Abstract
Theory-generating abductions introduce new (theoretical) concepts into their conclusion. This form of abduction underlies all uncertain inferences from (singular or general) empirical facts to theoretical hypotheses that explain these facts by unobserved or unobservable entities and properties, expressed by theoretical concepts. Theory-generating abductions are discriminated from speculative post-facto abductions by two scientific rationality criteria: unification and independent testability. A particularly important form of theory-generating abductions in science is common cause abductions that explain correlated empirical dispositions in terms of common theoretical causes. These abductions play also an important role in the justification of metaphysical theories, such as perceptual realism. A justification of theory-generating abductions is possible based on a weak principle of causality that is in turn justified by a noncausal abduction.
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This work was supported by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), research unit FOR 2495.
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Schurz, G. (2022). Theory-Generating Abduction and Its Justification. In: Magnani, L. (eds) Handbook of Abductive Cognition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68436-5_4-1
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