creators_name: Thagard, P.
creators_name: Shelley, C. P.
editors_name: Chiara, M-L. Dalla
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 1998-06-06
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:11
metadata_visibility: show
title: Abductive reasoning: Logic, visual thinking, and coherence
ispublished: pub
subjects: cog-psy
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: phil-sci
full_text_status: public
abstract: This paper discusses abductive reasoning---that is, reasoning in which explanatory hypotheses are formed and evaluated. First, it criticizes two recent formal logical models of abduction. An adequate formalization would have to take into account the following aspects of abduction: explanation is not deduction; hypotheses are layered; abduction is sometimes creative; hypotheses may be revolutionary; completeness is elusive; simplicity is complex; and abductive reasoning may be visual and non-sentential. Second, in order to illustrate visual aspects of hypothesis formation, the paper describes recent work on visual inference in archaeology. Third, in connection with the evaluation of explanatory hypotheses, the paper describes recent results on the computation of coherence.
date: 1997
date_type: published
publication: Logic and Scientific Methods
publisher: Dordrecht: Kluwer
pagerange: 413-427
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Thagard, P. and Shelley, C. P.  (1997) Abductive reasoning: Logic, visual thinking, and coherence.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/671/1/FAbductive.html