Structural rules for abduction

Theoria 22 (3):325-329 (2007)
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Abstract

Atocha Aliseda’s Abductive Reasoning (2006) gives a structural characterization of the “forward” explana-tory reasoning from a theory to observational data. This paper asks whether there are any interesting structural rules for the “backward” abductive reasoning from observations to explanatory theories. Ignoring statistical cases, a partial explication of abduction is converse deductive explanation: h is abducible from e iff h deductively explains e. This relation of abducibility trivially satisfies Converse Entailment (if h entails e, then h is abducible from e ), but it does not generally satisfy Converse Consequence (if h is abducible from e and g entails h, then g is abducible from e ), since deductive explanation is not always transitive

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Ilkka Niiniluoto
University of Helsinki

Citations of this work

Unification and Confirmation.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 2016 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 31 (1):107-123.

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References found in this work

Aspects of Scientific Explanation.Asa Kasher - 1965 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 37 (4):747-749.
Defending abduction.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1999 - Philosophy of Science 66 (3):451.
Theoretical concepts and hypothetico-inductive inference.Ilkka Niiniluoto - 1973 - Boston,: D. Reidel Pub. Co.. Edited by Raimo Tuomela.

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