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.

Abduction in Observational and in Theoretical Sciences. Some Examples of IBE in Palaeontology and in Cosmology

Abstract: Contrary to the view maintained by many philosophers that science employs the deductive testing of hypotheses, observational natural sciences such as paleoanthropology and the earth sciences apply a scientific methodology consisting in the proposal of hypotheses which are best fitted to the available empirical data, i.e. which best explain the data. Observational natural sciences are predominantly empirical. They are grounded in observation, and they do not implement any Popperian deductive testing of hypotheses. Theoretical natural sciences such as mathematical physics also apply inference to the best explanation for the introduction of significant concepts and hypotheses. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that in contemporary science, the use of abductive reasoning continues to be as effective as ever.

Children's Generating Hypotheses on the Pendulum Motion: Roles of Abductive Reasoning and Prior Knowledge

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that student's abductive reasoning skills play an important role in the generation of hypotheses on pendulum motion tasks. To test the hypothesis, a hypothesis-generating test on the pendulum motion and a prior knowledge test about the length of the pendulum motion were developed and administered to a sample of 5th grade children. A significant number of subjects who have the prior knowledge about the length of the pendulum motion failed to apply that prior knowledge to generate a hypothesis on a swing task. These results showed that students' failure in hypothesis-generating was related to their deficiency in abductive reasoning ability, rather than the simple lack of prior knowledge. Furthermore, children's successful generating hypothesis should be required their abductive reasoning skills as well as prior knowledge. Therefore, this study supports the notion that abductive reasoning ability beyond prior knowledge plays an important role in the process of hypothesis-generation. This study suggests that science education should provide teaching about abdctive reasoning as well as scientific declarative knowledge for developing children's hypothesis-generating skills.

Mathematical Reasoning and Pragmatism in Peirce

Abstract: In Peirce’s theory of cognition, the pragmatic maxim is the means used by reflection to connect signs with objects. The pragmatic maxim, in a formulation of 1878, taken up again in 1905, reads: “Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearing you conceive the object of your conception to have. Then your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.”1

Understanding Visual Abduction

Abstract: The status of abduction is still controversial. When dealing with abductive reasoning misinterpretations and equivocations are common. What did Peirce mean when he considered abduction both a kind of inference and a kind of instinct or when he considered perception a kind of abduction? Does abduction involve only the generation of hypotheses or their evaluation too? Are the criteria for the best explanation in abductive reasoning epistemic, or pragmatic, or both? Does abduction preserve ignorance or extend truth or both? To study some of these conundrums and to better understand the concept of visual abduction, I think that an interdisciplinary effort is needed, at the same time fecundated by a wide philosophical analysis. To this aim I will take advantage of some reflections upon Peirce’s philosophy of abduction that I consider central to highlight the complexity of the concept, too often seen in the partial perspective of limited (even if tremendously epistemologically useful) formal and computational models. I will ponder over some seminal Peircean philosophical considerations concerning the entanglement of abduction, perception, and inference, which I consider are still important to current cognitive research. Peircean analysis helps us to better grasp how model-based, sentential, manipulative, and eco-cognitive aspects of abduction—I have introduced in my book Abductive Cognition (Magnani 2009)—have to be seen as intertwined, and indispensable for building an acceptable integrated model of visual abduction. Even if speculative, Peircean philosophical results on visual abduction certainly anticipate various tenets of recent cognitive research.

A Logic Programming Language Designed for the Modeling of Abductive Reasoning in an Educational Context

Abstract: The programming of simulations of real or abstract phenomena is referred to as computational modeling. In the educational sphere, computational modeling is useful for students in learning about a phenomenon via programming activities. Abductive logic programming is a computer modeling activity with considerable educational potential due to the universal nature of logic as formalism for modeling; however, existing languages and frameworks of abductive logic programming require students to have a broad knowledge of logic programming, which prevents the use of these solutions in a general educational context. This work proposes a language referred to as Abd1, which has been designed to facilitate abductive logic programming in school environments. This paper describes the Abd1 language and how it can be used for computational modeling in an educational context.