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Contents 1 Lack of clarity and lack of examples 1.1 Off-topic and unreferenced 1.2 Pmurray bigpond.com 03:43, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC) 1.3 Default reasoning 1.4 Removed from the History section 1.5 Removed parts 1.6 Explanatory conclusion or equivalent 1.7 Adduction? 1.8 Examples 1.9 Abduction = retroduction ? 1.10 Minor grammatical point about "In rare occasions" 1.11 Cleaned up some language 1.12 Heh 1.13 Well 1.14 Proposal: Merge 'Abductive' validation into this page 1.15 Evolution

[edit] Lack of clarity and lack of examples

Hello all. I was trying to learn the relationship between induction, deduction, abduction, having avoided these concepts in undergrad studies. The entries for induction and deduction make it immediately clear what these are, but after reading this, I still am not sure what is meant by abduction. Please give some examples and if there is confusion on the subject (apparently there is?) then please make that clear as well. The explanation as is mentions the *probability* of the respective observations/principles. Bringing probability into things, doesnt that put us beyond the realm of simple logic which is based on either true or false statements? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.95.92.236 (talk) 00:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Off-topic and unreferenced

"Peirce stated that classification plays a major role in making a hypothesis, that is the characters of phenomenon are placed into certain categories (Peirce, 1878b). Although Peirce is not a Kantian (Feibleman 1945), Peirce endorsed Kant's categories in Critique of Pure Reason (Kant, 1781/1969) to help us to make judgments of the phenomenal world. According to Kant, human thought and enlightenment are dependent on a limited number of a priori perceptual forms and ideational categories, such as causality, quality, time and space. Also, Peirce agreed with Kant that things have internal structure of meaning. Abductive activities are not empirical hypotheses based on our sensory experience, but rather the very structure of the meanings themselves (Rosenthal, 1993). Based on the Kantian framework, Peirce (1867/1960) later developed his "New list of categories." For Peirce all cognition, ranging from perception to logical reasoning, is mediated by "elements of generality." (Peirce, 1934/1960). Based upon the notion of categorizing general elements, Hoffman (1997) viewed abduction as a search for a mode of perception while facing surprising facts." This is largely OT and full of incomplete references. Sbarthelme 12:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pmurray bigpond.com 03:43, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

the html cup does not render on my machine, so I replaced it with math markup ... but the actual formula looks very wrong.

[edit] Default reasoning

I have removed the following from the article:

...plan formation and default reasoning.

Negation as failure in logic programming can both be given an abductive interpretation and also can be used to implement abduction. The abductive semantics of negation as failure leads naturally to an argumentation-theoretic interpretation of default reasoning in general.

Perhaps can be reintroduced in a later section.Paolo Liberatore 12:37, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from the History section

I have removed the following:

For Peirce, progress in science depends on the observation of the right facts by minds armed with the appropriate ideas (Tursman, 1987). Obviously, the intuitive judgment made by an intellectual is different from that made by a high school student. Peirce cited several examples of remarkable correct guesses. All success is not simply luck. Instead, the opportunity was taken by the people who were prepared:

a). Bacon's guess that heat was a mode of motion;

b). Young's guess that the primary colors were violet, green and red;

c). Dalton's guess that there were chemical atoms before the invention of microscope (cited in Tursman, 1987).

By the same token, to continue our last example, the cosmological view that the atom is the fundamental element of the universe, introduced by ancient philosophers Leucippus and Democritus, revived by Epicurus, and confirmed by modern physicists, did not result from a lucky guess. Besides the atomist theory, there were numerous other cosmological views such as the Milesian school, which proposed that the basic elements were water, air, fire, earth, etc. Atomists were familiar with them and provided answers to existing questions based on the existing framework (Trundle, 1994).

This is only loosely related to abduction. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 19:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed parts

For the record: I just realized that the parts that have been removed by Sbarthelme and then and by me happen to be exactly those introduced by 128.107.253.41 (see diff). These paragraphs seem to come from another article [1]. Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 20:05, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Explanatory conclusion or equivalent

This article should indicate how is named the conclusion of an abductive reasoning. I have seen the expression explanatory conclusion, but I am not an expert. I just would like to know how it is named and then I would suggest that we have a redirection from this name, whatever it is, to this article. Amrit 03:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I read the article again, and maybe the name is simply the "explanation". Let me check if there is somehow a path from explanation to this article in wikipedia... Amrit 03:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Nope, there is no link. So is the name of the conclusion the explanation? Should we add a link in the article Explanation? Amrit 03:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Explanation is the correct term (I have also seen "solution" used sometimes). However, there is usually more than one explanation, so the "conclusion" of the abductive process is typically a set of explanations. About the link from Explanation: why not? Paolo Liberatore (Talk) 16:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I added explanatory conclusion because I want to be able to point to this article with a sentence like "Your conclusion is more a XXX", where XXX is redirected to this article, and so XXX cannot be another wikipedia article. If you have another suggestion, I will be happy. If you think this extra sentence is destroying the main flow or anything like that, take it out, but then it will be less meaningful to cite this article in my context.

