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Alien Abduction: Inference to the Best Explanation and the Management of Testimony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Peter Lipton
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Abstract

This paper considers how we decide whether to believe what we are told. Inference to the Best Explanation, a popular general account of non-demonstrative reasoning, is applied to this task. The core idea of this application is that we believe what we are told when the truth of what we are told would figure in the best explanation of the fact that we were told it. We believe the fact uttered when it is part of the best explanation of the fact of utterance. Having provided some articulation of this account of testimonial inference, the paper goes on to consider whether the account is informative and whether it is plausible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 2007 , pp. 238 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

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