Dellsén, Finnur and Trpin, Borut (2025) Testing Abductions From Uncertain Evidence. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) is traditionally conceived of as a rule of inference, in which one infers to the hypothesis that provides the best explanation of one's evidence. But what if some of that evidence is uncertain? How, if at all, can the traditional conception of IBE be extended to handle this common class of cases? This paper presents a new general model for investigating rules of inference from uncertain evidence, and then applies this approach to evaluate several different ways of extending IBE to handle uncertain evidence. The model employs computer simulations in which inference rules receive rewards (penalties) for making correct (incorrect) inferences in randomly generated scenarios in which the evidence is uncertain to various degrees. The model allows us to move beyond reliance on intuitive or historical examples in evaluating how well different inference rules handle cases in which the evidence is uncertain.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Dellsén, Finnur finnurd@gmail.com 0000-0003-4989-4204 Trpin, Borut borut.trpin@lrz.uni-muenchen.de 0000-0002-1121-9388
Keywords:	Inference to the Best Explanation, Uncertain Evidence, Epistemic Caution, Evidential Robustness, Defeasible Inference, Computer Simulations
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Evidence
Depositing User:	Dr. Finnur Dellsén
Date Deposited:	24 Nov 2025 14:14
Last Modified:	24 Nov 2025 14:14
Item ID:	27291
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Evidence
Date:	2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/27291

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