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ERIC BARNES

INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 1

I. INTRODUCTION

C. S. Peirce's discussion of 'abduction' is typically cited as the first attempt


to argue that our willingness to infer that a hypothesis H is true is based on
the judgement that H qualifies as a good explanation of the data which sup-
port it. 2 Gilbert Harrnan advocated this approach to inference by arguing
in his (1965) that enumerative induction is valid only when applied as a
special case of a more fundamental mode of inference he called 'inference
to the best explanation' (hereafter 'IBE'). We infer that the i + 1 emerald
will be green only when we judge that the best explanation of the greenness
of the first/-many emeralds is that it is a law of nature that all emeralds
are green. Thus Harrnan argued that a well known principle of inference
was plausible only because the inference it sanctioned was by way of a
judgement regarding how best to explain the given data. Inference, for
Harman, rested on considerations of explanatory virtue.
The problem, of course, was how to understand 'explanatory virtue'
i t s e l f - a problem that has received too little attention (since Thagard
1978) despite the growing literature on IBE. 3 Peter Lipton's (1991) book
Inference to the Best Explanation (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and
New York) contains the most detailed attempt to address this problem to
date. In perhaps the most typical case, inference for Lipton is grounded on
the virtue of the hypothesis qua explanation of the data, but there are cases
as well in which it is the data which explains the hypothesis, as the datum
that it is cold outside leads me to hypothesize that my car will not start
- Lipton calls such a case an 'inference from the best explanation'. The
directionality of explanation in the evidence/hypothesis relationship is not
essential to Lipton's version of IBE; what is essential is that the inference
is somehow driven by a judgement of explanatory virtue.
Lipton begins with the assumption that it is the aim of any explanation
to offer understanding. A good explanation, thus, is one which offers
substantial understanding of its explananda. Insofar as we are prepared to
judge a hypothesis likely because it is the best explanation of some data,

Synthese 103: 251-277, 1995.


© 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
252 ERIC BARNES

then, we are so prepared because the hypothesis offers the most 'potential
understanding' (discussed below) of the data. Lipton thus links the very
idea of explanatory virtue to the notion of potential understanding, a novel
but utterly plausible move.
Lipton's book compels us to consider again the fundamental nature of
explanation and of the understanding it aims to produce. Besides construct-
ing an account of IBE, Lipton elaborates a causal account of explanation
according to which one explains some phenomenon in virtue of citing
relevant portions of its causal history (cf. his account of contrastive expla-
nation, Ch. 3 - he does not claim that all explanations are causal). A causal
theory of explanation, moreover, is tied to a particular account of under-
standing - to understand a phenomenon is to know its causal basis (32) -
we will refer to this last claim as the Causal Thesis of Understanding. But
this raises an immediate problem for Lipton's project: it seems impossible
that we base our judgements of hypothesis likeliness on the degree of actu-
al understanding we judge that the hypothesis proffers. For one could say
of a hypothesis that it gives us actual understanding of an explanandum
only if one is already prepared to endorse the theory as a likely descrip-
tion of the explanandum's causes. But this makes judgements of proffered
understanding derivative from antecedent judgements of theory likeliness
- the reverse of Lipton's view of the relationship.
This misunderstands Lipton's IBE model. For his proposal is that our
liketiness judgements are grounded not on the actual understanding pro-
vided by the hypothesis (for this would indeed involve us in the above
circularity) but of the degree of 'potential understanding' the hypothesis
provides. A hypothesis offers a high degree of potential understanding with
regard to some explanandum, for Lipton, if the hypothesis would, if true,
provide a high measure of understanding of the explanandum - he deems
those explanations which offer a high degree of potential understanding
'lovely explanations'. Thus Lipton asserts that inferences are grounded on
judgements about the ability of theories to provide potential understanding
of explananda- and thus on judgements about the degree to which putative
explanations are 'lovely' in his sense. 4 Lipton deems his model 'Inference
to the Loveliest Potential Explanation' ('ILPE'). A fuller description of
Lipton's ILPE model will be given below. 5 For the moment, let us isolate
the key point that is to serve as the focus of this paper, one that I call his
Central Thesis (though he does not use this label):

Lipton's Central Thesis: The judgement that a hypothesis is likely, in some cases and to
some extent, is based upon a prior judgement of explanatory loveliness (where 'explanatory
loveliness' is identical to 'potential understanding' as defined above).
INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 253

Lipton's suggestion is that any interesting version of IBE must assume


the Central Thesis. 6 The aim of this paper is to determine how success-
fully Lipton supports this Thesis. In what follows I elaborate various key
portions of Lipton's ILPE model and consider his demonstrations of the
alleged truth of the Central Thesis, offering critical remarks along the way.
My criticisms amount largely to two basic objections: (1) while Lipton
often succeeds in showing that there is a 'match' between judgements of
hypothesis loveliness and judgements of likeliness, the latter judgements
can be better seen as arising from principles having nothing to do with
loveliness, and (2) there are multiple cases in which judgements of love-
liness and those of likeliness do not coincide. I conclude with an overall
assessment of the Central Thesis and of the idea of 'potential understand-
ing' on which the Thesis is based. My conclusion is that the Central Thesis
is false - to the extent that one agrees with Lipton's view that the Thesis
forms an essential component of any account of IBE, my analysis may be
applied against the tBE project in general. Let's begin by examining one
straightforward illustration of Lipton's program.

2, MILL'S METHOD OF DIFFERENCE AND LIPTON'S DIFFERENCE CONDITION

Lipton's first example of an inference whose plausibility is allegedly based


upon the explanatory loveliness ofhhe inferred hypothesis is Mill's 'Method
of Difference' (1904, Bk III, Chap. VIII, Section 2). Mill's 'Method of
Difference' is a recipe for making an inference in a specific kind of case.
Consider the case of match I and match 2, whose respective histories are
diagrammed below: both matches, let's assume, are of the same composi-
tion C (hence C1 and C2 below), and both were struck in the same manner
(S 1 and $2). The only relevant difference between the two histories, we
assume, is that match 1 was dry and match 2 was not (D1 and ,,~D2). Upon
striking, only match 1 ignites (I1 and ,-d2).
Match 1 Match 2
I Ct C2
Histories S1 $2
D1 ,,oD2
Effects I1 ~I2
Under these conditions, Mill's Method of Difference sanctions the infer-
ence that D1 is a cause of I1 (and more broadly, that dryness is a cause
of match ignition). In general, to find a cause of some phenomenon like
match ignition, we examine two cases: one in which the phenomenon
254 ERICBa~as

occurs, and a case in which the phenomenon does not occur but which is
otherwise largely similar to the first. In the ideal case, there will be only
one difference between the two histories. This will consist of there being
some event in the history which produces the phenomenon together with
the absence of an event of the 'same type' (in some natural sense) in the
history that fails to produce the phenomenon. Mill's Method of Difference
dictates that the event is a cause of the phenomenon.
Lipton's diagnosis of the plausibility of the Method of Difference is
based on his theory of contrastive explanation (Chap. 3). Lipton's account
of contrastive explanation contains his attempt to state the conditions for
an adequate answer to a contrastive why question, i.e., a question of the
form 'Why P rather than Q?' - Lipton deems P 'the fact' and Q 'the foil'.7
Such questions would include "Why did match 1 ignite rather than match
2?" and "Why did Lewis go to Monash rather than Oxford?" One may
explain why Lewis went to Monash (the fact) rather than his going to
Oxford (the foil) by pointing out that only Monash invited him. Had he
been invited by Oxford as well as Monash, the Monash invitation would
not have been explanatorily relevant to why he went to Monash rather than
Oxford (though it would have partially explained the Monash trip itself).
This is what Lipton calls his 'Difference Condition' for explanations of
contrastive phenomena: To explain why P rather than Q, we must cite a
causal difference between P and not-Q, consisting of a cause of P and the
absence of a corresponding event in the history of not-Q. (43, italics in
original). Thus one would explain why match 1 ignited rather than match 2
by pointing out that match 1 was dry but match 2 wasn't, and that dryness
is a cause of ignition - pointing out that match l's composition or method
of striking increased its propensity to ignite is not part of the explanation of
the ignition contrast, for these features held in match 2's history as well.
The point to appreciate, Lipton urges, is the "structural similarity"
between Mill's Method of Difference and Lipton's own Difference Condi-
tion. The Difference Condition functions as a criterion for a good explana-
tion of a contrastive phenomenon: a good explanation of 'that P rather than
Q' will do what the Difference Condition says it should do. Thus Lipton
counts the Difference Condition as establishing a criterion for explanatory
loveliness on putative contrastive explanations: putative explanations of
contrastive data (of the sort described by a fact/foil pair) that meet the
Difference Condition offer more potential understanding of that data than
those that do not (in fact, those that do not offer no understanding of the
contrast per se) - let us call this the 'Difference Condition criterion' for
explanatory loveliness. Now on Lipton's understanding of the Method of
Difference, what this inference rule directs us to do is, given contrastive
INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 255

