Cham, Switzerland: Springer (2018)
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Abstract |
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.
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Keywords | abduction |
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Buy this book | $65.91 new (18% off) $69.62 used (13% off) Amazon page |
ISBN(s) | 9783319991566 3030075710 3319991566 |
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References found in this work BETA
Logical Foundations of Probability.Rudolf Carnap - 1950 - Chicago, IL, USA: Chicago University of Chicago Press.
The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus.Elliott Sober - 1984 - University of Chicago Press.
The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions.Philip Kitcher - 1993 - Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Progress and its Problems: Toward a Theory of Scientific Growth.Larry Laudan - 1977 - University of California Press.
View all 279 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Why the Ultimate Argument for Scientific Realism Ultimately Fails.Moti Mizrahi - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43 (1):132-138.
Induction and Inference to the Best Explanation.Ruth Weintraub - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 166 (1):203-216.
Coherence and Probability: A Probabilistic Account of Coherence.Roche William - 2013 - In M. Araszkiewicz & J. Savelka (eds.), Coherence: Insights from philosophy, jurisprudence and artificial intelligence. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 59-91.
View all 16 citations / Add more citations
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