Integrating Abduction and Inference to the Best Explanation

European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 14 (2):1-18 (2022)
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Abstract

Tomis Kapitan’s work on Peirce’s conception of abduction was instrumental for our coming to see how Peircean abduction both relates to and is importantly different from inference to the best explanation (IBE). However, he ultimately concluded that Peirce’s conception of abduction was a muddle. Despite the deeply problematic nature of Peirce’s theory of abduction in these respects, Kapitan’s work on Peircean abduction offers insight into the nature of abductive inquiry that is importantly relevant to the task of making sense of explanatory inquiry in the sciences in general. The view developed here stems from his work and involves disambiguating three forms of inference involved in Peircean abduction in terms of Reichenbach’s and Laudan’s context models of inquiry. Importantly, this includes understanding that abduction involves the context of pursuit.

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Michael Shaffer
Gustavus Adolphus College

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Laws and symmetry.Bas C. Van Fraassen - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Accuracy and the Laws of Credence.Richard Pettigrew - 2016 - New York, NY.: Oxford University Press UK.
Evidentialism.Richard Feldman & Earl Conee - 1985 - Philosophical Studies 48 (1):15 - 34.

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