data, to infer a hypothesis that would, if true, be a good explanation of this


data by the lights of the Difference Condition criterion. Lipton concludes
that Mill's Method of Difference derives from Lipton's Difference Condi-
tion criterion. Here is one case, Lipton concludes, in which a hypothesis
is inferred precisely because of its explanatory loveliness vis-a-vis some
explanandum. 8
My reply to Lipton's attempt to show that the Method of Difference is
grounded upon the Difference Condition is to pose the following question:
granting the clear structural similarity between the Method of Difference
and the Difference Condition, what is the reason for saying that the for-
mer is in any sense grounded upon or derivative from the latter? I find
no point in Lipton's discussion where he explains why we should view
the relation between them as one of dependence, rather than mere struc-
tura_l similarity.9 I suggest the following: the plausibility of the Method
of Difference does not derive from the Difference Condition qua criterion
of explanatory loveliness (nor vice versa); the Method of Difference qua
inferential principle and the Difference Condition criterion of explanatory
loveliness both strike us as correct because we are prepared to accept an
independent principle from which both derive: this is the general causal
principle o f ' same cause/same effect'. The intended version of this princi-
ple is as follows: if an event (or conjunction of events) cl is a cause of el
in the sense that cl induces the occurrence of el, then an occurrence of c2
(an event or conjunction of events intuitively of the 'same type' as c 1) will
induce e2 (an event intuitively of the 'same type' as el). Notice, first of
all, that if we accept the principle of same cause/same effect, the inference
sanctioned by the Method of Difference follows deductively in the ideal
case, for assuming a unique difference in the histories of, say, match 1
igniting and match 2 not igniting, this one difference must be causally rel-
evant to the ignition contrast - it is only this difference that could account
for match 1 igniting and not match 2. (If we did not assume this principle,
it would not follow inevitably that the unique difference played a causal
role, for the events that caused match 1 to ignite may have been matched
by events of the same type in match 2"s history as welt, but which failed
to induce ignition, and thus act as causes, in the latter case.) But likewise,
assuming this principle of same cause/same effect leads us immediately
to the Difference Condition qua criterion for contrastive explanations: to
inquire 'Why P rather than Q?' is to ask how causally prior events favored
the occurrence of P over the occurrence of Q - but to show this one must,
according to the Difference Condition, cite causes of P not matched by
events of the same type in the history" of not-Q. But such a citation works
to answer the why question just because we assume the same cause/same
256 ERIC BARNES

effect principle stated above: we thus know that causes in the history of
P for which corresponding events in the history of not-Q also exist will
be explanatorily irrelevant to the contrastive phenomenon - such shared
events will, on this assumption, favor the occurrence of P no more than the
occurrence of Q (as, e.g., the fact that both match 1 and match 2 were of
composition C favored the occurrence of 1 's ignition no more than 2's). If
we did not assume same cause/same effect, the Difference Condition would
be unmotivated, for the same sort of event could increase the propensity
of an effect of one type in one case but fail to do so in another case of
the same type (e.g., being of composition C could thus favor l's ignition
but not 2's). 'Shared events' could well be explanatorily relevant to a con-
trast, contra the Difference Condition. Hence it is the principle of same
cause/same effect that motivates (at least in part) the Difference Condition.
So, assuming that both the Method of Difference and the Difference Con-
dition are based upon a common independent principle about the world's
causal structure, there is no reason to see either principle as grounding the
other. In this particular case, I argue, Lipton's attempt to show that infer-
ence is grounded on explanatory considerations, and to reveal the truth of
the Central Thesis, is unsuccessful. But even if this criticism is correct,
we have by no means undermined Lipton's Central Thesis, for he provides
multiple independent points on its behalf. Let us turn to some of these
nOW.

3. LIPTON'S ILPE MODEL AND THE PROBLEM OF MULTIPLE DIFFERENCES

Mill's Method of Difference advises us to infer that C is a cause of some


fact where C is independently known to occur in the fact's history but not
in the history of a suitable foil, assuming that this is the only difference
between the two histories. In any actual case, however, there will surely be
more than one difference between the two histories, and some events in the
fact's history that have no corresponding events in the foil's history will
not be causally relevant to the fact. The problem is to say which of these
differences play the role of cause and which do not - this is 'the problem
of multiple differences'. The problem of multiple differences as it affects
Mill's Method of Difference also serves a pedagogical function in Lipton's
exposition, for it provides a framework in which he elaborates his ILPE
model (although his model is not limited to this framework alone). We are
ready to take a closer look at Lipton's attempt to illuminate the forces that
drive inference.
It is not his position, as noted above, that explanatory considerations
are the only factors that account for our inferential practices. Other criteria
INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 257

must be met by a hypothesis if it is to be a candidate for inference. First


of all, a hypothesis must be compatible with the totality of present obser-
vations (60-61) to be considered as a candidate. Applying this criterion
alone, of course, will still leave us with a tremendous number of possible
explanations of almost any pool of evidence, many of which would not
be considered serious candidates by reasonable people. Lipton presents
us with a model of inference that has two stages: given some evidence
E, scientists first select a number of possible hypothetical explanations
(compatible with observation) that seem to be plausible, or 'live options',
qua explanations of E; this Lipton deems the process of generation. At this
stage, we choose candidate explanations that seem to cohere with the total-
ity of our background beliefs. At the second stage, the process of selection,
scientists typically infer that one among the live options is the most likely
explanation of E. It is most clearly in the second stage that Lipton puts
his Central Thesis to work, for it is at this stage that he claims scientists
evaluate possible explanations as to their explanatory loveliness (although
he argues that the Central Thesis plays a role in generation as well (cf. pp.
t 19-t22). The explanatory loveliness of the putative explanations (which,
we recall, is just the degree of potential understanding such explanations
offer) is measured by the application of various criteria of explanatory
loveliness - one of which is the Difference Condition criterion encoun-
tered in the previous section. Differences will be deemed causally relevant
to the explanandum if the hypotheses that posit their causal relevance score
sufficiently high (in comparison with competing potential explanations) by
the lights of the totality of loveliness criteria. In the remainder of this sec-
tion we critically consider those criteria of loveliness that Lipton discusses
in detail, criteria which Lipton applies in constructing a solution to the
problem of multiple differences. The guiding question is - given multiple
differences between the histories of fact and foil, which of them should be
deemed causally relevant? 1°

