Abstract
The roles of abductive inference in dynamic heuristics allows scientific methodologies to test novel explanations for the world’s ways. Deliberate reasoning often follows abductive patterns, as well as patterns dominated by deduction and induction, but complex mixtures of these three modes of inference are crucial for scientific explanation. All possible mixed inferences are formulated and categorized using a novel typology and nomenclature. Twenty five possible combinations among abduction, induction, and deduction are assembled and analyzed in order of complexity. There are five primary categories for sorting these inferential procedures: fallacies, non-scientific procedures, quasi-scientific procedures, scientific procedures, and scientific heuristics.
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Notes
- 1.
Ordinary abduction is evidently habitual in practice for humans, and habits can be brought under reflective review for deliberation, especially if they are acquired in learning (Magnani [1]). No “instinct or inference” dichotomy about abduction is forced upon us, as if learning must be rigid and automatic. It is a debatable question whether something akin to abduction is instinctive for non-human animals (Park [2]).
- 2.
Musgrave [3, p. 127].
- 3.
Stanford [4] makes a similar point regarding the supposed self-sufficiency of Bayesian confirmation.
- 4.
Peirce [5, para. 171–172].
- 5.
- 6.
Campos [10] distinguishes Peirce’s abduction apart from inference to the best explanation. For broader explorations of abduction’s role in procedures of explanatory reasoning, consult Flach and Kakas [11], Lipton [12], Paavola [13], Aliseda [14], Pizzi [15], Schurz [16], Gauderis and De Putte [17], Gauderis [18], Aliseda and Beirlaen [19], Velázquez-Quesada [20].
- 7.
See Psillos [8, 135].
- 8.
Consult Brigandt [21].
- 9.
Lévi-Strauss [22].
- 10.
See Shackelford [23], chap. 2.
- 11.
On pseudo-science in general, the reader may begin by consulting Pigliucci and Boudry [24].
- 12.
Heidarzadeh [25], chap. 4.
- 13.
- 14.
Consult Richardson and Stevens [30].
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Shook, J.R. (2021). Abduction, Complex Inferences, and Emergent Heuristics of Scientific Inquiry. In: Shook, J.R., Paavola, S. (eds) Abduction in Cognition and Action. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 59. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61773-8_9
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