Truth-Seeking by Abduction

Truth-Seeking by Abduction PDF

Author: Ilkka Niiniluoto

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 3319991574

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This book examines the philosophical conception of abductive reasoning as developed by Charles S. Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism. It explores the historical and systematic connections of Peirce's original ideas and debates about their interpretations. Abduction is understood in a broad sense which covers the discovery and pursuit of hypotheses and inference to the best explanation. The analysis presents fresh insights into this notion of reasoning, which derives from effects to causes or from surprising observations to explanatory theories. The author outlines some logical and AI approaches to abduction as well as studies various kinds of inverse problems in astronomy, physics, medicine, biology, and human sciences to provide examples of retroductions and abductions. The discussion covers also everyday examples with the implication of this notion in detective stories, one of Peirce’s own favorite themes. The author uses Bayesian probabilities to argue that explanatory abduction is a method of confirmation. He uses his own account of truth approximation to reformulate abduction as inference which leads to the truthlikeness of its conclusion. This allows a powerful abductive defense of scientific realism. This up-to-date survey and defense of the Peircean view of abduction may very well help researchers, students, and philosophers better understand the logic of truth-seeking.

Induction and Deduction in the Sciences

Induction and Deduction in the Sciences PDF

Author: Friedrich Stadler

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2004-04-30

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9781402019678

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The articles in this volume deal with the main inferential methods that can be applied to different kinds of experimental evidence. These contributions - accompanied with critical comments - by renowned scholars in the field of philosophy of science aim at removing the traditional opposition between inductivists and deductivists. They explore the different methods of explanation and justification in the sciences in different contexts and with different objectives. The volume contains contributions on methods of the sciences, especially on induction, deduction, abduction, laws, probability and explanation, ranging from logic, mathematics, natural to the social sciences. They present a highly topical pluralist re-evaluation of methodological and foundational procedures and reasoning, e.g. focusing in Bayesianism and Artificial Intelligence. They document the second international conference in Vienna on "Induction and Deduction in the Sciences" as part of the Scientific Network on "Historical and Contemporary Perspectives of Philosophy of Science in Europe", funded by the European Science Foundation (ESF).

Handbook of Abductive Cognition

Handbook of Abductive Cognition PDF

Author: Lorenzo Magnani

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-03-31

Total Pages: 1921

ISBN-13: 3031101359

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This Handbook offers the first comprehensive reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of abductive cognition, providing readers with extensive information on the process of reasoning to hypotheses in humans, animals, and in computational machines. It highlights the role of abduction in both theory practice: in generating and testing hypotheses and explanatory functions for various purposes and as an educational device. It merges logical, cognitive, epistemological and philosophical perspectives with more practical needs relating to the application of abduction across various disciplines and practices, such as in diagnosis, creative reasoning, scientific discovery, diagrammatic and ignorance-based cognition, and adversarial strategies. It also discusses the inferential role of models in hypothetical reasoning, abduction and creativity, including the process of development, implementation and manipulation for different scientific and technological purposes. Written by a group of internationally renowned experts in philosophy, logic, general epistemology, mathematics, cognitive, and computer science, as well as life sciences, engineering, architecture, and economics, the Handbook of Abductive Cognition offers a unique reference guide for readers approaching the process of reasoning to hypotheses from different perspectives and for various theoretical and practical purposes. Numerous diagrams, schemes and other visual representations are included to promote a better understanding of the relevant concepts and to make concepts highly accessible to an audience of scholars and students with different scientific backgrounds.

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible PDF

Author: Vlad Petre Glăveanu

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-01-25

Total Pages: 1812

ISBN-13: 3030909131

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible represents a comprehensive resource for researchers and practitioners interested in an emerging multidisciplinary area within psychology and the social sciences: the study of how we engage with and cultivate the possible within self, society and culture. Far from being opposed either to the actual or the real, the possible engages with concrete facts and experiences, with the result of transforming them. This encyclopedia examines the notion of the possible and the concepts associated with it from standpoints within psychology, philosophy, sociology, neuroscience and logic, as well as multidisciplinary fields of research including anticipation studies, future studies, complexity theory and creativity research. Presenting multiple perspectives on the possible, the authors consider the distinct social, cultural and psychological processes - e.g., imagination, counterfactual thinking, wonder, play, inspiration, and many others - that define our engagement with new possibilities in domains as diverse as the arts, design and business.

The Oxford Handbook of Charles S. Peirce

The Oxford Handbook of Charles S. Peirce PDF

Author: Cornelis De Waal

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 697

ISBN-13: 0197548563

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"The Oxford Handbook of Charles S. Peirce brings together 35 essays on the American philosopher and polymath Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) with the aim of showing how his work is still relevant today. The volume takes its cues from Peirce's work in phenomenology and normative philosophy-where the latter includes, besides aesthetics and ethics, also logic. Within the domain of logic, attention is given to his work in formal logic as well as his work in graphical or diagrammatic logic. Ample attention is given also to Peirce's pragmatism and his metaphysics. The volume further includes biographical papers as well as papers on abduction, semiotics, linguistics, physics, biology, religion, history, science, and education"--

Knowing the Structure of Nature

Knowing the Structure of Nature PDF

Author: S. Psillos

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2009-04-30

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 0230234666

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In this sequel to the highly acclaimed Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth , Psillos discusses recent developments in scientific realism and explores realist theses and commitments. He examines the structuralist turn in the philosophy of science and offers a framework within which inference to the best explanation can be defended.

Rational Understanding

Rational Understanding PDF

Author: Miloud Belkoniene

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-30

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1000884031

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This book develops a novel account of the connections between justification, understanding and knowledge. It lays the foundation for a more systematic and interconnected treatment of these central notions in epistemology. The author’s key move is to show first that a specific conception of doxastic justification constitutes our best point of entry into questions pertaining to a subject’s ability to secure understanding of reality. Second, that the traditional order of analysis when it comes to the connection between understanding and knowledge should be reversed: knowledge itself is best conceived of in terms of a specific type of understanding. Rational Understanding will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology and philosophy of science.

Realism, Science, and Pragmatism

Realism, Science, and Pragmatism PDF

Author: Kenneth R. Westphal

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-24

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 131769970X

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This collection of original essays aims to reinvigorate the debate surrounding philosophical realism in relation to philosophy of science, pragmatism, epistemology, and theory of perception. Questions concerning realism are as current and as ancient as philosophy itself; this volume explores relations between different positions designated as ‘realism’ by examining specific cases in point, drawn from a broad range of systematic problems and historical views, from ancient Greek philosophy through the present. The first section examines the context of the project; contributions systematically engage the historical background of philosophical realism, re-examining key works of Aristotle, Descartes, Quine, and others. The following two sections epitomize the central tension within current debates: scientific realism and pragmatism. These contributions address contemporary questions of scientific realism and the reality of the objects of science, and consider whether, how or the extent to which realism and pragmatism are compatible. With an editorial introduction by Kenneth R. Westphal, these fourteen original essays provide wide-ranging, salient insights into the status of realism today.

Abductive Inference

Abductive Inference PDF

Author: John R. Josephson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-08-28

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780521575454

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This book is about abduction, 'the logic of Sherlock Holmes', and about how some kinds of abductive reasoning can be programmed in a computer. The work brings together Artificial Intelligence and philosophy of science and is rich with implications for other areas such as, psychology, medical informatics, and linguistics. It also has subtle implications for evidence evaluation in areas such as accident investigation, confirmation of scientific theories, law, diagnosis, and financial auditing. The book is about certainty and the logico-computational foundations of knowledge; it is about inference in perception, reasoning strategies, and building expert systems.

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