3.i. The Mechanism Criterion

Among those differences compatible with the total evidence, Lipton argues,
we prefer those "that would mark causes we can link to the effect by some
articulated mechanism . . . " (118). Thus Lipton endorses the mechanism
criterion for explanatory loveliness: an explanation is more lovely the
more fully it describes the mechanism by which a putative cause brings
about its effect. So, given his Central Thesis, it is his suggestion that
(other explanatory virtues being equal) a hypothesis that has survived the
generation stage should be judged more likely the more fully it meets
258 ERIC BARNES

the mechanism criterion. We consider next why one might find this last
suggestion reasonable, and then examine it critically.
Lipton intends the mechanism criterion to figure in the following sort
of example. We take as our explanandum the fact that Harry hit Fido (a
dog) rather than Bozo (another dog). To determine the cause of Harry's
hitting Fido rather than Bozo we examine the histories of these two events
and check for differences, of which there will probably be many. The task
is to narrow down the list of differences to arrive at the true cause(s). Let's
consider two actual differences between the histories which ground two
possible explanations of Harry's violent behavior - one is that Fido but not
Bozo bit Harry (just before Harry hit Fido), and the other is that Fido but
not Bozo reminds Harry of a dog Harry had while a child. One possible
explanation, the Bite Hypothesis, claims that the cause of Harry's hitting
Fido rather than Bozo is that Fido, but not Bozo, had bitten Harry. The
other possible explanation, the Childhood Hypothesis, is that the cause is
that Fido, but not Bozo, reminded Harry of a dog Harry had while a child.
Now it will seem to most readers that the Bite Hypothesis is (given just the
information we have here) more likely than the Childhood hypothesis. This
is because there is a familiar mechanism that connects the event of one's
being bitten with a violent reaction like hitting: a person having suffered an
injury becomes angry or fearful and often strikes back. There is no familiar
mechanism that leads from one's being reminded of one's childhood dog
by another dog to one's hitting the latter dog (which is not to say that one
could not be imagined). Thus it would appear that the Bite hypothesis is
more lovely by the lights of the mechanism criterion - it would, if true,
offer more understanding than the Childhood hypothesis, which as it stands
would even if true leave us still puzzled as to why, precisely, Harry hit Fido
rather than Bozo. This is the reason, Lipton would presumably claim, for
our judging the Bite hypothesis relatively more likely than the Childhood
hypothesis.
This example might appear a nice illustration of the intuitive soundness
of Lipton's Central Thesis. Our tendency to regard the Bite hypothesis
as more likely does seem to derive from the existence of the familiar
mechanism linking dog bites to dog hits by way of a common psychological
disposition - and it is this latter mechanism that seems to make the Bite
hypothesis a richer source of understanding as well. So it would seem that
judgements of likeliness are grounded on judgements of likeliness at least
in cases like these. But I believe this appearance of soundness is an illusion.
I would first argue that it is a mistake to think of the Bite hypothesis itself
as offering any more potential understanding of Harry's behavior than the
Childhood hypothesis - what does offer substantial understanding is the
INFERENCE 'I'(3 THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 259

conjunction of the Bite hypothesis and the mechanism mentioned above


(let's call it mechanism M), for this conjunction provides a more detailed
possible causal history" of the explanandum than either the Bite hypothesis
or the Childhood hypothesis individually. Lipton could thus argue that the
Bite hypothesis + mechanism M is more lovely, and thus more likely, than
the Childhood hypothesis alone. 11
It is a mistake, however, to attribute the greater likeliness of the con-
junction 'Bite Hypothesis & M' to its greater loveliness. Note the fact that
the mechanism itself is 'familiar' - there is substantial evidence that this
sort of causal event sequence occurs frequently, i.e., that events like dog
bites tend all too typically to provoke violent reactions in persons. It is,
I suggest, this independent evidence for tile common instantiation of the
mechanism type in other similar cases that grounds our judgement that
'Bite hypothesis & M' is likely true - for our knowledge of how common
this type of mechanism is simply amounts to independent evidence that
the Bite hypothesis is true - that bites cause hits. We need not appeal to
the greater explanatory loveliness of the Bite + mechanism M hypothesis
to explain its greater likeliness.
Lipton might admit to the existence of such independent evidence but
still maintain that the greater loveliness of the Bite hypothesis + mechanism
M grounds its greater likeliness, if only in part - the Central Thesis is not
incompatible with there being other reasons for which hypotheses are
judged likely. How are we to convince ourselves that the Central Thesis
is not at work here? Let's consider the Childhood hypothesis again. This
hypothesis so far has proven explanatorily unlovely just because there is
no available mechanism which links the fact that Fido reminded Harry of
a dog Harry had while a child with Harry's hitting Fido. But if this is the
problem with the Childhood hypothesis, let us simply conjecture a possible
mechanism to remedy this deficiency. Let us conjecture (and assume no
independent evidence for the claim) that Harry's childhood dog befriended
Harry's worst enemy when Harry was five years old. (Here we make use
of the fact that Lipton's model allows us to consider 'inferred differences'
in determining causes, cf. fn 8.) Harry never forgave the ingrate canine,
but felt obliged throughout his childhood to repress his hatred for the
dog. Seeing Fido brought back all the painful memories, let's say, which
overwhelmed him past the point of all control, and Harry hit Fido. Now,
the Childhood hypothesis + this mechanism (let's call it mechanism M r)
clearly meets the mechanism criterion, for it supplies a detailed causal story
about how the putative cause brought about the effect - this conjunction is
now, it seems to me, just as lovely by the mechanism criterion as the Bite
hypothesis + mechanism M. But the Childhood hypothesis + mechanism
260 ERIC BARNES

M' will not be judged as likely. This is just because the mechanism is
one for which there is no independent evidence of the sort we had for
the bite mechanism M - there is no common, independently well known
sequence of events typified by those we imagine to constitute mechanism
M'. This establishes that it is the independent evidence for the typicality
of the mechanism type, and not just the reference to a mechanism per se,
that grounds the enhanced probability of the Bite hypothesis. I conclude
that the mechanism criterion for explanatory loveliness cannot itself serve
as criterion for likeliness, and thus that Lipton's analysis here does not
support the Central Thesis.

3.2. The Precision Criterion

Lipton also proposes a precision criterion for explanatory loveliness: an


explanation is more lovely the more precise details of the explanandum
the explanation entails. Thus an explanation of why Joe caught a cold
which entails that Joe caught a cold precisely where and when he did, and
what his symptoms were down to the average number of sneezes per hour,
would be a more lovely explanation than one which simply entailed that
he caught the cold without entailing such details. The former explanation,
Lipton plausibly holds, would if true supply greater understanding of the
exptanandum - for of course it manages to entail the explanandum in
precise terms just because it describes its relevant causal history in greater
detail. The question now is why Lipton believes that explanations that are
lovely by this criterion are to this extent likelier than those that do not - a
question Lipton does not seem to me to squarely address. It is not difficult,
however, to see why Lipton might hold this. It is a well known fact that
theories that make precise predictions are more strongly confirmed when
those predictions are confirmed than theories that successfully make only
imprecise predictions. The reason for this is that precise predictions possess
a low prior probability simply in virtue of being precise. For example, the
prediction that I will meet a person who is precisely 6~1.72" tomorrow is
more precise, and therefore less likely, than the prediction that I will meet a
person over 6 ~tall. If I were to successfully predict the more precise claim
this would more greatly impress you with my powers of prognostication
than if I were to merely make the vague prediction successfully. So it
may seem that this attempt to ground likeliness judgements on explanatory
loveliness - measured by the precision criterion - is plausible.
As usual, I disagree. It is of course true that successful predictions
with low prior probability do more greatly confirm the hypotheses that
entail them than predictions with high prior probability - but to explain
this well known fact we need not refer to the explanatory loveliness of
1NFERETqCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 261

