Truth-Seeking by Abduction

188 Pages·2018·3.14 MB·English

by  Ilkka Niiniluoto

Synthese Library 400
Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology,
and Philosophy of Science
Ilkka Niiniluoto
Truth-Seeking
by Abduction
Synthese Library
Studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology,
and Philosophy of Science
Volume 400
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OtávioBueno,UniversityofMiami,DepartmentofPhilosophy,USA
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BeritBrogaard,UniversityofMiami,USA
AnjanChakravartty,UniversityofNotreDame,USA
StevenFrench,UniversityofLeeds,UK
CatarinaDutilhNovaes,UniversityofGroningen,TheNetherlands
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Ilkka Niiniluoto
Truth-Seeking by Abduction
IlkkaNiiniluoto
UniversityofHelsinki
Helsinki,Finland
SyntheseLibrary
ISBN978-3-319-99156-6 ISBN978-3-319-99157-3 (eBook)
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Preface
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb “to abduct” as “to take (a person)
away by force or deception, or without the consent of his or her legal guardian; to
kidnap.” Derived from theLatin words ab (away) andduco(to lead), abductionin
popular culture refers also to aliens who take humans to their flying saucers. The
origins of this usage, in English since the 1830s, goes back to the Athenian law
where apagoge in Greek (“a leading away”) meant arresting or taking a criminal
beforethepropermagistrate.
As a philosophical term in English, “abduction” was used already in the seven-
teenth century as a translation of the Latin term abductio in Giulio Pacio’s 1597
translation of Aristotle’s Analytica Priora. Charles S. Peirce adopted this term in
1898fromRenaissancelogiciansandgaveitasignificantplaceinhisphilosophical
system.Peirce(1839–1914)wasthefounderofAmericanpragmatism,well-known
andappreciatedforhisstudiesinformallogicandprobabilisticreasoning.Heargued
already in 1865 that, besides deduction and induction, there is a third type of
inference which he called “hypothesis,” “presumption,” “retroduction,” or “abduc-
tion.” This is reasoning from effects to causes or from surprising observations to
explanatory theories. After Peirce’s death, his ideas gradually become known with
thepublicationofsixvolumesofhisCollectedPapers(CP)in1931–1935.
Peirce’sconceptionofabductivereasoningbecameahottopicinthephilosophy
ofscienceafterWorldWarII,whenN.R.Hansonsuggestedthatabductionisalogic
of discovery, Gilbert Harman argued that all types of inductive reasoning can be
reduced to inference to the best explanation (IBE), and Howard Smokler analyzed
abduction as an important method of confirmation. Abductive inference became
soon a fashionable theme in logic, artificial intelligence (AI), and semiotics. Illus-
trations and examples of abduction have been sought in everyday life, detective
stories,andmanyscientificdisciplinesfromastronomytomedicine.
IhavebeenanadmirerofPeirceeversinceIreadJustusBuchler’sselectionofhis
philosophicalwritingsin1972whenIwaswritingmyPhDthesisoninductivelogic.
I discussed his ideas on abduction in an essay “Notes of Popper as Follower of
WhewellandPeirce”writtenin1975(seeNiiniluoto,1978),andinmylaterworkon
v
vi Preface
fallibilism,scientificprogress,andtruthlikeness,IhavetreatedPeirceasaninspiring
backgroundfigureofcriticalscientificrealism.
Abookonabductioninevitablyhastoengage inthescholarlyquestionofwhat
Peircereallymeantbythisnotion(seeChap.1).Butideashavealifeoftheirown,and
thebesttributetothegreatAmericanphilosopheristoseewhatkindsofhistoricaland
systematicapplicationshisnotionofabductionanditsvariationsmayhave.AsPeirce
himself noted in 1903, there are “pedants and pedagogues who are continually
endeavoring to set up a sort of magistrate over thoughts and other symbols.” Still,
“theeffortofallshouldbetokeeptheessenceofeveryscientifictermunchangedand
exact.” Following in this spirit “the ethics of terminology,” in our survey, I also
criticizesomerecentdevelopmentsofthetheoryofabduction.
In Chap. 2, I discuss a topic which was neglected by Peirce: the method of
analysisandsynthesis,withitsimplicationtooneofPeirce’sownfavoritethemes—
detective stories. Chapter 3 outlines some logical and AI approaches to abduction.
Chapter4givesexamplesofretroductionsandabductionsbystudyingvariouskinds
of inverse problems in medicine, biology, and human sciences, and then follows
abductionasdiscoveryandpursuit(Chap.5).TheprobabilisticBayesianframework
isusedintheanalysisofabductionandconfirmation(Chap.6)andinferencetothe
bestexplanation(Chap.7).InChap.8,abductionisreformulatedasinferencewhich
leadstothetruthlikenessofitsconclusion.ThefinalChap.9summarizesthecrucial
significanceofabductionfordebatesonscientificrealism.
Thisbookisnotacollectionofessays,butwrittenasanintegratedmonograph.ButI
have used in the text passages from some of my earlier articles: “Abduction and
GeometricalAnalysis,”inL.Magnani,N.Nersessian,andP.Thagard(eds.),Model-
Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery (New York: Kluwer and Plenum, 1999);
“Truth-Seeking by Abduction,” in F. Stadler (ed.), Induction and Deduction in the
Sciences (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999); “Abduction and Truthlikeness,” in R. Festa,
A.Aliseda,andJ.Peijnenburg(eds.),Confirmation,EmpiricalProgress,andTruth-
Approximation (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005); “Structural Rules for Abduction,”
Theoria22(2007);“Abduction,Tomography,andOtherInverseProblems,”Studies
inHistoryandPhilosophyofScience42(2011);“ApproximationofLaws,”inG.Guo
and C. Liu (eds.), Scientific Explanation and Methodology of Science (Singapore:
WorldScientific,2014);“UnificationandConfirmation,”Theoria31(2016).
As the reader can see in the references, the preparation of this book has taken
some decades. For the actual writing in 2017, I am grateful to the facilities and
research environment provided for a professor emeritus by the Department of
Philosophy, History, Culture, and Art Studies at the University of Helsinki. My
intellectualdebttomymostimportantteacher,thelateProfessorJaakkoHintikka,is
evidentinthiswork.Ihavebenefitedfromdiscussionsaboutabductionwithseveral
colleagues, especially Atocha Aliseda, Gustavo Cevolani, Theo Kuipers, Sami
