Abduction as a Logic and Methodology of Discovery: the Importance of Strategies

There are various ``classical' argumentsagainst abduction as a logic of discovery,especially that (1) abduction is too weak amode of inference to be of any use, and (2) inbasic formulation of abduction the hypothesisis already presupposed to be known, so it isnot the way hypotheses are discovered in thefirst place. In this paper I argue, bybringing forth the idea of strategies,that these counter-arguments are weaker thanmay appear. The concept of strategiessuggests, inter alia, that many inferentialmoves are taken into account at the same time.This is especially important in abductivereasoning, which is basically a very weak modeof inference. The importance of strategicthinking can already be seen in Charles S.Peirce's early treatments of the topic, and N.R.Hanson's later writings on abductionalthough they did not use the concept of``strategies.' On the whole, I am arguing thatthe focus should be more on methodologicalprocesses, and not only on validityconsiderations, which have dominated thediscussion about abduction.     

Charles S. Peirce on Creative Metaphor: A Case Study on the Conveyor Belt Metaphor in Oceanography

Within Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotical theory, twodifferent kinds of creative metaphorical reasoning inscience can be identified. One of these, the buildingof remainder metaphors, is especially important forcreating new scientific models. We show that theconveyor belt metaphor provides an excellent examplefor Peirce's theory. The conveyor belt metaphor hasrecently been invented in order to describe theoceanic transport system. The paradigm of the oceanicconveyor belt strongly influenced the geosciencecommunity and the climate change discussion. Afteridentifying structures of metaphorical reasoning inscience (section 2), these structures are examined insection 3 for the conveyor belt metaphor in the fieldof oceanography. Finally, concluding remarks are givenin section 4.     

Model-Based and Manipulative Abduction in Science

What I call theoretical abduction (sentential and model-based)certainly illustrates much of what is important in abductive reasoning, especially the objective of selecting and creating a set of hypotheses that are able to dispense good (preferred) explanations of data, but fails to account for many cases of explanation occurring in science or in everyday reasoning when the exploitation of the environment is crucial. The concept of manipulative abduction is devoted to capture the role of action in many interesting situations: action provides otherwise unavailable information that enables the agent to solve problems by starting and performing a suitable abductive process of generation or selection of hypotheses. Many external things, usually inert from the epistemological point of view, can be transformed into what I callepistemic mediators, which are illustrated in the last part of the paper, together with an analysis of the related notions of ``perceptual and inceptual rehearsal' and of ``external representation'.     

How to Get It. Diagrammatic Reasoning as a Tool of Knowledge Development and its Pragmatic Dimension

Discussions concerning belief revision, theorydevelopment, and ``creativity' in philosophy andAI, reveal a growing interest in Peirce'sconcept of abduction. Peirce introducedabduction in an attempt to providetheoretical dignity and clarification to thedifficult problem of knowledge generation. Hewrote that ``An Abduction is Originary inrespect to being the only kind of argumentwhich starts a new idea' (Peirce, CP 2.26).These discussions, however, led to considerabledebates about the precise way in which Peirce'sabduction can be used to explain knowledgegeneration (cf. Magnani, 1999; Hoffmann, 1999).The crucial question is that of understandinghow we can get the new elements capableof enlarging our theories. Under thesecircumstances, it might be helpful to step outof the entanglement and reconsider the basis ofthe problem that originally triggered Peirce'sinterest in abduction. This will lead us toanother Peircean concept, that of ``diagrammaticreasoning,' which I discuss here in the contextof his ``pragmatism.' In this way, I hope toreach a better understanding of thecontribution of ``abduction' to the knowledgegeneration process.     

