The purpose of this piece is to provide a critical analysis on some key aspects of abduction, as conceived by several researchers through my book Abductive Reasoning. These contributions raise fundamental questions concerning the conjectural character of abduction, its psychological status, its logical and computational structure as well as its role as inference to the best explanation and as a process of epistemic change.

The purpose of this piece is to provide a critical analysis on some key aspects of abduction, as conceived by several researchers through my book Abductive Reasoning. These contributions raise fundamental questions concerning the conjectural character of abduction, its psychological status, its logical and computational structure as well as its role as inference to the best explanation and as a process of epistemic change.

In this text, I put forward the thesis that creativity and logic do not exclude each other. I depart from the characterization of a creative product as that which is novel and useful. I presuppose there is some kind of method for generating that new product, and in this respect, I rely on Peirce’s formulation of abduction. A central point to be discussed concerns whether Peirces’ abduction may be considered as a logic of synthetic reasoning; to what extent its products (...) are genuinely novel. In my defense of above’s thesis, I shall restrict to new scientific hypotheses generated from previous concepts. I consider that this modest analysis will nevertheless shed some light on the scope of this thesis. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Dieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich am Beispiel des islamischen Diskursfeldes mit der metasprachlichen Beschreibung objektsprachlicher Ab- und Ausgrenzungsdiskurse. Dies bringt zwangsläufig eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Dynamiken zwischen objekt- und metasprachlicher Begriffsebene mit sich. Der Artikel diskutiert in einem ersten Schritt Talal Asads Konzeption islamischer Orthodoxie und den ihr zugrundeliegenden Traditionsbegriff. In einem zweiten Schritt werden anhand von Beispielen aus dem nordamerikanischen Sufidiskurs und dem modernen türkischen Religionsdiskurs objektsprachliche Grenzziehungsdynamiken innerhalb des islamischen Diskursfeldes analysiert. Der letzte Teil des Aufsatzes widmet sich (...) der Metaebene und führt, in Abgrenzung zum statischen Stammbaummodell, einen dynamischen Begriff von religiöser Tradition ein, der es ermöglichen soll, Überlagerungen zwischen religiösen Formationen niedrigen Verdichtungsgrades sowie Prozesse der Religionisierung ins Blickfeld zu nehmen. (shrink)

Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation is a much awaited original contribution to the study of abductive reasoning, providing logical foundations and a rich sample of pertinent applications. Divided into three parts on the conceptual framework, the logical foundations, and the applications, this monograph takes the reader for a comprehensive and erudite tour through the taxonomy of abductive reasoning, via the logical workings of abductive inference ending with applications pertinent to scientific explanation, empirical progress, pragmatism and belief revision.

In this paper I argue for a place for logic inscientific methodology, at the same level asthat of computational and historicalapproaches. While it is well known that a awhole generation of philosophers dismissedLogical Positivism (not just for the logicthough), there are at least two reasons toreconsider logical approaches in the philosophyof science. On the one hand, the presentsituation in logical research has gone farbeyond the formal developments that deductivelogic reached last century, and new researchincludes the formalization of several othertypes of (...) reasoning, like induction andabduction. On the other hand, we call for abalanced Philosophy of Science, one inwhich both methods, the formal and thehistorical may be complementary, togetherproviding a pluralistic view of science, inwhich no method is the predominant one. (shrink)

We propose a logic of abduction that (i) provides an appropriate formalization of the explanatory conditional, and that (ii) captures the defeasible nature of abductive inference. For (i), we argue that explanatory conditionals are non-classical, and rely on Brian Chellas’s work on conditional logics for providing an alternative formalization of the explanatory conditional. For (ii), we make use of the adaptive logics framework for modeling defeasible reasoning. We show how our proposal allows for a more natural reading of explanatory relations, (...) and how it overcomes problems faced by other systems in the literature. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the logical approach to philosophy of science could be further improved with tools like the ones put forward by Schurz in his proposal to model scientific theory development. Section 2 is a presentation of the basics in AGM epistemology of logical abduction and of their connection. In Sect. 3 several operations for theory change proposed by Schurz (2011; 2018) are presented, followed by my own proposal of a further case of hypothesis (...) refinement, consisting of the instantiation of an existential abduction. Section 4 offers a discussion and conclusions. (shrink)

