Abductive Inference to Theories

Abstract

Abstract This chapter introduces the method of theory-generating abduction. The epistemic challenge posed by theory-generating abductions lies in the assumption of unobservable ‘theoretical’ entities explaining the observables. However, by postulating suitable hidden powers, reaching from religious Gods to conspiracy theories, one can ‘explain’ any events whatsoever. Enlightenment philosophy must develop clear criteria demonstrating why these speculative ‘theories’—despite the post factum ‘explanations’ they provide—are not genuinely confirmable. The major criteria developed for this purpose are unification power and independent testability by use-novel content. The method of theory-generating abduction is first explained in the domain of science, and then applied to two fundamental epistemological problems: the justification of perceptual realism and that of memory beliefs. It is shown that the (partly unconscious) inference from the regularities of sensory experiences to the external reality as their common cause follows the same pattern as common cause abductions in science. Similarly, the correctness of our memory beliefs is abductively justified as the best explanation for their internal coherence. The major point of the pedantic reconstruction of these abductive inferences is not so much the justification of what is evident, but the ability to discriminate. We want to explain why various other beliefs that people extract from their subjective experiences—beliefs in UFOs, ghosts, psychic powers, or invisible aliens—cannot be justified by what they see. For this purpose one has to reconstruct the microstructure of warranted and unwarranted inferences from introspective experiences to external objects.