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In the previous chapter we concerned ourselves with examples of "inward" Eddington inferences in science, that is, with inferences to claims about entities smaller than those we are capable of observing. But, of course, Eddington inferences can also take us "outwards", to claims about states of affairs larger than those we can observe. To refer once again to the example of the fish trap of Chap.  5, if we blindly set the holes of the trap to exactly four inches and get fish, we may infer that there are probably fish less than four inches in the sea, but we may with equal justification infer that there are also fish longer than four inches. In this chapter we examine some inferences that take us "outward" to things not observable by us because they are too big or distant. Some of these are straightforwardly Eddington inferences, while others are not. But all the inferences to be considered have the same underlying logical structure as those earlier considered: they begin by noting that the location of our observations is blindly chosen. They then note that, given that the location of our observations is blindly chosen, it would be a highly improbable fluke if some assertion S were not true. The conclusion is drawn that (probably) S is true.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-02218-1_8

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