In this paper I address the question of the dynamics of empirical progress, both in theory evaluation and in theory improvement. I meet the challenge laid down by Theo Kuipers in Kuipers (1999), namely to operationalize the task of "instrumentalist abduction," that is, theory revision aiming at empirical progress. I offer a reformulation of Kuipers' account of empirical progress in the framework of (extended) semantic tableaux and show that this is indeed an appealing method by which to account for some (...) specific kind of empirical progress, that of lacunae. (shrink)

En este artículo, se examinará la visión de Foucault del cuerpo y el surgimiento del cuerpo como un elemento indispensable del poder político. Por lo tanto, se discutirá cómo se objetiva la organización en períodos de poder disciplinario y regulatorio. En el contexto de la regulación del poder, trataremos de mostrar qué dinámica básica corresponde el alma, que es la prisión del cuerpo, al poder y al cuerpo. En ambos períodos, vemos que el poder elige el cuerpo como espacio. El (...) cuerpo representa el cuerpo de la sociedad y funciona como tal. En el estudio, se examinará la captura del alma como un elemento que afecta, moldea, cambia y transforma el cuerpo en la comprensión del poder regulador después del poder disciplinario. En última instancia, dado que este esfuerzo resulta en la producción de nuevas dinámicas de poder, se intentará mostrar en un contexto crítico que el poder no permite ningún cambio, transformación y mejora de individuos y criminales a quienes percibe como cuerpos. (shrink)

In Philosophy, it is well known that of the total faculty population, the proportion of women is significantly lower than men. This disproportion is odd for a discipline within the humanities; these numbers seem more compatible with what is found in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) careers. These proportions are in turn a product of the low female presence that exists from the previous levels of academic training in philosophy. What happens in the case of the philosophy student body? For (...) example, the report presented by BeeBee and Saul (2011), on women in philosophy in the United Kingdom, in the period 2008 and 2009, points out that in the first degrees of academic training, in the bachelor's degree, women occupy 45% of the student population, in the master's degree 38% and in the doctorate 35%. Thus, "it is notable that there is a reduction in the proportion of women from the bachelor's degree to the doctorate [...]. This has as a consequence that at the professional level women holding positions as professors represent only 19%" (BeeBee & Saul, 2011, p. 11). Recently, Torres González (2018), based on European Union studies, points out that in Spain, with respect to gender disparity in students, "the data yield as a result masculinized studies, where, contrary to what happens in the branch of the humanities to which it [philosophy] belongs, males outnumber females by 28 percentage points" (2018, p. 328). This disparity is reflected in philosophy at the professional level, "the indicators of vertical segregation show a reinforced glass ceiling, which presents one of the worst data of hierarchical discrimination in the university: the percentage of female professors in philosophy is 12% compared to 21% of female professors in higher education" (Idem). Although it is a fact that there are fewer women than men studying philosophy and, therefore, fewer women than men working professionally in this discipline, we do not yet have possible explanations for this phenomenon of gender disparity in the student body in philosophy. In some cases, even if the number of women entering the philosophy degree program is already low, the number of women graduating is even lower, which indicates that there is attrition along the way; the initial numbers of women entering the program tend to decrease by the time they graduate. Thus we come to the question that is the subject of this paper: What causes female students to drop out of the philosophy program? In this article we answer this question from the philosophy of science and supported by local empirical data, so we do not give a complete or even less exhaustive answer. We review two explanatory models that purport to answer the question of why there are fewer women in philosophy, both formatively and professionally. These are the Different Voices Model (DVM) and the Perfect Storm Model (PSM); we opt for the latter and give reasons for it. Regarding the empirical aspect of our research, our source of statistical data belongs to the undergraduate program in philosophy at the Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-UNAM, Mexico (FES Acatlán), obtained in the framework of the SWIP-Analytic Mexico workshops. Our analysis of these data shows that even when female students have better GPAs than male students and take fewer subjects while enrolled, female students graduate less than male students in the FES Acatlan degree program. (shrink)

