Inferring and Explaining

80 e 1 . Linguistic statement—“He is a fne teacher . . . major fgure.” Almost as important in this case is the context in which the statement is ofered: InferrIng and exPlaInIng e 2 . Context—letter of recommendation. Finally, we know something about the letter writer himself: e 3 . Relevant biography—philosophy profes- sor at a small state university. Te explanatory or interpretive question is, Why did this speaker (biography) in this cir- cumstance (context) say this (statement)? In ordinary communicative contexts, we gener- ally give people the beneft of the doubt. Until given reason not to, we are presupposed to believe that our interlocutors are being straight with us. Te conventions of normal linguis- tic communication ask you to frst consider a theory that explains all these data in terms of sincerity: t 0 . The letter writer said it because he believed it to be true—he believed that his friend was a good teacher and a great col- league and had the potential to make signif- cant contributions to his feld. Unfortunately, years of reading these sorts of letters have made some of us a little cynical. We can immediately conceive of two alterna- tive explanations of the letter writer’s linguistic behavior. t 1 . The letter writer said it because he wants to get his friend a job. t 2 . The speaker said it to get rid of an unde- sirable colleague. Inference to the best explanation asks us at some point to commit ourselves to a judgment of explanatory plausibility. What is the best explanation of what the letter writer said? Basi- cally, our answers fall into two categories. We will either judge that the best explanation of the statement is the original one that normal com- munication recommends—he said it because he believes it; he is sincere. Or we will prefer one of the rival explanatory accounts that ofer some other reason for his having made the statement. In this latter case, his testimony is of no use to us, indeed we should discount it. Even if it turns out that his friend is a great candidate for the job, if we judge that the letter writer is insin- cere or dishonest, his testimony is unreliable evidence about this. If we do give him the beneft of the doubt on the question of sincerity, we must go through a whole other level of assessment before we can put complete confdence in the truth of his statement. Te frst level of evidence evalua- tion yields some new data that must also be explained. e 4 . The letter writer is saying these great things about his colleague because he sin- cerely believes them to be true. Why does this person (biography) believe these things (the content of the statement)?Once again, the presuppositions of normal communication