In my opinion, it is only in the framework of a research dealing with abductive cognition that we can analyze important cognitive aspects of human and machine capacities. From the point of view of human capacities the phenomenological concept of anticipation, which is related to the problem of the spontaneous generation of spatiality and its three-dimensionality, will be central. I will describe that anticipations can be seen as types of visual and manipulative abduction and also fruitful to illustrate, in the (...) case of human and machine capacities, the respective role of two kinds of strategic reasoning: locked and unlocked abductive strategies, which characterize the basic cognitive pro- cedure of “reading ahead”. The specificity of these contrasting inferential strategies is also related to their potentiality in producing different kinds of hypothetical outcomes, which in turn represent dissimilar levels of knowledge creativity. This diversity is also fundamental to depict the special character, the kind of creativity, and the limits of current computational deep learning AI systems, such as AlphaGo, which realize abductive cognitive processes. (shrink)

I propose an analysis of deception as the activity of intentionally misleading other agents’ hypothetical inferences. Understanding deception in this way has the advantages of clarifying the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception. Indeed, if deception can be framed as the intentional manipulation of others’ hypothetical inferences so that they will accept the false or disadvantageous hypotheses, then a better understanding of the epistemological and cognitive dynamics involved in deception will emerge by clarifying how abduction works. Tracing it back (...) to Peirce’s analysis, I will focus on recent perspectives on abduction, which stress the inherent strategic character of abductive cognition and offer a realistic description of the reasoners’ capabilities and their scant resources, both internal (computational power) and external (time and information available). To support and substantiate my thesis, I will examine psychological analyses of military deception. I will conclude by remarking the advantages of the thesis here presented to better understand the epistemological dynamics of deception and by highlighting the questions it leaves open for further investigations. (shrink)