La notion de conflit révèle divers aspects. Parmi les litiges, les violences, les disputes, les mésententes, les guerres, l'importance de définir les éléments de conflictualité et le caractère institutionnel des enquêtes en matière de gestion et de résolution des conflits de nos jours. Néanmoins, nous sommes parvenus à percevoir que la clé du succès des résolutions des conflits pour une paix durable réside dans l'expérience humaine de la culpabilité et du pardon. Ce n'est certes pas des éléments nouveaux pour les (...) spécialistes et les diplomates en matière de gestion des conflits. Cependant, Ces deux notions sont reléguées à un second plan au profit de compromis et de mesures coercitives à l'encontre des factions en conflits. Notre vision de la résolution des conflits est que sans l'incompréhension de l'expérience de la culpabilité et du pardon,haine durable ). Est-il possible d'institutionnaliser le pardon et de mener des actions conduisant à une véritable responsabilité collective et individuelle préalable à toute réconciliation durable des peuples? La nature et la fréquence de nos conflits obligent à revenir sur les méthodes d'approche qui viennent d'être utilisées. En effet, c'est ce que tentent de faire certaines commissions pour la réconciliation appelées pour la plupart « Dialogue – Vérité – Réconciliation ; Dialogue – Justice – Réconciliation ; justice et paix, etc. ». où les belligérants, les bourreaux et les victimes sont invités à l'aveu, à la vérité et au pardon pour un revivreensemble. Mais dans l'espace d'un processus de réconciliation engagé à travers desdites commissions, les ballets de confessions aussi bien que les sentiments de victimisation se succèdent avant à l'arrière fond l'amnistie pour les bourreaux et l'octroi du pardon de la partie des victimes. Cela, parait peu convainquant pour la raison que ces commissions sont en partie majeure installées par les vainqueurs du moment. Dans une certaine Afrique surtout, ces derniers (les vainqueurs) sont aidés par des alliés ayant atteint de hauts niveaux. Il s'agit alors de processus où la paix est provisoire et se poursuit au bout de la force ; et où les bourreaux sont toujours les autres. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to elucidate some aspects of Karl Popper’s logic of research and place it in the philosophical discussion of scientific discovery. A closer look into his proposal reveals that his work, in the light of recent literature, does point into the direction of some fundamental m..

Resumen: El objetivo aquí­ es dilucidar algunos aspectos de la lógica de la investigación de Popper y situarla en la discusión filosófica del descubrimiento cientí­fico. Un análisis más cercano de su propuesta revela que su obra, a la luz de textos más recientes, sí­ apunta en la dirección de algunos mecanismos fundamentales que caen en el rubro del estudio del descubrimiento. El argumento en favor de esta tesis tiene dos partes: por un lado, cuando se hace un análisis más fino (...) de los contextos de investigación, parece que la lógica de Popper puede ser considerada como parte del contexto de descubrimiento, y, por el otro, su explicación sobre el crecimiento del conocimiento mediante el método de conjeturas y refutaciones coincide con la corriente dominante de los llamados "œAmigos del descubrimiento", al menos en lo que respecta a la obra de Herbert Simon.: The aim of this paper is to elucidate some aspects of Karl Popper"™s logic of research and place it in the philosophical discussion of scientific discovery. A closer look into his proposal reveals that his work, in the light of recent literature, does point into the direction of some fundamental mechanisms which fall under the study of discovery. The argument for this claim is twofold: one the one hand, when a finer analysis of contexts of research is done, it seems that Popper"™s logic may be considered as part of the context of discovery, and on the other hand, his account on the growth of knowledge by the method of conjectures and refutations, is in accordance with the "œFriends of Discovery" mainstream, at least is so far as the work of Herbert Simon is concerned. (shrink)

Theo AF Kuipers THE THREEFOLD EVALUATION OF THEORIES A SYNOPSIS OF FROM INSTRUMENTALISM TO CONSTRUCTIVE REALISM. ON SOME RELATIONS BETWEEN CONFIRMATION, EMPIRICAL PROGRESS, AND TRUTH APPROXIMATION (2000) ABSTRACT.

