Explanation as a Guide to Induction
Skip other details (including permanent urls, DOI, citation information)April 2005, Volume 5, No. 2, pp. 1-29
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Abstract
It is notoriously difficult to spell out the norms of inductive reasoning in a neat set of rules. I explore the idea that explanatory considerations are the key to sorting out the good inductive inferences from the bad. After defending the crucial explanatory virtue of stability, I apply this approach to a range of inductive inferences, puzzles, and principles such as the Raven and Grue problems, and the significance of varied data and random sampling.
