A Kuhnian defence of inference to the best explanation

According to inference to the best explanation (IBE), scientists infer the loveliest of competing hypotheses, ‘loveliness’ being explanatory virtue. This generates two key objections: that loveliness is too subjective to guide inference, and that it is no guide to truth. I defend IBE using Thomas Kuhn’s notion of exemplars: the scientific theories, or applications thereof, that define Kuhnian normal science and facilitate puzzle-solving. I claim that scientists infer the explanatory puzzle-solution that best meets the standard set by the relevant exemplar of loveliness. Exemplars are the subject of consensus, eliminating subjectivity; divorced from Kuhnian relativism, they give loveliness the context-sensitivity required to be truth-tropic. The resulting account, ‘Kuhnian IBE’, is independently plausible and offers a partial rapprochement between IBE and Kuhn’s account of science.

► Inference to the best explanation (IBE) is defended against two objections. ► The exemplars of Kuhnian normal science determine explanatory loveliness. ► Exemplars are the subject of consensus; hence loveliness is not subjective. ► Successive exemplars approach the truth; hence loveliness is a guide to truth. ► IBE and Kuhnian science are not antagonistic but mutually supportive.