such hypotheses at all, That a prediction entailed by some hypothesis has


low prior probability simply means that the prediction is unlikely to be
true unless the hypothesis itself should turn out true - that the prediction
is confirmed thus to that extent confirms the hypothesis. Readers need
not be reminded that this point is enshrined in Bayes' Theorem, which
makes the posterior probability of some hypothesis h on evidence e (i.e.,
the probability that h is true assuming e and background beliefs) inversely
proportional to the prior probability of e (the probability that e is true
assuming just background beliefs). (For discussion see Howson and Urbach
1989, 86-88,) But this point holds regardless of whether h offers any
potential understanding of e, or e of h - the point is a purely probabilistic
one. My claim to possess powers of prognostication would not explain
the fact that I met a person exactly 6r1.75" (after predicting I would) nor
would the meeting explain my having powers of prognostication. But the
meeting would strongly confirm the claim that I possess such powers - for
reasons just explained. ~2
I thus would claim that the fact that a hypothesis counts as a lovely
explanation in virtue of meeting the precision criterion is not itself a rea-
son for regarding the hypothesis as likely. To see the point more clearly,
imagine a possible explanation for some precisely described explanandum
- but that the possible explanation is purely conjectural. Let's take as our
explanandum, e.g., the fact that the pencil resting on my desk is 5.1827465
inches long and weighs 2.0000003 ounces. It would require nothing more
than a lively imagination to fabricate an elaborate story, consistent with
our observations and background beliefs (and fully meeting the mecha-
nism criterion, for that matter) which described precisely how the pencil
was constructed at the factory, involving detailed conjectures about the
manufacturing machinery, etc., and told precisely how the pencil has since
been sharpened, etc., which all culminated in the pencil having just these
dimensions. Now Lipton seems to be committed to the consequence that
this elaborate story ought to be regarded as likely, for it perfectly meets
the mechanism and precision requirements for explanatory loveliness, and
is consistent with all my observations and background beliefs (I did not
observe the history of the pencil before this week, and my background
beliefs entail that it was manufactured at some factory, was sharpened,
etc.). But this position is untenable - the elaborate story is hopelessly
improbable, in part, for the very reason of being so precise! I conclude
that the fact that a hypothesis meets the precision criterion of loveliness
itself provides no reason for regarding the hypothesis as likely, contra the
Central Thesis.
262 ERICB~NF.S

3.3. The Unification Criterion

Sir Kenelm Digby proclaimed in the seventeenth century that a sword


cut could be cured by rubbing a certain 'sympathetic powder' on the
offending sword after the wound had been inflicted. (Gjertson 1989, 108-
109, cited by Lipton, 117). As it happened, there was evidence supporting
this hypothesis, for sword fight victims who were treated by the sympathetic
powder technique actually recovered more quickly than victims who were
treated by the established therapies of the seventeenth century. Of course,
the reason for the contrast in recovery rates, we now believe, was simply
that the established therapies were more deleterious to wounds than they
were helpful.
The sympathetic powder explanation of the contrast in healing rates
would of course today be regarded as indisputably unlikely. Lipton argues
that this unlikeliness can be accounted for by noting that the sympathetic
powder explanation violates yet another criterion of explanatory loveli-
ness. He notes that to accept the sympathetic powder explanation as true
would be to posit a completely new sort of phenomenon - one which
exhibits profound tracking ability as it transmits therapeutic causes at a
distance. Such a phenomenon could not be reduced to, explained in terms
of or otherwise suitably related to those theories now accepted by scien-
tists. Because it posits a brand new phenomenon, the sympathetic powder
explanation would, if accepted as true, to some extent 'de-unify' our scien-
tific picture of the world. But to de-unify our scientific picture of the world
is, according to some, to diminish our overall understanding of the world.
Thus Lipton holds out another criterion by which explanatory loveliness
is to be measured, the unification criterion: an explanation is more lovely
to the extent that it does not posit fundamentally new types of phenomena.
Lipton himself does not discuss the rationale for this position, but refers
to Friedman's (1974) which does. 13 It is worth our while to take a look at
Friedman's views.
Friedman's concern in his 1974 paper is not with inference at all but
with explanation. It is often claimed that an explanandum E is rendered
understood when E is reduced to some explaining theory T, as, e.g., the
Boyle-Charles law is rendered understood by its being reduced to the
kinetic theory of gases. But where T entails E, the mere reduction of E
to T by itself does not, for Friedman, amount to a gain in understanding
at all. All that has been done, Friedman claims, is that we have "replaced
one brute fact with another" (1974, 14). The point is that this replacement
leaves us with one fundamental mystery, which is apparently just what we
began with. Friedman does believe, e.g., that the kinetic theory of gases
increases our understanding of gases, but this is because the successful
INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 263

reduction of the Boyle-Charles law is not all the kinetic theory did. It
also provided reductions of other empirical gas phenomena that were pre-
viously mysterious, including Graham's law of diffusion and facts about
specific heat capacities. The kinetic theory, Friedman concludes, "offers a
significant unification in what we have to accept. Where we once had three
independent brute facts ... we now have only one - that molecules obey
the laws of mechanics" (1974, 14-15). It is ultimately this reduction in the
total number of unexplained facts that Friedman thinks is the mechanism by
which scientific understanding is increased. Friedman would endorse what
I call the Unificationist Thesis of Understanding, which asserts that our
overall understanding of the world is inversely proportional to the number
of phenomena that scientists must accept as unexplained. 14 The Unifica-
tionist Thesis of Understanding has a clear implication for the nature of
scientific explanation: to say of some theory that it is a good explanation is
not to say that it provides a lot of (relevant) causal history of some partic-
ular explanandum (as the Causal Thesis of Understanding would entail),
but that adopting the theory reduces the total number of unexplained facts
in our world picture, as the adoption of the kinetic theory of gases replaced
three unexplained facts about gases with one.
Returning now to Lipton's treatment of the sympathetic powder expla-
nation, it is fairly clear how he means to apply Ffiedman's account of
explanatory unification. To posit the sympathetic powder explanation
would, as noted, increase the number of fundamental mysteries in the
world, for it would posit a phenomenon that could not be reduced to those
phenomena already accepted as real. Assuming the only phenomenon the
sympathetic powder explanation could explain is the improved healing rate
in those treated by the powder method, this posit would merely replace one
brute fact with another. 15 But to increase the total number of mysteries is,
by the lights of the Unificationist Thesis of Understanding, to decrease our
overall understanding of the world. Thus the sympathetic powder expla-
nation does poorly by the unification criterion of explanatory loveliness,
which asserts that those theories are more lovely that serve to maximize
the unified status of our world picture. But the powder explanation is
also unlikely - Lipton's position is that the unloveliness accounts for the
unlikeliness.
As with the other loveliness criteria, Lipton's attempt to convince us
that failure to meet this criterion provides a ground for a judgement of
unlikeliness leaves itself open to the charge that the unlikeliness may be
accounted for in independent ways. As to why we now find the sympathetic
powder explanation unlikely, let us note that it is strongly disconfirmed
by the totality of existing data, which provides extensive evidence that
264 ERIC BARNES

causes of the sort posited by the powder explanation (action at a distance


causing events like wound healings) do not exist. If such causes were
real, it seems highly probable that they would have revealed themselves
elsewhere by now - given that no such causes have ever been discovered,
it seems highly unlikely that they exist at all. Lipton could of course insist
that this disconfirming evidence itself is to be construed in explanationist
terms (cf. his account of 'disconfirmation by explanatory failure' (79-86)),
but the point for the moment is that the unlikeliness judgement regarding
the powder explanation can be easily accounted for without reference to
its de-unifying effect.
Perhaps Lipton could agree that the powder explanation is disconfirmed
by the totality of existing data but is also disconfirmed in virtue of its de-
unifying effect, although I for one admit I fail to grasp why we should
accept the latter claim as true. To make my point I would note Lipton's
own example of conspiracy theories: "By showing that many apparently
unrelated events flow from a single source and many apparent coincidences
are really related, [a conspiracy] theory may have considerable explanatory
power. If only it were true, it would provide a very good explanation.
That is, it is lovely. At the same time, such an explanation may be very
unlikely, accepted only by those whose ability to weigh evidence has been
tilted by paranoia" (62). Lipton cites conspiracy theories as one point
where judgements of loveliness and likeliness diverge, and with admirable
candor seems willing to admit that such cases are among those the Central
Thesis does not cover (for recall, the Thesis claims that likeliness rests on
loveliness 'in some cases and to some extent'). But why should we not
count such conspiracy theories as straightforward counterexamples to his
position that loveliness in any case provides a ground for likeliness, unless
the unlikeliness of conspiracy theories can be accounted for in terms of
their failing to meet other loveliness criteria? But which criteria would
these be? They are often compatible with observation, with background
belief, often do beautifully in terms of mechanism and precision, and may
well posit no fundamentally new sorts of phenomena. 16
Although Lipton refers approvingly to Friedman's 1974 paper, Lipton
does not make mention of the fact that the Unificationist Thesis of Under-
standing that Friedman in effect endorses differs radically from the Causal
Thesis of Understanding with which Lipton otherwise allies himself. For
one thing, Friedman argues that the understanding is not local but global,
viz, what scientists seek to understand is not primarily individual phenom-
ena but the world as a whole - it is global and not local understanding that
the unificationist criterion measures. The Causal Thesis is most famously
applied in the name of advancing local understanding per se. More crit-
INFERENCETO THE LOVELIESTEXPLANATION 265