Abductive problems have been widely studied in propositional logic. First order abduction, however, has been viewed as intractable, for the undecidability of logical consequence. In this paper, we propose a notion of abductive problem, N-abductive problem, which is relative to the cardinality of the minimal model satisfying the given theory. We use a notion of restricted satisfaction, also relative to a domain cardinality. Finally, we propose an effective procedure for the searching of abductive solutions, by means of a modification of (...) Beth's tableaux. (shrink)

This book is the first of two volumes devoted to the work of Theo Kuipers, a leading Dutch philosopher of science. Philosophers and scientists from all over the world, thirty seven in all, comment on Kuipers' philosophy, and each of their commentaries is followed by a reply from Kuipers. The present volume focuses on Kuipers' views on confirmation, empirical progress, and truth approximation, as laid down in his From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism (Kluwer, 2000). In this book, Kuipers offered a (...) synthesis of Carnap's and Hempel's confirmation theory on the one hand, and Popper's theory of truth approximation on the other. The key element of this synthesis is a sophisticated methodology, which enables the evaluation of theories in terms of their problems and successes (even if the theories are already falsified), and which also fits well with the claim that one theory is closer to the truth than another. Ilkka Niiniluoto, Patrick Maher, John Welch, Gerhard Schurz, Igor Douven, Bert Hamminga, David Miller, Johan van Benthem, Sjoerd Zwart, Thomas Mormann, Jesús Zamora Bonilla, Isabella Burger & Johannes Heidema, Joke Meheus, Hans Mooij, and Diderik Batens comment on these ideas of Kuipers, and many present their own account. The present book also contains a synopsis of From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism. It can be read independently of the second volume of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, which is devoted to Kuipers' Structures in Science (2001). (shrink)

This book is the second of two volumes devoted to the work of Theo Kuipers, a leading Dutch philosopher of science. Philosophers and scientists from all over the world, thirty seven in all, comment on Kuipers’ philosophy, and each of their commentaries is followed by a reply from Kuipers. The present volume is devoted to Kuipers’ neo-classical philosophy of science, as laid down in his Structures in Science . Kuipers defends a dialectical interaction between science and philosophy in that he (...) views philosophy of science as a meta-science which formulates cognitive structures that provide heuristic patterns for actual scientific research, including design research. In addition, Kuipers pays considerable attention to the computational approaches to philosophy of science as well as to the ethics of doing research. Thomas Nickles, David Atkinson, Jean-Paul van Bendegem, Maarten Franssen, Anne Ruth Mackor, Arno Wouters, Erik Weber & Helena de Preester, Eric Scerri, Adam Grobler & Andrzej Wisniewski, Alexander van den Bosch, Gerard Vreeswijk, Jaap Kamps, Paul Thagard, Emma Ruttkamp, Robert Causey, Henk Zandvoort comment on these ideas of Kuipers, and many present their own account. The present book also contains a synopsis of Structures in Science. It can be read independently of the first volume of Essays in Debate with Theo Kuipers, which is devoted to Kuipers’ From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism. (shrink)

En reprenant dans son essai le principe d'Heidegger sur l'existence, N'Dré Sam Beugré a l'intention de préciser que la singularité de soi n'est pas une subjectivité fermée et isolée du monde, mais un être de soi ouvert aux manières des autres êtres, mais également ouvert au mouvement constant de dévoilement et de fermeture présent dans le monde.