科学探究中的经济问题——皮尔士论研究经济学

从科学的社会性来看,以"求真"为目标的科学探究在客观上具有经济考虑,它集中体现在科学推理过程中的假说选择问题上。皮尔士的研究经济学,首次提出了经济思想对于一般的科学探究所具有的重要意义,深入分析了推进科学探究本身所应具备的经济策略,其中不仅闪烁着诸多思想启示,而且为现代科学哲学提供了一种新的方法论进路。     

传统宗教意识和中国科学发展

冯友兰提过一种看法：中国哲学家不需要现代科学。这种观点从未得到过学术界的讨论。本文旨在通过对中国自然观念的存在分析来进行这样的考证。文中以《庄子》和《中庸》为基础，对道家和儒家中国式的存在关怀以及它们为何对现代科学观念下的科学研究不感兴趣进行考察，并支持这样一种观点：这两部著作中包含了一种终极关怀；这种终极关怀与作为现代科学基础的终极关怀完全不同。为了佐证这一观点，文中对徐光启和伽利略进行了简要比较，并提出这样一个议题：为了更好地理解中国现代科学的发展，我们不得不透视作为现代科学基础的宗教意识。     

Towards a Radical Constructivist Understanding of Science

Constructivism is the idea thatwe construct our own world rather than it beingdetermined by an outside reality. Its mostconsistent form, Radical Constructivism (RC),claims that we cannot transcend ourexperiences. Thus it doesn't make sense to saythat our constructions gradually approach thestructure of an external reality. The mind isnecessarily an epistemological solipsist, incontrast to being an ontological solipsist whomaintains that this is all there is, namely asingle mind within which the only world exists.RC recognizes the impossibility of the claimthat the world does not exist. Yet, RC has thepotential to go much further. I claim that RCprovides the foundation of a new world-view inwhich we can overcome hard scientific problems.Thus, the paper is urging us to carry RCfurther, not just on philosophical grounds, butalso into the domain of science.     

回溯推理与经济解释

皮尔士提出的回溯推理是根据事实尝试性地提出理论假说,应用演绎推理从前提推出一些结论,作出预言,然后,根据实验来验证.如果预言得到实验的证实,那么,我们可以在一定程度上接受这一假说,把它转化为理论.回溯推理是一类独立的逻辑推理形式,其特点在于作出最佳解释.最佳解释推理要求具备一致性、简单性、类比性等特点.回溯推理在经济解释和经济学方法论中比归纳和演绎更为适用.     

最佳说明推理与溯因推理

最佳说明推理源于溯因推理,在一种推理过程中同时对科学假说的产生和评价作出了说明。文章考察了最佳说明推理的基本概念;从新假说产生即科学发现的视角,重构了皮尔士的溯因模型;在此基础上,比较了最佳说明推理与溯因推理的异同,比较性地评价了两者作为科学探究模式的优劣;最后,尝试性地得出几条结论。     

de Broglie Waves as the “Bridge of Becoming” Between Quantum Theory and Relativity

It is hypothesized that de Broglie’s ‘matter waves’ provide a dynamical basis for Minkowski spacetime in an antisubstantivalist or relational account. The relativity of simultaneity is seen as an effect of the de Broglie oscillation together with a basic relativity postulate, while the dispersion relation from finite rest mass gives rise to the differentiation of spatial and temporal axes. Thus spacetime is seen as not fundamental, but rather as emergent from the quantum level. A result by Solov’ev which demonstrates that time is not an applicable concept at the quantum level is adduced in support of this claim. Finally, it is noted that de Broglie waves can be seen as the “bridge of becoming” discussed by (2005).     

“科学共同体”在近代中西方的形成与比较

该文首先对西方科学哲学家托玛斯·库恩提出的“科学共同体”概念作了分析,然后讨论了“科学共同体”在近代西方（欧洲）的形成以及它的作用,同时对这一时期中国与西方的情况进行了比较,进而指明“科学共同体”未能于明末清初出现是中国科学技术在近代落后的内在原因之一,最后以中国科学技术在20世纪10～40年代进入一个新的发展阶段为例,得出“科学共同体”是将科学技术向前推进的有力杠杆的结论。     

