Abduction, Reason and Science Processes of Discovery and Explanation
This volume explores abduction (inference to explanatory hypotheses), an important but neglected topic in scientific reasoning. My aim is to inte grate philosophical, cognitive, and computational issues, while also discuss ing some cases of reasoning in
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Abduction, Reason, and Science Processes of Discovery and Explanation
Lorenzo Magnani University of Pavia Pavia, Italy, and Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Magnani, Lorenzo Abduction, reason, and ,cience: processes of discovcry and explanation/Lorenzo Magnani. p. cm. IncIudes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4613-4637-1 ISBN 978-1-4419-8562-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-8562-0 1. Science-Philosophy. 2. Abduction (Logic). 3. Discoveries in science. I. Tirle. Q175.32.A24 M34 501-dc21
2001 00-052061
Front cover: Descartes's explanation of the rainbow (from his Meteora, 1656). ISBN 978-1-4613-4637-1 © 2001 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York in 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 http://www.wkap.nl/ 1098765432 A c.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. AII rights reserved No par! of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without wrilten permis sion from the Publisher
To my daughter Giovanna
Science does not rest upon solid bedrock. The bold structure of its theories rises, as it were, above a swamp. It is like a building erected on piles. The piles are driven down from above into the swamp, but not down to any natural or "given" base; and if we stop driving the piles deeper, it is not because we have reached firm ground. We simply stop when we are satisfied that the piles are firm enough to carry the structure, at least for the time being. Karl R. Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Foreword by Paul Thagard
More than a hundred year s ago, the great American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce coined the term "abduction" to refer to inference that involves the generation and evaluation of explanatory hypotheses . The study of abductive inference was slow to develop, as logicians concentrated on deductive logic and on inductive logic based on formal calculi such as probability theory. In recent decades, however, there has been renewed interest in abductive inference from two primary sources. Philosophers of science have recognized the importance of abduction in the discovery and evaluation of scientific theories, and researchers in artificial intelligence have realized that abduction is a key part of medical diagnosis and other task s that require finding explanations. Psychologists have been slow to adopt the terms " abduction" and "abductive inference" but have been showing increasing interest in cau sal and explanatory reasoning . Thus abduction is now a key topic of research in cognitive science, the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence. Lorenzo Magnani 's new book contributes to this research in several valuable ways. First, it nicely ties together the concerns of philosophers of science and AI researc