[edit] Adduction?

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't the proper term "adduction" or "adduce," spelled with a "d"? And not with a "b"?

  ad.duce \*-'d(y)u:s\ vt L adducere, lit., to lead to, fr. ad- + ducere to 
  lead - more at TOW : to offer as example, reason, or proof in discussion 
  or analysis SYN syn CITE, ADVANCE, ALLEGE: ADDUCE implies offering facts, 
  evidence, or instances as proof of or in support of something stated; CITE 
  implies an adducing of specific instances or authority; ADVANCE implies the 
  presenting not of facts but of a theory or claim or proposal for 
  consideration or acceptance; ALLEGE implies reciting facts intended to be 
  proved but may suggest that proof is not available or possible - ad.duc.er

In contrast:

  ab.duce \ab-'d(y)u:s\ vt [L abducere] : see ABDUCT
  ab.duct \ab-'d*kt\ \-'d*k-t*r\ vt [L abductus, pp. of abducere, lit., to 
  lead away, fr. ab- + (Xducere to lead - more at TOW 1: to carry off (a 
  person) by force 2: to draw away (as a limb) from a position near or 
  parallel to the median axis of the body; also : to move apart (similar 
  parts) - ab.duc.tor

�The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.59.121.112 (talk • contribs) 17:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: No, abduction, abductive inference, and abductive reasoning are the conventional terms in logic, being the Latin forms of Aristotle's α�€Î±Î³�‰Î³Î· (apagoge) for approximately the same thing. C.S. Peirce did on occasion use "adduction" for "induction", but that is rare. Jon Awbrey 17:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

JA: PS. The locus classicus is here: Inquiry#Abduction. Jon Awbrey 17:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

This article really needs examples. More people know deductive logic from the Socrates example than from any if a and if b... explanation. I will get around to adding some this weekend if no one else does. If you do thanks in advance. Quadzilla99 02:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Definitely. This article needs at least two examples of abductive reasoning.

[edit] Abduction = retroduction ?

According to the link at Retroduction (http://www.cuyamaca.net/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/retroduction.asp) retroduction is (or at least has been used as) equivalent to Abductive_reasoning:

" Peirce himself originally referred to this type of reasoning as "hypothesis." He later coined the term "abduction," and used this term during the 1880s. By 1896 he had abandoned this term in favor of "retroduction," which he used for the remainder of his life. "

Should the entries to these terms be updated to indicate this equivalence?

Dinamisbo 09:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

JA: Not sure about the accuracy of that statement. Still, it's a first approximation truth that abduction, apagoge, hypothesis, retroduction, along with several others, are roughly equivalent for Peirce. The problem is not there, but with the fact that subsequent literatures in philosophy, psychology, and AI have piled their own accretions and hair-splittings on these terms. So, maybe some kind of note is proper, if it can be vetted against Peirce's own writings. Jon Awbrey 12:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor grammatical point about "In rare occasions"

The phrase "In rare occasions" seems awkward to me. (Speaking here of the beginning phrase in the next to last sentence of the article intro.) Suggest "On rare occasions" or "In rare instances" Any thoughts? I'm new here so I'll wait a few days for feedback before I touch anything. --Platonic Realm 17:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Since no input has been given on this point, I will make a solo editing decision here. I will change "In rare occasions" to "On rare occasions." Please discuss if this is undesired. --Platonic Realm 15:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned up some language

I cleaned up some of the grammar and noted that abduction as stated is formally equivalent to affirming the consequent. I'm new at this so hopefully I did it correctly. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Killtacular (talk • contribs) 02:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Heh

Fancy word for a "guess". Fatalis 13:09, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Well

It is a fancy word for a live topic in philosophy. Killtacular 00:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Merge 'Abductive' validation into this page

The abductive validation article is brief, unreferenced, and contains information that should be on the abductive reasoning page anyway. Anarchia 00:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge or Redirect, since the article is basically empty. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:09, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It's already on the page, on section 6, for some reason. Exec. Tassadar (comments, contribs) 13:59, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Evolution

"Rather, he [Peirce] pointed out that humans have an innate ability to infer correctly; possessing this ability is explained by the evolutionary advantage it gives."

Did Peirce actually use evolution in arguing for the validity of abduction, or is this a later addition by someone else? --76.205.215.91 17:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)