Cet ouvrage propose une analyse comparative des concepts de justice et d'altérité éthique développés par Jacques Derrida et Emmanuel Levinas, en vue d'une discussion sur l'[im]possibilité d'éthique. L'objectif est d'analyser la possibilité de penser à une certaine absence, dans les discours sur la justice comme critère et condition de la justice elle-même. Le problème central est configuré comme suit : si la question du troisième est justice chez Levinas, et si le troisième est présent dans la relation avec les autres, (...) est-il possible d'affirmer que le troisième est une certaine absence, au sens derridien, de présence de l'autre? Si oui, quelles conséquences possibles peut-on signaler dans la dimension éthique? À la suite de cela, est-il possible de dire que l'éthique est impossible puisque la justice est une certaine expérience de l'impossible? (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est autre qu'une étude a-méthodique sur l'essence phénoménologique humaine appuyée sur la philosophie de Michel Henry. Elle gravite autour de la notion de douleur basée sur la passivité précoce de l'être par rapport à lui-même et dans le cadre révélateur de l'affectivité. En d'autres termes, la révélation de l'être tel qu'il est dépeint dans sa passion. Une nouvelle conception de la corporéité, du temps et du langage vient de la tonalité affective de base de la douleur. Comprendre ces (...) thèmes en les reliant à l'être masculin est crucial pour ne pas le scinder en champs ou dimensions inconciliables qui ne le laisseraient pas comprendre dans ce qu'il fait, dit ou vit, c'est-à-dire sur ce que l'être est vécu -- Contracubierta. (shrink)

If Spinoza is a thinker very present in the Faculties of Philosophy, on the other hand, he is presented as one of the great forgotten of the humanist programs of secondary education. Contrary to what happened with other philosophers, who had more chance of spreading in non-specialized contexts (we can cite Nietzsche, Pascal, Plato or Schopenhauer as obvious examples), Spinoza is generally considered a excessively systematic author, and complex, whose works would have been written for a small group of scholars. (...) Nothing could be further from the truth. Spinoza’s life was full of completely surprising events, from his estrangement from the Jewish community (which repudiated him in a strict and disagreeable way), through his dalliances with heterodox currents which gradually grew in power, until his meeting with Leibniz and his intrepid travels. from one part of his native Holland to another. In this article, we examine the concept of desire in Spinoza's philosophy and its connection to the philosopher's decision to find the greater good. Since the greatest good, in turn, is nothing but its own enjoyment, we conclude that ignoring its existence, seeking it, and living it are, respectively, the conditions of the vulgar, the philosopher, and the wise, as what happened in the Garden of Epicurus. (shrink)

The formalization of abductive reasoning has received increasing attention from logicians. However, few work is found beyond abduction in propositional logic, given that in a first order formalism, the undecidability problem naturally appears, and therefore an abductive problem cannot even be appropriately formulated. Still, many applications in artificial intelligence allow finite domains to work with, and this gives an opportunity to apply abduction in first order logic with restricted domains. In this paper, we present an approach to abductive reasoning in (...) C-structures, first order structures with a finite domain in which each of its elements has a corresponding constant representing its interpretation. By using semantic tableaux with bounded depth, that is, C-tableaux (a modification of N-tableaux, introduced by the authors in previous papers) and δ-resolution calculus, we build an effective procedure for the searching of minimal abductive solutions within the proposed semantics. (shrink)

Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation is a much awaited original contribution to the study of abductive reasoning, providing logical foundations and a rich sample of pertinent applications. Divided into three parts on the conceptual framework, the logical foundations, and the applications, this monograph takes the reader for a comprehensive and erudite tour through the taxonomy of abductive reasoning, via the logical workings of abductive inference ending with applications pertinent to scientific explanation, empirical progress, pragmatism and belief revision.

This is an examination of similarities and differences between two recent models of abductive reasoning. The one is developed in Atocha Aliseda’s Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into the Processes of Discovery and Evaluation (2006). The other is advanced by Dov Gabbay and the present author in their The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial (2005). A principal difference between the two approaches is that in the Gabbay-Woods model, but not in the Aliseda model, abductive inference is ignorance-preserving. A (...) further differ-ence is that Aliseda reconstructs the abduction relation in a semantic tableaux environment, whereas the Woods-Gabbay model, while less systematic, is more general. Of particular note is the connection between abduction and legal reasoning. (shrink)

This is an examination of similarities and differences between Atocha Aliseda's semantic tableaux analysis of abduction and Dov Gabbay's and the present author's ignorance-preservation model of it. Also discussed is the suitability of these models for the analysis of the logical structure of legal reasoning.

Elementary Buddhist logic and dialectical studies.