Bayesianism and inference to the best explanation Valeriano IRANZO

ABSTRACT: Bayesianism and Inference to the best explanation (IBE) are two different models of inference. Recently there has been some debate about the possibility of “bayesianizing ” IBE. Firstly I explore several alterna-tives to include explanatory considerations in Bayes’s Theorem. Then I distinguish two different interpreta-tions of prior probabilities: “IBE-Bayesianism ” (IBE-Bay) and “frequentist-Bayesianism ” (Freq-Bay). After detailing the content of the latter, I propose a rule for assessing the priors. I also argue that Freq-Bay: (i) endorses a role for explanatory value in the assessment of scientific hypotheses; (ii) avoids a purely subjec-tivist reading of prior probabilities; and (iii) fits better than IBE-Bayesianism with two basic facts about sci-ence, i.e., the prominent role played by empirical testing and the existence of many scientific theories in the past that failed to fulfil their promises and were subsequently abandoned