Abductive Reasoning

Foreword.Part I: Conceptual Framework. 1. LOGICS OF GENERATION AND EVALUATION. 1.1 Introduction. 1.2 Heuristics: A Legacy of the Greeks. 1.3 Is there a Logic of Discovery? 1.4 Karl Popper and Herbert Simon. 1.5 Logics for Scientific Methodology. 1.6 Discussion and Conclusions. 2. WHAT IS ABDUCTION? 2.1 Introduction. 2.2 What is Abduction? 2.3 The Founding Father: C.S. Peirce. 2.4 Philosophy of Science. 2.5 Artificial Intelligence. 2.6 Further Fields of Application. 2.7 A Taxonomy for Abduction.Part II: Logical Foundations. 3. ABDUCTION AS LOGICAL INFERENCE. 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 Logic: The Problem of Demarcation. 3.3 Abductive Explanatory Argument: A Logical Inference. 3.4 Abductive Explanatory Inference: Structural Characterization. 3.5 Discussion and Conclusions. 4. ABDUCTION AS COMPUTATION. 4.1 Introduction. 4.2 Semantic Tableaux. 4.3 Abductive Semantic Tableaux. 4.4 Computing Abductions with Tableaux. 4.5 Further Logical and Computational Issues. 4.6 Discussion and Conclusions.Part III: Applications. 5. SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION. 5.1 Introduction. 5.2 Scientific Explanation as Abduction. 5.3 Discussion and Conclusions. 6. EMPIRICAL PROGRESS. 6.1 Introduction. 6.2 Kuipers' Empirical Progress. 6.3 Empirical Progress in (Abductive) Semantic Tableaux. 6.4 Discussion and Conclusions. 7. ABDUCTION AND PRAGMATISM IN PEIRCE. 7.1 Introduction. 7.2 Abduction and Epistemology. 7.3 Abduction and Pragmatism. 7.4 Discussion and Conclusions. 8. EPISTEMIC CHANGE. 8.1 Introduction. 8.2 Abduction as Epistemic Change. 8.3 Semantic Tableaux Revisited. 8.4 Discussion and Conclusions.References. Author Index. Topic Index.

"The book is an excellent contribution to the study of abductive reasoning. It applies logical techniques to important problems in the philosophy of science. The new results are also interesting for artificial intelligence." (Prof. Ilkka Niiniluoto, University of Helsinki, Finland)