ically, the Unificationist Thesis and Causal Thesis are ultimately at odds
with one another, and thus cannot be easily conjoined (despite Salmon's
(I989, 180-5) and (1990) argument to the contrary). To see this, imagine
three independent unexplained phenomena el, e2, and e3. If we should
produce a single causal basis C that provided an explanation for each of
the three a unificationist would allow that C represents a genuine gain in
understanding, for we have reduced the number of unexplained facts from
three to one. But let us consider a different turn of events: suppose that
el, e2, and e3 are each actually the result of separate causal bases, C1,
C2, and C3 respectively (and that these three bases don't function, as far
as we know, as the causes of other known phenomena). Now, does the
adoption of CI&C2&C3 amount to a gain in understanding? Patently the
unificationist must deny any such gain, for three facts have merely been
replaced with three other facts, and no gain in unification has taken place.
But the proponent of the Causal Thesis must view the adoption of the con-
junction as representing a gain in understanding, for the conjunction truly
reveals the causal history of the three phenomena, and any time relevant
causal history is revealed, the Causalist will hold that understanding has
been procured. So the Unificationist and Causal Theses diverge in this
case - surely it is the case, moreover, that it is the Causal Thesis that is on
the side of common sense, as the conjunction surely does offer substantial
understanding! As I have argued elsewhere, and on independent grounds
(cf. Barnes 1992a, b), the Unificationist Thesis of Understanding should be
abandoned. I thus find the unificationist criterion of explanatory loveliness
objectionable qua measure of potential understanding, as well as rejecting
the claim that de-unifying theories are ipso facto unlikely.

3.4. The Elegance and Simplicity Criteria

Although Lipton does not develop the suggestion in detail, he does remark
that two criteria of explanatory loveliness are the features of"elegance and
simplicity" (68, 71). Lipton thus proposes to account for the undeniable
role of such aesthetic criteria in theory choice by committing himself to
the position that a theory offers more potential understanding of the world
the more fully its meets these aesthetic criteria - and then applying the
Central Thesis.
My reply: setting aside the notoriously complex issue of how to spell out
the notions of 'elegance' and 'simplicity', I do not understand why Lipton
thinks that theories that are elegant or simple offer more potential under-
standing of their explananda, and are thus more lovely in Lipton's sense,
than theories that lack these qualities. Complex and inelegant theories often
offer rich understanding, where causal histories of explananda happen to be
266 E~C BARNES

messy and complicated (consider explananda like 'Joe eventually married


Sally' or 'World War II ended in 1945'). Lipton fails to establish any clear
link between elegance or simplicity and potential understanding. 17

4. THOUGHTS ON LIFFON'S CENTRAL THESIS

The aim of this paper is to determine how strongly Lipton supports his
Central Thesis that a judgement that a hypothesis is likely is grounded -
at least to some extent - upon an antecedent judgement of explanatory
loveliness, viz., a judgment o f potential understanding. We have examined
a number of cases of particular inferences in which Lipton claims that the
truth of his Central Thesis is revealed. In some of these cases, the argument
explicit or implicit in his presentation seems to be of this nature: hypothe-
ses that are intuitively likely are also those that are sanctioned in terms
relating to explanatory loveliness. The assumption that likeliness rests on
loveliness thus leads to the true conclusion that such hypotheses are to be
inferred. The Central Thesis, so Lipton argues, is thus confirmed because
it is a hypothesis that leads to true consequences about which likeliness
judgements we actually make. While this sort of empirical argument for
the Central Thesis might seem a little unusual in our present philosophical
context, there is no denying it possesses some force.
I have throughout this paper repeatedly posed the same question to
Lipton: given that there is at least a partial match between our judgements
of loveliness and our judgements of likeliness, what is the reason for
thinking that it is the loveliness judgements that provide the basis for the
likeliness judgements? Granted, if the Central Thesis is true, then m a n y
of our actual inferential practices are to be expected, but even if it is
the case that loveliness judgements drive likeliness judgements in human
subjects, is there any reason to believe that loveliness criteria are actually
truth conducive? Lipton seems to raise this very critical question (which
he deems 'Voltaire's objection') in the following passage, in which he
sketches a number of possible replies:
Given that our inferential methods are successful, why should they depend on explanatory
considerations? Well, they have to depend on something, so why not on explanation? We
have already dealt with the objection that explanatory considerations are too subjective to
serve. Perhaps their use still seems unnatural as compared to 'More of the Same'. But a
simple extrapolation model of induction will not cover the ground, since it will not account
for vertical inference, so we need some less simple account. Second, Mill's methods provide
a natural account of causal inference, though different from simple extrapolation and, as we
have seen, the structure of contrastive explanationsbuilds on this account. Lastly,Inference
to the Best Explanation does rely on finding uniformities, both in the generalization from
causal explanations of particular phenomena and in its general preference for unifying
INFERENCETO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANA~ON 267

inferences. Inferences to the best explanation are not less natural than simple extrapolation.
(128)

Perhaps in part because these points are not developed in more detail,
however, they strike me as unpersuasive. True, inference must depend on
something, but the question before is why it should depend on explanation,
and 'Why not?' just serves to make the point that there is no immediately
obvious reason for regarding the Central Thesis as false. Lipton does argue
convincingly that his loveliness criteria are not subjective in any harmful
sense, thus blocking one potential criticism of his ILPE model - but to
me this also fails to count as an answer to the question Lipton himself has
posed, for it does not show why inference 'should' rest on explanation. He
suggests that the application of criteria of explanatory loveliness in making
inferences may strike some as 'unnatural' as compared to a mere extrapo-
lation model (a model that prescribes one to infer, e.g., that all A's are B's
given that all observed A's are B's), but notes that the extrapolation model
is too simple to serve. The failure of the extrapolation model of inference,
however, is of course no reason to take the ILPE model to be true. Lipton
seems to me to argue that the application of explanatory criteria is natural
because the inferences it sanctions are themselves natural qua inferences -
as Mill's Method of Difference indeed sanctions natural inferences about
causes. But this point re-iterates what he has already shown, which is that
there are many inferences that are likely - and thus natural inferences to
make - which also happen to meet the loveliness criteria. The inferences
recommended by the ILPE model are often very natural inferences to make
- granted. The question was, I thought, in what sense it is natural to think
of the inferences as themselves grounded on explanatory criteria. That
question seems to me at this point unanswered.
In addressing the question whether it is explanatory loveliness that
grounds likeliness or the other way around, Lipton goes on to argue that
there is another reason for taking the former position. We are a species,
he points out, "obsessed with making inferences and giving explanations"
(130). That we are obsessed with making inferences is, from the stand-
point of evolutionary theory, no surprise, for the ability to make correct
inferences has much to do with a species' propensity to survive. But it is
a little surprising from this point of view why we survivors are so bent on
the construction of explanations and on the procurement of understand-
ing - what is the adaptive value, if any, of all this explanation-seeking?
Lipton apparently assumes there is no simple answer to this question.
Notice, however, that a proponent of his Central Thesis has no difficulty
explaining our natural predilection for seeking explanations, for expla-
nations have on this Thesis a key role to play in the making of reliable
268 EPIc BARNES

