Comparing Probabilistic Measures of Explanatory Power

作者:Schupbach Jonah N*
来源:Philosophy of Science, 2011, 78(5): 813-829.
DOI:10.1086/662278

摘要

Recently, in attempting to account for explanatory reasoning in probabilistic terms, Bayesians have proposed several measures of the strength of a potential explanation. These candidate measures of "explanatory power" arguably have interesting normative interpretations and consequences. What has not yet been investigated, however, is whether any of these measures are also descriptive of people's actual explanatory judgments. Here I present my own experimental work investigating this question. I argue that one measure in particular is an accurate descriptor of explanatory judgments. Then I briefly point to some implications of this result for the epistemology and the psychology of explanatory reasoning.

  • 出版日期2011-12