 Responses to these arguments typically point to the fact that the notion of empirical equivalence at play unduly neglects explanatory considerations, for instance, by defining the notion strictly in terms of hypotheses’ making the same predictions. Those responding then argue that even if some hypotheses make exactly the same predictions, one of them may still be a better explanation of the phenomena predicted. Thus, if explanatory considerations have a role in determining which inferences we are licensed to make—as according to defenders of abduction they have—then we might still be warranted in believing in the truth (or probable truth, or some such, depending—as will be seen below—on the version of abduction one assumes) of one of a number of hypotheses that all make the same predictions. Following Bertrand Russell (1912, Ch. 2), many epistemologists have invoked abduction in arguing against Cartesian skepticism, their key claim being that even though, by construction, the skeptical hypotheses make the same predictions as the hypothesis that reality is more or less the way we ordinarily take it to be, they are not equally good explanations of what they predict; in particular, the skeptical hypotheses have been said to be considerably less simple than the “ordinary world” hypothesis. See, among many others, Harman 1973 (Chs. 8 and 11), Goldman 1988 (205), Moser 1989 (161), and Vogel 1990, 2005; see Pargetter 1984 for an abductive response specifically to skepticism regarding other minds. Similarly, philosophers of science have argued that we are warranted to believe in Special Relativity Theory as opposed to Lorentz’s version of the æther theory. For even though these theories make the same predictions, the former is explanatorily superior to the latter. (Most arguments that have been given for this claim come down to the contention that Special Relativity Theory is ontologically more parsimonious than its competitor, which postulates the existence of an æther. See Janssen 2002 for an excellent discussion of the various reasons philosophers of science have adduced for preferring Einstein’s theory to Lorentz’s.)