inferences, which themselves undeniably possess adaptive value. Lipton


acknowledges that of course there is no necessity that every trait be adap-
tive (perhaps explanation-seeking belongs in the same category with the
human appendix), but points out, plausibly in my view, that the ability to
account for explanation-seeking in evolutionary terms counts as a point in
favor of the Central Thesis, if this seeking cannot easily be accounted for
in other terms.
My first reply is that the adaptive value of explanations is explainable
in evolutionary terms in that possessing the sort of understanding expla-
nations offer is a particularly efficient way of constructing other adaptive
inferences - to the extent that one knows the causes that lead to the death
of other creatures and can thus explain these deaths, one is more able
to predict how one's own death can be avoided. Knowing why a fierce
enemy attacks, why certain water is unsafe to drink or why women suc-
cumb to childbed fever provides a basis for inferring how human survival
may be prolonged by carefully avoiding situations in which such causes
obtain. Explanation-seeking thus is not a curious trait from an evolutionary
standpoint even if Lipton's Central Thesis is false.
I have argued that Lipton's attempt to explain why inference should
depend on explanatory considerations is unsuccessful- and this brings me
to one of my criticisms of his ILPE model as a whole: at no point in his book,
in my judgement, does the Central Thesis really emerge as intuitively cor-
rect, however many facts about our inferential practices the Thesis might
entail and thus be able to account for. Of course this point by itself does not
show that the central thesis is not true: quantum mechanics (for some of
us) is not intuitively plausible either! Is there any reason for regarding the
Central Thesis as false? I have adduced examples above of theories that
are both consistent with our observations, background beliefs and which
seem to meet all Lipton's criteria of explanatory loveliness but which seem
nonetheless unlikely (recall the examples of the Childhood hypothesis +M t
and the conjectured history of the pencil's precise dimensions), and I do
take these to add up to at least some evidence that the Central Thesis is
false. Lipton himself cites a perfect example of an unlovely explanation
that is highly likely: Moli~re's character's claim that the reason opium
puts people to sleep is because of its dormitive powers. (61) There is no
disputing the truth of the 'explanatory' hypothesis given the evidence that
opium does put people to sleep, though the potential understanding offered
by the hypothesis is extremely low. Lipton cites this example as one point
where the criteria of loveliness and likeliness do diverge (thus making the
point for the reader that loveliness and likeliness are conceptually distinct,
protecting the Central Thesis from the charge of triviality), as though this
INFERENCE TO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 269

example is another that he is willing to count as an exception to his Central


Thesis. h-~sofaras he provides no real motivation for making an exception
in this case, however, I prefer to regard this as a clear counterexample to
the Central Thesis, one which makes a clear intuitive case that inference
should not be construed as resting on explanatory grounds.
In correspondence Lipton replies to this point by reminding us that his
model does not claim that we simply infer lovely explanations, but that we
infer the loveliest of a set of competing explanations: So an explanation
does not have to be very lovely, so long as there are no lovelier competi-
tors, and this is the situation in the dormitive (powers) case." Lipton clear-
ly believes that other, more illuminating explanations of why opium puts
people to sleep (detailing, say, some mechanism of opium's effect on the
brain) do not compete with the dormitive power explanation (indeed, they
will be compatible). In the absence of potential explanations to compete
with this one, it wins in virtue of being uncontested. So Lipton apparent-
ly believes that any uncontested hypothesis is to be inferred provided it
embodies at least a little loveliness vis-a-vis relevant data. This response,
however, strikes me as taking him down a dangerous road, illustrated in
the following scenario: imagine that scientists are confronted with some
puzzling phenomenon, say the existence of a curious form of astronomical
entity quite unlike any other - deemed 'red holes' because they emit red
light. Now if the scientific community should conjecture any explanatory
hypothesis that does not violate observation and background belief (e.g.,
'They exist by divine decree, though this is the onty phenomenon that
exists for this reason'), no matter how poorly supported, if that hypothesis
is uncontested by any competitors, the hypothesis must be ~nferred should
it meet any of the loveliness criteria to any degree (as the Divine Decree
explanation would at least supply a mechanism by which the red holes
were produced). But surely an utterly unlovely hypothesis should not win
out simply because no one has conjectured a better competitor. Surely Lip-
ton would be on firmer ground were he to require some minimum degree
of loveliness for inference, but he surrenders this option with the above
rejoinder.

5. ON THE VERY IDEA OF EXPLANATORY LOVELINESS

A theory's explanatory loveliness regarding some explanandum e, for Lip-


ton, is identical to the degree of potential understanding of e the theory
offers. Now, the degree of potential understanding of e offered by the the-
ory is, he clearly believes, to be measured by the application of the criteria
of explanatory loveliness - though Lipton admits that he is able to identify
270 ERIC BARNES

only some of these criteria. The various criteria he identifies thus consti-
tute for him, in part, the very idea of explanatory loveliness or potential
understanding. It is thus to be part of the very idea of potential understand-
ing that a theory that meets any of the mechanism, precision, unification,
elegance/simplicity criteria offers more potential understanding of some
explanandum than a competing explanatory theory that fails to meet that
criterion (the theories otherwise being explanatorily equal).
It is my view that there is something wrong about this characterization
of the notion of explanatory loveliness/potential understanding. At various
points in his book, as we have observed, Lipton seems to accept the Causal
Thesis of Understanding, which asserts that to understand some (physical)
state of affairs is to know the relevant causal history that produced that state
of affairs. Now this clearly implies that the degree of actual understanding
of an explanandum a theory offers is proportional to the degree to which
the theory truly reveals this relevant causal history. But surely the Causal
Thesis has implications then for the notion of 'potential understanding' as
well - hence I offer the definition D below:
Definition D: The potential understanding/explanatory loveliness a theory offers regarding
some explanandum is proportional to the degree to which the theory would, if true, reveal
the explanandum's relevant causal history. TM

I claim that it is Definition D which reveals the very idea of explanatory


loveliness/potential understanding- assuming the Causal Thesis. My view
is that Lipton's criteria of explanatory loveliness are thus adequate only to
the extent that they capture theories' potential understanding as defined by
D - the criteria do not themselves count as constitutive of the very idea of
'explanatory loveliness'.
On the assumption that definition (D) describes the true nature of
explanatory loveliness/potential understanding, two questions emerge: (1)
what does Definition (D) entail about the Central Thesis? and (2) what
accounts for the plausibility of Lipton's criteria of explanatory loveliness
qua measures of potential understanding?
Regarding (1): Lipton would measure the likeliness of P (a putative
explanation that has survived the generation process) on evidence E by first
asking how much potential understanding P offers regarding explanandum
E (assuming it is P which explains E and not vice versa) - though this can
only mean, I claim, 'How much of E's relevant causal history would P
reveal if true?' But insofar as the assumption that P is true is a subjunctive
assumption, there may be no fact of the matter how much of E's causal
history P omits if P is true. E might be assumed to be the result of just
the three (explanatorily relevant) causes of E that are, let us assume, cited
in P (in which case the potential understanding offered by P is absolute),
INFERENCETO THE IA)VELIESTEXPLANATION 27 t

