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.

A Theory of Hypothesis Finding in Clausal Logic

Abstract: Hypothesis finding constitutes a basic technique for fields of inference related to Discovery Science, like inductive inference and abductive inference. In this paper we explain that various hypothesis finding methods in clausal logic can be put on one general ground by using the combination of the upward refinement and residue hypotheses. Their combination also gives a natural extension of the relative subsumption relation. We also explain that definite bottom clauses, a special type of residue hypotheses, can be found by extending SLD-resolution.

Abductive Inference, Self-Knowledge, and the Myth of Introspection

Abstract: Much of the history of psychology can be understood as a debate over what we do when we attribute psychological states to ourselves and to others. In the classic Cartesian view, those activities are quite distinct: We engage an infallible ability—introspection—when examining our own psychological states, but merely speculate when trying to identify the psychological states of others. The American Philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce dedicated several early papers to a critique of the Cartesian approach. He concluded that attempts at self-knowledge require the same inferential processes that we use when attributing mental states to others, and therefore incur the same logical risks. By pursing these ideas further, we intend to show that self-knowledge results from a special kind of abduction; the inference of behavior states from particular observed behaviors. Such inferences allow us to anticipate yet-unseen patterns of behavior in yet-to-be-manifested circumstances.

Students’ mathematical reasoning on the area of the circle: 5E-based flipped classroom approach

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine secondary school students’ mathematical reasoning about the area of the circle. Mathematical tasks designed using GeoGebra were performed within the context of the 5E-based flipped classroom approach. The participants of the study are 13 secondary school students. The tasks, video and audio recordings captured during implementations, students’ GeoGebra files, and researchers’ field notes were used as data collection tools. The structural aspect of students’ mathematical reasoning was analyzed with Toulmin’s model, and the process aspect of mathematical reasoning was analyzed with the dialogical approach. The data analysis revealed that students’ mathematical reasoning involved three types of reasoning (deductive, inductive, and abductive) in terms of the structural aspect. As for the process aspect, the mathematical reasoning of the students involved the processes of generalizing, justifying, comparing, and exemplifying.