Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Abductive reasoning" in English language version.
This book grew out of a series of workshops on this topic. [Budapest 1996; Nagoya 1997; Brighton 1998]
Consequently, to discover is simply to expedite an event that would occur sooner or later, if we had not troubled ourselves to make the discovery. Consequently, the art of discovery is purely a question of economics. The economics of research is, so far as logic is concerned, the leading doctrine with reference to the art of discovery. Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly a question of heuristic and is the first question of heuristic, is to be governed by economical considerations.
I argue against the tendency in the philosophy of science literature to link abduction to the inference to the best explanation (IBE), and in particular, to claim that Peircean abduction is a conceptual predecessor to IBE. [...] In particular, I claim that Peircean abduction is an in-depth account of the process of generating explanatory hypotheses, while IBE, at least in Peter Lipton's thorough treatment, is a more encompassing account of the processes both of generating and of evaluating scientific hypotheses. There is then a two-fold problem with the claim that abduction is IBE. On the one hand, it conflates abduction and induction, which are two distinct forms of logical inference, with two distinct aims, as shown by Charles S. Peirce; on the other hand it lacks a clear sense of the full scope of IBE as an account of scientific inference.
Abductive inference has often been equated with inference to the best explanation. [...] The account of abductive inference and inference to the best explanation presented above has emphasized the common elements found in the analyses given by Peirce, Harman and the Josephsons. It is necessary to add that this brief account may be misleading in some respects, and that a closer and more detailed explication of the finer points of the three analyses could reveal important underlying philosophical differences. Inferences to the best explanation, as expounded by Harman and the Josephsons, can involve deductive and inductive processes of a kind that would be apparently be excluded by Peirce's account of abduction.
Marcello Truzzi, in a searching article on Holmes's method (1973:93–126), anticipated our present work by pointing to the similarities between the detective's so-called deductions, or inductions, and Peirce's abductions, or conjectures. According to Peirce's system of logic, furthermore, Holmes's observations are themselves a form of abduction, and abduction is as legitimate a type of logical inference as either induction or deduction (Peirce 8.228).
A historically interesting application of abduction as a heuristic method can be found in classical detective stories, as shown by the semiotical and logical essays collected in Eco and Sebeok 1983. C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of Edgar Allan Poe's novels in the 1840s, employed a method of 'ratiocination' or 'analysis' which has the structure of retroduction. Similarly, the logic of the 'deductions' of Sherlock Holmes is typically abductive.
Sherlock Holmes, although a fictional character, remains renowned as a great detective. However, his methodology, which was abduction rather than deduction, and which is innocently used by many real detectives, is rarely described, discussed, or researched. This paper compares and contrasts the three forms of inferential reasoning, and makes a case for articulating and developing the role of abduction in the work, and training, of police officers.
Methodeutic has a special interest in Abduction, or the inference which starts a scientific hypothesis. For it is not sufficient that a hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains the facts is justified critically. But among justifiable hypotheses we have to select that one which is suitable for being tested by experiment.
Sherlock Holmes, although a fictional character, remains renowned as a great detective. However, his methodology, which was abduction rather than deduction, and which is innocently used by many real detectives, is rarely described, discussed, or researched. This paper compares and contrasts the three forms of inferential reasoning, and makes a case for articulating and developing the role of abduction in the work, and training, of police officers.
Abductive inference has often been equated with inference to the best explanation. [...] The account of abductive inference and inference to the best explanation presented above has emphasized the common elements found in the analyses given by Peirce, Harman and the Josephsons. It is necessary to add that this brief account may be misleading in some respects, and that a closer and more detailed explication of the finer points of the three analyses could reveal important underlying philosophical differences. Inferences to the best explanation, as expounded by Harman and the Josephsons, can involve deductive and inductive processes of a kind that would be apparently be excluded by Peirce's account of abduction.
I argue against the tendency in the philosophy of science literature to link abduction to the inference to the best explanation (IBE), and in particular, to claim that Peircean abduction is a conceptual predecessor to IBE. [...] In particular, I claim that Peircean abduction is an in-depth account of the process of generating explanatory hypotheses, while IBE, at least in Peter Lipton's thorough treatment, is a more encompassing account of the processes both of generating and of evaluating scientific hypotheses. There is then a two-fold problem with the claim that abduction is IBE. On the one hand, it conflates abduction and induction, which are two distinct forms of logical inference, with two distinct aims, as shown by Charles S. Peirce; on the other hand it lacks a clear sense of the full scope of IBE as an account of scientific inference.
Marcello Truzzi, in a searching article on Holmes's method (1973:93–126), anticipated our present work by pointing to the similarities between the detective's so-called deductions, or inductions, and Peirce's abductions, or conjectures. According to Peirce's system of logic, furthermore, Holmes's observations are themselves a form of abduction, and abduction is as legitimate a type of logical inference as either induction or deduction (Peirce 8.228).
A historically interesting application of abduction as a heuristic method can be found in classical detective stories, as shown by the semiotical and logical essays collected in Eco and Sebeok 1983. C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of Edgar Allan Poe's novels in the 1840s, employed a method of 'ratiocination' or 'analysis' which has the structure of retroduction. Similarly, the logic of the 'deductions' of Sherlock Holmes is typically abductive.
Sherlock Holmes, although a fictional character, remains renowned as a great detective. However, his methodology, which was abduction rather than deduction, and which is innocently used by many real detectives, is rarely described, discussed, or researched. This paper compares and contrasts the three forms of inferential reasoning, and makes a case for articulating and developing the role of abduction in the work, and training, of police officers.
.... What is good abduction? What should an explanatory hypothesis be to be worthy to rank as a hypothesis? Of course, it must explain the facts. But what other conditions ought it to fulfill to be good? .... Any hypothesis, therefore, may be admissible, in the absence of any special reasons to the contrary, provided it be capable of experimental verification, and only insofar as it is capable of such verification. This is approximately the doctrine of pragmatism.
Consequently, to discover is simply to expedite an event that would occur sooner or later, if we had not troubled ourselves to make the discovery. Consequently, the art of discovery is purely a question of economics. The economics of research is, so far as logic is concerned, the leading doctrine with reference to the art of discovery. Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly a question of heuristic and is the first question of heuristic, is to be governed by economical considerations.
I now move to abduction—inference to the best explanation.