but E might just as well be assumed to result from the three (explanatorily
relevant) P-causes plus ninety seven others (in which case the potential
understanding offered by P is something like 3%). There is no answering
the question how much of E's causal history P would contain if true unless
we are prepared to make other assumptions about E's causal history -
but there is no non-arbitrary way of making such other assumptions. The
question "How much potential understanding of E does P offer?" thus
strikes me as an impossible question. So much the worse for the Central
Thesis.
Regarding (2): the various criteria of explanatory loveliness strike us as
plausible because they do seem to favor those putative explanations which
reveal substantial causal history. The mechanism criterion, e.g., prefers
theories that specify a mechanism linking putative cause to effect over
those that do not - this seems right because those explanations specify-
ing mechanisms would (if true) seem to describe more relevant causal
history than those that do not. It is important to notice, however, that the
mechanism criterion of loveliness is a fair measure of potential understand-
ing only on the contingent assumption that causes are in fact transmitted
mechanistically, i.e., that there is no action at a distance. For if some effect
were the result of just non-mechanistic causes, then one would, I claim,
understand the effect perfectly just by apprehending these causes - assum-
ing that one understands an event perfectly if one knows all its relevant
causal history (as the Causal Thesis entails). It would not be true, in such
a case, that a putative explanation meeting the mechanism criterion would
offer more potential understanding than the explanation citing the (actual)
non-mechanistic causes, since the understanding offered by the latter is
absolute. The precision criterion of loveliness is amenable to a similar
line of analysis: the precision criterion seems reasonable because we are
prone to believe that an explanation that entails a precise description of
its explanandum must more completely specify the explanandum's histo-
ry than a putative explanation that fails to meet the precision criterion.
Well and good, provided one assumes that causal histories are absolutely
deterministic down to arbitrarily precise aspects of the their effects. But it
is perfectly conceivable that determinism is false, and that events are not
precisely determined by their causal histories - in such a world the pre-
cision criterion would not strike us as a fair measure of loveliness, for an
explanation could completely explain its exptanandum by citing all of its
relevant causes, even though these causes leave the explanandum event not
precisely determined in all its aspects. Like the mechanism criterion, the
precision criterion of loveliness depends for its plausibility on our having
already assumed certain principles about the world's causal structure.
272 E~CBA~-ZS

But none of this should strike us as surprising. We saw in Section 2


that the Difference Condition loveliness criterion depended for its plau-
sibility on the prior assumption of yet another causal principle, that of
same cause/same effect. The unification criterion, moreover, depends for
its plausibility on the prior assumption that the world does indeed have a
unified structure: should the ultimate causes of the world be highly frag-
mented, it would be a fragmented theory, and not a unified one, that would
maximize scientific understanding, provided we continue to assume the
Causal Thesis of Understanding. We find the unificationist criterion plau-
sible in part because it has turned out to a large extent that the world's
causal structure is unified.
In correspondence, Lipton points out that it follows from the above
analysis that 'C is the total cause of E' offers maximum potential under-
standing from the standpoint of (D), and claims that this is an unpalatable
consequence. I agree that the consequence follows, for if it were true that
C were the total cause of E then C would completely reveal E's causal
history, and thus would render maximum understanding thereof. But I find
the consequence wholly palatable. The temptation to see matters otherwise
is based on something like the notion (putting it perhaps too crudely) that
an event with only 1 actual cause is intrinsically more mysterious than
an event with more than one cause. But this misunderstands the notion of
mystery: events are mysterious not in virtue of how many (or what type
of) causes they have but only to the extent that their causal history remains
hidden from view - in the absence of any hidden causal history, there is
nothing mysterious about an event (as I argue in Barnes (1994b)) 9
In short, Lipton's various criteria of explanatory loveliness rest upon
antecedently accepted principles of the world's overall causal structure.
They thus do not themselves constitute the idea of explanatory loveli-
ness/potential understanding (this is done by (D) above) but work to define
our conception of what ideal explanations will look like, given antecedently
accepted causal principles. But that this is so shows that Lipton's program
is misconceived, for it was his notion that our judgement that our picture
of the world is likely itself rests upon the picture's meeting the loveliness
criteria - this was the heart of the Central Thesis which asserts that judge-
ments that certain hypotheses are likely to rest upon prior judgements of
loveliness. As matters have turned out, it is not the case that likeliness rests
upon loveliness, though neither is the converse true, for there is no reason
to assume an explanation lovely just because it is likely (Moli6re's opi-
um example illustrates both points). Rather, our conception of loveliness
- what a theory that produces understanding will look like - rests upon
INFERENCETO THE LOVELIESTEXPLANATION 273

the conjunction o f an antecedent picture o f the w o r l d ' s causal structure


together with the Causal Thesis o f Understanding.

6. CONCLUSION

M y thesis is that the arguments Lipton constructs on behalf o f his Central


Thesis are flawed. B y no means, however, h a v e we considered all o f the
points Lipton m a k e s on behalf o f the Thesis - for example, I have not
discussed L i p t o n ' s intriguing case that his I L P E m o d e l offers a plausible
solution to the raven p a r a d o x (Chap. 6) his interesting (although c o m p l e x )
treatment of 'disconfirmation b y explanatory failure' (79-86), or his han-
dling o f the p r e d i c t i o n / a c c o m m o d a t i o n a s y m m e t r y (Chap. 8). It should not
be assumed, moreover, that L i p t o n ' s only purpose in Inference to the Best
Explanation is the elaboration of his I L P E m o d e l - his account o f con-
trastive explanation, e.g., is surely the m o s t plausible account o f that subject
available today. W h a t e v e r the j u d g e m e n t o f the philosophical c o m m u n i t y
on the truth o f L i p t o n ' s Central Thesis, this is a b o o k o f considerable depth
and lucidity, and deserves a wide readership.

NOTES

1 I am grateful to Jesse Hobbs, Peter Lipton, and two anonymous Synthese referees for
many helpful comments and criticisms. All page references are to Lipton (1991) unless
otherwise noted.
2 The reference cited by Lipton (58) is Peirce (1931, 5.180-5.212, esp. 5.189),
3 As examples of this growing literature Lipton cites Peirce (1931,5.180-5.212,esp. 5.189);
Harman (1965); Brody (1970); Hanson (t972, Chap. 4), Thagard (1978) and Cartwfight
(1983, essay 5). See also Achir~tein (1992), Ben-Menahirn (1990), Costantini (1987),
Hanen and Kelley (1990), Kapitan (1990), Kleirnan (1989), Mafinov (t988), and Vogel
(1990). For an important recent survey of the IBE project that does not focus on Lipton's
book, but which I take to reach conclusions about the project broadly similar to the ones
reached in this paper, see Day & Kincaid (1994).
4 We must avoid the temptation to conflate Lipton's tall of "explanatory loveliness" with
traditional talk of aesthetic criteria of theory choice such as elegance or simplicity. While
Lipton does regard these latter notions as examples of explanatory loveliness (cf. Section
3.4), we should remember that to say of an explanation that it is lovely in Lipton's sense is
not to say that it is necessarily aesthetically pleasing but just that it would, if true, provide
us with much understanding of some exptananda,
5 Throughout his 1991 book Lipton refers to the model of inference he elaborates as simply
'inference to the best explanation'. I refer to his model here by the more specific'inference
to the loveliest potential explanation' because this label is more informative and distin-
guishes his model from other accounts of IBE.
6 Lipton's point is that, if something like the Central Thesis is not assumed, then accounts
of 'explanatory virtue' will be prone to simply equate such virtue with the quality of like-
liness itself (as did Harrnan's (1965), for example, in citing 'plausibility' as a criterion
274 ERIC BARNES

