The Art of AbductionA novel defense of abduction, one of the main forms of nondeductive reasoning. With this book, Igor Douven offers the first comprehensive defense of abduction, a form of nondeductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning, which is guided by explanatory considerations, has been under normative pressure since the advent of Bayesian approaches to rationality. Douven argues that, although it deviates from Bayesian tenets, abduction is nonetheless rational. Drawing on scientific results, in particular those from reasoning research, and using computer simulations, Douven addresses the main critiques of abduction. He shows that versions of abduction can perform better than the currently popular Bayesian approaches—and can even do the sort of heavy lifting that philosophers have hoped it would do. Douven examines abduction in detail, comparing it to other modes of inference, explaining its historical roots, discussing various definitions of abduction given in the philosophical literature, and addressing the problem of underdetermination. He looks at reasoning research that investigates how judgments of explanation quality affect people’s beliefs and especially their changes of belief. He considers the two main objections to abduction, the dynamic Dutch book argument, and the inaccuracy-minimization argument, and then gives abduction a positive grounding, using agent-based models to show the superiority of abduction in some contexts. Finally, he puts abduction to work in a well-known underdetermination argument, the argument for skepticism regarding the external world. |
Contents
What Is Abduction? | 55 |
The Psychology of Abduction | 71 |
Facing the Challenges | 103 |
A Closer Look at Scoring | 135 |
The Ecological Rationality of Abduction | 157 |
The View from Social Epistemology | 189 |
An Abductive Response to the Skeptic | 221 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abductive inference abductive reasoning accuracy agents antirealist argued assume assumption average Bayes's rule best explanation bias bonus value Brier score Cambridge chapter cognitive coherence conditional probabilities context degrees of belief Douven Douven and Schupbach Dutch book argument dynamic Dutch book Elqayam En/en environment epistemic epistemic goal epistemology evidence example experiment EXPL users explanatory considerations explanatory reasoning Fraassen Gigerenzer given H₁ H₂ hypothesis inaccuracy inductive inference instance Journal Julia justified least logic lottery paradox minimization Moorean NetLogo non-Bayesian updating nonskeptic Oaksford optimization Oxford University Press participants Philosophy of Science Popper's rule Pr(E Pr(H Pr(RABD Pr(RSP precisely Principle of Indifference principles probabilistic proposal propositions Psychology question RABD rationality reliable Russellian Schurz scientific scoring rule sense simulations skeptic specific statistical Suppose theory tosses truth truthlikeness underdetermination update rule van Fraassen versions of abduction Weibull Weibull distribution weights