Ward, Barry (2022) Informational Virtues, Causal Inference, and Inference to the Best Explanation. In: UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

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).

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Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Ward, Barry
Keywords:	Informational Virtues, Explanatory Virtues, Causal Inference, Inference to the Best Explanation, Mills Methods, confirmation
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Explanation
Depositing User:	Dr Barry Ward
Date Deposited:	31 May 2022 02:38
Last Modified:	31 May 2022 02:38
Item ID:	20702
Subjects:	General Issues > Causation General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Explanation
Date:	30 May 2022
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/20702

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