13.3.7: Inference to the Best Explanation

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Bradley H. Dowden
California State University Sacramento

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The berry pie is missing from the windowsill where it was cooling off this afternoon while it was raining. Now it's evening, and there's mud on the neighbor's shoes and a smirk on her berry-stained face. There's no indication anyone other than the neighbor took the pie. So, the best explanation of all this is that the neighbor took the pie.

That inductive argument was an inference to the best explanation. The next two chapters will explore in more detail this kind of inductive argument, but here is a quick comment about assessing the quality of inferences to the best explanation.

She’s not here, so she’s gone to the supermarket.

You could categorize this reasoning as an inference to the best explanation, but if you were asked to assess the quality of this argument, you’d immediately want to know what else you can assume. Did she say before she left that she needed groceries? Does she very often go to the supermarket when she is not here? Without proper answers to these questions, then your background information that people who aren’t here might be in zillions of other places would suggest that the quality of this argument is very low.