compromises truth, because discordance in scientific evidence means that a finding has not been reliably replicated. We distinguish between different types of evidential discordance, and single out persistent evidential discordance as a particularly serious problem for the epistemology of science. Building on Boyd’s (2018) notion of enriched lines of evidence, we propose a strategy for addressing persistent evidential discordance.