Radical Constructivism in Biology and Cognitive Science

This article addresses the issue of “objectivism vs constructivism” in two areas,biology and cognitive science, which areintermediate between the natural sciences suchas physics (where objectivism is dominant) andthe human and social sciences (whereconstructivism is widespread). The issues inbiology and in cognitive science are intimatelyrelated; in each of these twin areas, the “objectivism vs constructivism” issue isinterestingly and rather evenly balanced; as aresult, this issue engenders two contrastingparadigms, each of which has substantialspecific scientific content. The neo-Darwinianparadigm in biology is closely resonant withthe classical cognitivist paradigm in cognitivescience, and both of them are intrinsicallyobjectivist. The organismic paradigm inbiology, based on the concept of autopoiesis,is consonant with the paradigm of “enaction” incognitive science; the latter paradigms are bothprofoundly constructivist.In cognitive science, the objectivism vsconstructivism issue is internal to thescientific field itself and reflexivity isinescapable. At this level, strong ontologicalobjectivism is self-contradictory and thereforeuntenable. Radical constructivism isself-coherent; but it also rehabilitatesa weak form of objectivism as a pragmaticallyviable alternative. In conclusion, there is aneven-handed reciprocity between “objectivist”and “constructivist” perspectives. Finally, thearticle examines the consequences of thisconclusion for fields other than cognitivescience: biology; physics and the naturalsciences; and the human and social sciences.     

Understanding Scientific Inquiries of Galileo’s Formulation for the Law of Free Falling Motion

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the role of abstraction and idealization in Galileo’s scientific inquiries into the law of free falling motion, and their importance in the history of science. Because there is no consensus on the use of the terms “abstraction” and “idealization” in the literature, it is necessary to distinguish between them at the outset. This paper will argue (1) for the importance of abstraction and idealization in physics and the theories and laws of physics constructed with abduction from observations and (2) that these theoretical laws of physics should be tested with deduction and induction thorough quasi-idealized entities rather than empirical results in the everyday world. Galileo’s work is linked to thought experiments in natural science. Galileo, using thought experiments based on idealization, persuaded others that what had been proven true for a ball on an inclined plane would be equally true for a ball falling through a vacuum.     

Forms of Causal Explanation

In the literature on scientific explanation two types of pluralism are very common. The first concerns the distinction between explanations of singular facts and explanations of laws: there is a consensus that they have a different structure. The second concerns the distinction between causal explanations and uni.cation explanations: most people agree that both are useful and that their structure is different. In this article we argue for pluralism within the area of causal explanations: we claim that the structure of a causal explanation depends on the causal structure of the relevant fragment of the world and on the interests of the explainer.     

How Not to Attack Intelligent Design Creationism: Philosophical Misconceptions About Methodological Naturalism

In recent controversies about Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC), the principle of methodological naturalism (MN) has played an important role. In this paper, an often neglected distinction is made between two different conceptions of MN, each with its respective rationale and with a different view on the proper role of MN in science. According to one popular conception, MN is a self-imposed or intrinsic limitation of science, which means that science is simply not equipped to deal with claims of the supernatural (Intrinsic MN or IMN). Alternatively, we will defend MN as a provisory and empirically grounded attitude of scientists, which is justified in virtue of the consistent success of naturalistic explanations and the lack of success of supernatural explanations in the history of science (Provisory MN or PMN). Science does have a bearing on supernatural hypotheses, and its verdict is uniformly negative. We will discuss five arguments that have been proposed in support of IMN: the argument from the definition of science, the argument from lawful regularity, the science stopper argument, the argument from procedural necessity, and the testability argument. We conclude that IMN, because of its philosophical flaws, proves to be an ill-advised strategy to counter the claims of IDC. Evolutionary scientists are on firmer ground if they discard supernatural explanations on purely evidential grounds, instead of ruling them out by philosophical fiat.     