of explanatory virtue). But this makes the/BE project vacuous, for it then is prone to
degenerate into the truism that those hypotheses are inferred which are judged likeliest.
/nsofar as it is explanatory virtue which is supposed to provide a basis on which likeliness
judgements may rest, and given that the aim of explanation is understanding,explanatory
virtue should, Lipton argues, be construed as potential understanding.
7 For a detailed discussion of conWastive why questions see Barnes (1994a).
8 Lipton thus claims that the Method of Difference is an inferential principle which is
one component of his ILPE model: given the Central Thesis, it is desirable to infer those
hypotheses with high explanatory loveliness, so it makes sense to follow the Method of
Difference. It must be admitted, however, that the Method of Difference is limited in its
applicability to a narrow range of cases, those in which the histories that produce that
P-event and the not-Q-event are laid before us, and ideally in which there is only one
difference between the two histories. Lipton points out in particular that the Method of
Difference does not account for what he calls inferred differences (114-115). That is, the
Method of Difference only accounts for the inference that a difference between the two
histories that is independentlyknown to exist plays a causal role- it does not account for the
discovery of the difference itself. Lipton's ILPE model, however, can account for inferred
differences as well (this point will prove important below). This advantage accrues because
the model recommends that we infer that a particular causal hypothesis is true insofar as
the hypothesis would, if true, provide significant understanding of some explananda- but
this principle may be applied when the hypothesis claims that some heretofore unobserved
difference in the two histories plays a causal role, provided this hypothesis is the loveliest
of the competition (115).
9 But see Section 4 for a discussion of Lipton's arguments for the claim that we should
regard inference as 'following' explanation.
10 At this point it will be clear that there are various respects in which my reading of
Inference to the Best Explanation differs sharply from that of Jesse Hobbs as presented
in his (1993) review of Lipton's book, despite my sympathy with a few of Hobbs' points.
In writing that "Lipton's innovation is tying IBE to the constrastive analysis of explana-
tion provided by Garfinkel (1981) and van Fraassen (1980)" (679) Hobbs fails to note the
significant differences between Lipton's own account of contrastive explanation and those
of Garfinkel and van Fraassen (see Barnes (1994a) for a description of these differences).
Moreover Hobbs seems to overestimate the role of contrastive explanation in Lipton's
IBE account as a whole. The only role it plays is in motivating the Difference Condition
criterion, which is just one loveliness criterion among others. More critically, Hobbs makes
the startling claim that Lipton never identifies the method he defends as IBE. But Lipton's
two stage model (as summarized in this paper), with attendant loveliness criteria, is clearly
laid out, if at times too sketchily (as perhaps Hobbs is suggesting). He goes on to argue
that Semmelweis's research on childbed fever (Lipton's main illustration of the Difference
Condition criterion, an example similar to the one of the two matches above) is not obvi-
ously a sound application of tBE, as Semmelweis "did not infer synchronically the best
explanation over the total evidence, but diachronically the only hypothesis remaining after
each alternative had failed to explain some contrast or other." (679) As to why inferences
must by synchronic rather than diachronic to count as sound application of/BE Hobbs does
not say. Hobbs complains that Semmelweis's success "appears attributable to luck rather
than outstanding method" (679), though Lipton is far from being so naive as to suggest the
irrelevance of luck in scientific discovery.
1 One might argue that Lipton now seems committed to the curious conclusionthat the Bite
Hypothesis alone is less lovely than the conjunctionof the Bite Hypothesis together with M
INFERENCETO THE LOVELIEST EXPLANATION 275

- and thus commit Lipton to the blatantly false conclusion that the Bite Hypothesis ought
thus to be less likely than the conjunction of that Hypothesis with M, given the Central
Thesis. Lipton's response, however, would be that the Bite Hypothesis does not compete
with the conjunction of itself and M, and that his model commits him only to inferences
to the loveliest of competing hypotheses (and thus not to the claim that in any event of H t
being 'more lovely' than H2, H1 must be more likely than H2).
12 Synthese referee #1 disputes this analysis by claiming that it does not "make a very per-
suasive case for a divergence between likeliness and loveliness as it stands, since [one's]
clairvoyant powers would seem to explain why [one's] predictions are correct". This last
claim is correct, but it seems to me there is a clear difference between explaining a person's
predictive skill and explaining why what that person predicts is true. Again, my meeting
a person of precisely the same height as I predicted confirms the hypothesis that I possess
clairvoyancethough this hypothesis does not explain the meeting at all - the meeting will
be explained by the reasons or causes that brought us together at the meeting place. In
general, to explain a person's knowledge (including foreknowledge) of p is not the same as
explaining p.
t3 Lipton by no means commits himself to every aspect of the unificationistmodel of expla-
nation developed in Friedman's (1974), and notes in correspondence dated 26 August 1993
that he accepts Kitcher's (1976) criticism of the details of Friedman's law counting measure
and of what Lipton deems the 'epistemic analysis of unity' countenanced in Friedman's
article. What Lipton does accept, apparently, is the spirit of the unification approach as
briefly summarized in my remarks here.
la In Friedman's (1974) it is not phenomena in general which science tries to unify but
scientific laws - theories explain thus in virtue of reducing the number of laws which must
be accepted as unexplained,viz., underivable from more fundamentaltaws. This distinction
does not seem to affect any present concern.
15 It is worth noting that if we measure the degree of unification in our world picture by
counting the number of unexplained phenomena, the positing of the sympathetic powder
explanation need not be de-unifying,for it would consist of simply the replacement of one
mystery (the contrast in healing rate) with another (the therapeutic effect of the powder).
Thus construed, it would not be correct to say that the powder explanation actually dimin-
ishes our global understandingof the world, but merely leaves it unchanged- this suggests
that from a unificationiststandpoint, science may just as well take the powder explanationas
leave it. But this raises an important difficulty for the proponent of explanatory unification,
one that has not yet been adequately addressed - how is the unificationist to distinguish
'large' mysteries (like the baffling putatively therapeutic effect of the powder) from 'small'
ones (the merely curious observed contrast in recovery rates)?
16 Synthese referee #1 objects that conspiracy theories typically do "not fit well with back-
ground beliefs (and all the other virtues) or, if they do, then it is unclear why we would
not judge the theory likely after all". My reply is to insist that in requiring that candidate
hypotheses 'fit with background beliefs' Lipton does not require that such hypotheses be
supported by those beliefs, but only that they not clash with such beliefs. But conspiracy
theories often don't clash with background beliefs or observation: the paranoid's belief
that 'Everyone is out to get me' strikes him as plausible in part becausehe cannot observe
what everyone is doing all the time, nor does he have grounded beliefs about all of their
activities, so he is free to conjecture conspiracy theories that are not strictly ruled out by
observation or background belief. The conspiracy theorist's error is usually in supposing
that mere consistency with the latter is sufficient for warranted belief.
17 In response to my point that complex or inelegant theories may offer rich understanding
276 ERIC BARNES

Synthese referee #2 objects that "[Barnes] may be arguing for a case which is too strong
(unnecessarily strong, for): one could hold that if (contrary to actual fact, perhaps) there
were two rivals which were otherwise on equal footing but differed with respect to these
desiderata, surely we would prefer the simple and elegant one". I agree with this conditional
statement, but it simply makes the point that aesthetic criteria do function as criteria of
theory choice - my point is that theories that meet such criteria do not offer more potential
understanding of their explananda than theories that do not.
18 It is important to emphasize that this Definition does not entail that our potential under-
standing of some explanandum is proportional merely to the amount of information about
its causal history we possess, for much of the explanandum's causal history may well be
non-explanatory (as many facts constitutive of the causal history of Bush's 1992 election
are not explanatory of that election result- e.g., the presence of oxygen in the United States
in 1992, that the United States conducts elections, Bush's existence, etc.). What matters
regarding potential understanding is how much of the 'relevant' causal history a putative
explanation provides, where 'relevant' just means 'explanatory'. The task of describing
which portions of an explanandum's causal history are explanatory is of course a task that
any proponent of a causal theory of explanation must face.
19 Synthese referee #1 replies in defense of Lipton's position here that "understanding is
influenced not just by how much of a causal history is specified, but how it is described.
That is, if we simply refer to the total cause as 'the total cause', then we have referred to
the full cause yet provided little if any understanding". I agree, of course, that a hypothesis
like 'The total cause of E is the total cause of E' supplies no potential understanding of
E, but of course this is perfectly compatible with Definition D, as the latter requires that
true explanations reveal relevant portions of causal history, and this tautology reveals no
history at all (though it does refer to such history). I will thus take the expression 'C' to
be referentially transparent, as referring to some event(s) or fact(s) which are fully appre-
hended by the subject who uses the expression 'C'.

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Department of Philosophy
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX 75275-0142
USA

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