Paavola, and Gerhard Schurz. As always, special thanks to my family for their
patienceandencouragement.
Helsinki,Finland IlkkaNiiniluoto
Contents
1 PeirceonAbduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 ClassificationofInferences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 ProbabilisticReasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 AbductionReconsidered. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 InterpretationsofAbduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.5 SomeDebatesAboutAbduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 AnalysisandSynthesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 TheRegressiveMethod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2 PappusonGeometricalAnalysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 AnalysisandAbduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4 Poe’sStoriesofRatiocination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.5 Poe’sPhilosophyofComposition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3 AbductionandLogic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.1 AbductionasaRuleofInference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 StructuralRulesforAbduction. . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. 40
3.3 AbductionbySemanticTableaux. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.4 TheGWModelofAbduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.5 Hintikka’sInterrogativeModelofInquiry. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 48
4 InverseProblems. .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . 51
4.1 OnRetroduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2 InverseProblemsinSystemsTheory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.3 Radon’sTheoremandComputerizedTomography. . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.4 AbductionandBiologicalEvolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 62
4.5 EvolutionismintheHumanities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.6 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
vii
viii Contents
5 AbductionasDiscoveryandPursuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.1 PatternsofHeuristicReasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2 AbductionasDiscovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3 AbductionasPursuit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6 AbductionandConfirmation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
6.1 InductiveandAbductiveConfirmation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.2 BayesianConfirmation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3 ExplanatoryPowerandConfirmation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.4 TheVirtuesofUnification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7 InferencetotheBestExplanation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.1 IBEasaRuleofAcceptance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.2 RepliestoCriticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8 AbductionandTruthlikeness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.1 ApproximateExplanation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.2 VerisimilitudeandLegisimilitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
8.3 AbductionwithTruthlikeness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
8.4 FromEmpiricalSuccesstoTruthlikeness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
8.5 AbductiveBeliefRevision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
9 AbductionandScientificRealism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
9.1 DebatesonScientificRealism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
9.2 TheNoMiracleArgument. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. 156
Bibliography. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . 165
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Chapter 1
Peirce on Abduction
Abstract As a philosophical term in English, ‘abduction’ was originally a seven-
teenth century translation of a Latin term used by Renaissance logicians. It was
adoptedin1898byCharlesS.Peircewhogaveitasignificantroleinhissystem.Peirce
(1839–1914)wasthefounderofAmericanpragmatism,well-knownandappreciatedfor
hisstudiesinformallogicandprobabilisticreasoning.Hearguedalreadyin1865that,
besides deduction and induction, there is a third type of inference which he called
’hypothesis’,‘presumption’,‘retroduction’,or‘abduction’.Thisisreasoningfromeffects
tocausesorfromsurprisingobservationstoexplanatorytheories.Peirce’saccountofthis
ampliativeinferencechangedinimportantwaysduringthe50yearsbetween1865and
1914.AfterPeirce’sdeath,hisideasgraduallybecomeknownwiththepublicationofsix
volumesofhisCollectedPapers(CP)in1931–1935.Peirce’sconceptionofabductive
reasoningbecameahottopicinthephilosophyofscienceafterWorldWarII,whenN.R.
Hansonsuggestedthatabductionisalogicofdiscovery,GilbertHarmanarguedthatall
typesofinductivereasoningcanbereducedtoinferencetothebestexplanation(IBE),
HowardSmokleranalyzedabductionasanimportantmethodofconfirmation,andLarry
Laudantreatedabductionasaninstructionforthepursuitofahypotheticaltheory.Inthis
chapter, we shallfollowPeirce’s stepsindiscussing abduction by analyzing its logical
andprobabilisticforms(Sects.1.1,1.2,and1.3),itsmaininterpretations(Sect.1.4),and
somecurrentdebatesaboutPeirce’sdistinctions(Sect.1.5).
Isthereathirdtypeofinferencebesidesdeductionandinduction?Doesthisthird
typeofinferenceplayasignificantrolewithinscientificinquiry?Apositiveanswer
to both of these questions was advocated by Charles S. Peirce throughout his
career, even though his opinions changed in important ways during the 50 years
between 1865 and 1914. Peirce called the third kind of inference “hypothesis”,
“presumption”, “abduction”, or “retroduction”.1 In this chapter, we shall follow
1References to Peirce’s works are given in the standard way: (CP x.y) refers to volume x and
paragraph y of Collected Papers (Peirce 1931–1935 and 1958), (W) to Writings, (RTL) to
Reasoning and the Logic of Things (Peirce 1992a), (EP 1) and (EP 2) to The Essential Peirce
(1992b,1998).
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