Objection · Case 07 · Philosophy
Lipton himself noted that inference to the best explanation can give you the best of a bad lot. Even if the resurrection is the best explanation of your facts, that doesn’t make it probable.
One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Response
The bad lot objection comes from van Fraassen, and Lipton answered it. The worry applies to every use of abduction, including in science, and the standard response is to ask whether the field of hypotheses has been searched thoroughly. In the resurrection case, two millennia of skeptical effort have produced a small, well-known set of alternatives (hallucination, swoon, theft, wrong tomb, legend, visionary origin), which is about as thorough a search as any hypothesis gets. If the lot is bad, it is not for want of looking.
About this exhibit
This objection is to Peter Lipton, “Inference to the Best Explanation”.
Lipton wrote the standard book-length defense of this idea. His account is that we do not just tally evidence, we ask which available hypothesis would best explain it, and we weigh candidates by how…
Under Claim 02: Inference to the best explanation is a recognized form of reasoning used across science, history, law, and medicine.