Abstract
After showing by means of several examples the significant role that standard abduction plays both in observational and in theoretical natural sciences, I introduce in this paper preduction as a deductive discovery strategy. I argue that deductive reasoning can be extended to the context of discovery of theoretical natural sciences, such as mathematical physics, and I use the term theoretical preduction to denote the way of reasoning that consists in the implementation of deductive reasoning in scientific creativity. Moreover, standard abduction is not always sufficient to provide best explanations in science. It is widely known that during the 1960s, abduction was identified as a form of inference to the best explanation. But when the explanation of many natural phenomena requires more than spontaneous acts of creativity, such as those that one might imagine in the cases of Kepler, Darwin or Wegener, much mathematical work has to be done in addition in order to advance justified theoretical explanations. In those cases, the explanation takes place more preductivo. I term sophisticated abduction the corresponding form of inference to the best explanation.
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Acknowledgment
Complutense Research Group 930174 and Research Project FFI2014-52224-P supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain.
I very much thank one anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Rivadulla, A. (2016). Complementing Standard Abduction. Anticipative Approaches to Creativity and Explanation in the Methodology of Natural Sciences. In: Magnani, L., Casadio, C. (eds) Model-Based Reasoning in Science and Technology. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38983-7_18
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