Abstract
To postpone entanglements with the abundant confusions surrounding various uses of the term “abduction,” for which Peirce himself seems to be largely responsible, and to proceed as directly as possible to engage the basic logical and computational issues, let us begin by examining a pattern of inference I will call “inference to the best explanation” and abbreviate as “IBE” (“IBEs” for the plural).1
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References
The phrase “inference to the best explanation” seems to originate with Gilbert Harman (Harman, 1965).
This formulation is largely due to William Lycan.
Please see (Josephson, 1994, p.14), for a more complete description of the considerations governing confidence and acceptance, including pragmatic considerations.
For more extensive discussions of the epistemic virtues of this pattern of inference, see (Harman, 1965; Lipton, 1991; Josephson, 1994 ).
For a more extensive discussion of the importance of evidence that the contrast set includes the true explanation, please see (Josephson, 1994, p.15).
For a discussion of Peirce’s views on abduction, please see the opening essay by Flach and Kakas and the essay by Psillos in this volume. For a detailed scholarly examination of Peirce’s writings on abduction please see (Fans, 1970).
See (Lucas, 1998) for a method-independent account of diagnosis as a task.
For a brief summary of deductive and other models of explanation please see (Bhaskar, 1981). For a history of more recent philosophical accounts of explanation, please see (Salmon, 1990 ).
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Josephson, J.R. (2000). Smart Inductive Generalizations are Abductions. In: Flach, P.A., Kakas, A.C. (eds) Abduction and Induction. Applied Logic Series, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0606-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0606-3_2
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