Abductive reasoning

About: Abductive reasoning is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1917 publications have been published within this topic receiving 44645 citations. The topic is also known as: abduction & abductive inference.

Theorizing in Grounded Theory and creative abduction

Abstract: This article aims to contribute to the analysis of the logical arguments in Grounded Theory (GT), both in the version of Glaser (Basics of Grounded Theory analysis: emergence versus forcing, 1992) and of Strauss and Corbin (Basics of qualitative research, 1990) The article will focus both on stages of the coding process—that could be considered the core of the overall process of theorizing in GT—both on logic of GT, analysing in particular whether GT makes use of abductive thinking The article outlines the distinction between different modes of abductive reasoning, and focuses specifically on one of them: the “creative abduction” (Eco and Sebeok, The sign of three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce, 1983) The distinction between different forms of abductive argument appears especially useful to explore the logic of GT By introducing this distinction, the article discuss how theorizing in GT makes use—both in Glaser and in Strauss and Corbin—of the same type of abductive reasoning: the creative abduction According to this analysis, the differences between the two versions of GT turn out to be much less severe

The Role of Abductive Reasoning within the Process of Belief Revision

Abstract: An inquiring agent is concerned with obtaining as much new, error-free, information as possible. One way of doing this is to simply incorporate information presented to an agent as is. This strategy is adopted by many belief revision frameworks including the popular AGM framework. A more natural strategy would be for the agent to first seek an explanation or justification for the new information. After doing so, it could incorporate the explanation into its epistemic state together with the new information. Such a strategy would be particularly effective if the agent’s situation does not allow it to obtain new information easily. We model this strategy through the use of abductive reasoning. This allows us to then investigate the role of abductive inference within a belief revision framework based on the AGM. We not only look at the incorporation of new information but also at the removal of information. We begin by looking at some logical aspects of abduction and to contrast it, in a pragmatic sense, with the process of induction as performed by inverse resolution. We proceed to develop an account of an abductive expansion operator in the vein of the AGM framework. A definition, postulates and several constructions, reminiscent of the AGM, are developed together with a number of representation theorems. It is also shown how abductive expansion is related to nonmonotonic inference, in particular, default reasoning. The process of contraction is then investigated and we note how abduction can already be viewed as an active part of this operation. However, abductive expansion and AGM contraction do not exhibit the dual behaviour one might expect. This leads us into an investigation of an alternate operation known as Levi-contraction. We suggest a Grove style semantic modelling and provide additional postulates in order to obtain a complete characterisation. Our emphasis on expansion and contraction is guided to a large extent by Levi’s commensurability thesis which states that any revision can be achieved through a series of expansion and contraction operations. However, using our work on expansion and contraction, we briefly investigate the repercussions for an abductive revision operator determined through the Levi identity. It turns out that this problem relies heavily on that of iterated revision.

FreeEnCal: A Forward Reasoning Engine with General-Purpose

Abstract: A forward reasoning engine is an indispensable component in many advanced knowledge-based systems with purposes of creation, discovery, or prediction. This paper presents a forward reasoning engine with general-purpose, named "FreeEnCal", which can interpret and perform inference rules defined and given by its users, draw fragments of various classical and/or non-classical logic systems formalized as different formal systems, draw empirical theorems of various formal theories constructed based on various logic systems, and perform deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning automatically. FreeEnCal can be used as a ready-made forward reasoning engine serving as a core and fundamental component in various advanced knowledge-based systems as well as an alone forward reasoning engine with general-purpose. The paper presents our basic ideas to design and implement FreeEnCal, facilities provided by FreeEnCal, and some applications of FreeEnCal.