Alexander Bird and the inference to the only explanation

Abstract

This paper intends to offer an introduction to the Portuguese translation of Alexander Bird’s “Inference to the only explanation.” Bird deals with Peter Lipton’s proposal about inference to the best explanation, and suggest that many instances that could be explained by this kind of inference would be better explained if we consider as an inference to the only explanation. In the first time, this article shows a summary of Bird’s ideas in “Inference to the only explanation.” Section 2 addresses the differences between the inference to the best explanation and inference to the only explanation from the case study chosen by Lipton: Ignaz Semmelweis’s research on childbed fever. The following section discusses a problem that seems to affect both Lipton’s and Bird’s inferential model in their defense of realism: the problem of inserting the notion of “background knowledge” in a case of conceptual change. In the conclusion, a particular problem for realism is suggested: the problem of unconsidered alternatives.