Covariance/Invariance: A Cognitive Heuristic in Einstein's Relativity Theory Formation

Relativity Theory by Albert Einstein has been so far littleconsidered by cognitive scientists, notwithstanding its undisputedscientific and philosophical moment. Unfortunately, we don't have adiary or notebook as cognitively useful as Faraday's. But physicshistorians and philosophers have done a great job that is relevant bothfor the study of the scientist's reasoning and the philosophy ofscience. I will try here to highlight the fertility of a `triangulation'using cognitive psychology, history of science and philosophy of sciencein starting answering a clearly very complex question:why did Einstein discover Relativity Theory? Here we arenot much concerned with the unending question of precisely whatEinstein discovered, that still remains unanswered, for we have noconsensus over the exact nature of the theory's foundations(Norton 1993). We are mainly interested in starting to answer the`how question', and especially the following sub-question: what(presumably) were his goals and strategies in hissearch? I will base my argument on fundamental publications ofEinstein, aiming at pointing out a theory-specific heuristic, settingboth a goal and a strategy: covariance/invariance.The result has significance in theory formation in science, especiallyin concept and model building. It also raises other questions that gobeyond the aim of this paper: why was he so confident in suchheuristic? Why didn't many other scientists use it? Where did he keep ? such a heuristic? Do we have any other examples ofsimilar heuristic search in other scientific problemsolving?     

Defeasible Reasoning + Partial Models: A Formal Framework for the Methodology of Research Programs

In this paper we show that any reasoning process in which conclusions can be both fallible and corrigible can be formalized in terms of two approaches: (i) syntactically, with the use of defeasible reasoning, according to which reasoning consists in the construction and assessment of arguments for and against a given claim, and (ii) semantically, with the use of partial structures, which allow for the representation of less than conclusive information. We are particularly interested in the formalization of scientific reasoning, along the lines traced by Lakatos’ methodology of scientific research programs. We show how current debates in cosmology could be put into this framework, shedding light on a very controversial topic.     

海德格尔关于科学两种不同表述的内涵与统一性

海德格尔关于科学"本质"的两个命题虽然在表述上大相径庭,但在理论内核和论证方法上具有内在统一性。从内容上看,1938年"科学的本质是研究"和1953年"科学是现实之物的理论"这两个具有代表性的命题蕴含了科学"对现实之物的干预性加工"、"方法对科学的胜利"以及科学"专业化"的必然性与积极方面,体现了海德格尔科学思想的深邃和丰富性的一面。从逻辑结构上看,这两个命题通过"对置性"(Gegenstndlichkeit)这一概念贯通起来,体现了其思想与方法论上"一致性"的一面。只有把这两个具有内在统一性的命题结合起来才能更加深入地把握"科学的本质"及其局限性。这两种论述基本上包含了海德格尔关于"科学"的其他命题。海德格尔认为,只有不迷恋确定性、严格性与客观性,立足于"存在的历史"和活生生的"此在的生存",才能更好地把握科学。     

Embodied Anomaly Resolution in Molecular Genetics: A Case Study of RNAi

Scientific anomalies are observations and facts that contradict current scientific theories and they are instrumental in scientific theory change. Philosophers of science have approached scientific theory change from different perspectives as Darden (Theory change in science: Strategies from Mendelian genetics, 1991) observes: Lakatos (In: Lakatos, Musgrave (eds) Criticism and the growth of knowledge, 1970) approaches it as a progressive “research programmes” consisting of incremental improvements (“monster barring” in Lakatos, Proofs and refutations: The logic of mathematical discovery, 1976), Kuhn (The structure of scientific revolutions, 1996) observes that changes in “paradigms” are instigated by a crisis from some anomaly, and Hanson (In: Feigl, Maxwell (eds) Current issues in the philosophy of science, 1961) proposes that discovery does not begin with hypothesis but with some “problematic phenomena requiring explanation”. Even though anomalies are important in all of these approaches to scientific theory change, there have been only few investigations into the specific role anomalies play in scientific theory change. Furthermore, much of these approaches focus on the theories themselves and not on how the scientists and their experiments bring about scientific change (Gooding, Experiment and the making of meaning: Human agency in scientific observation and experiment, 1990). To address these issues, this paper approaches scientific anomaly resolution from a meaning construction point of view. Conceptual integration theory (Fauconnier and Turner, Cogn Sci 22:133–187, 1996; The way we think: Conceptual blending and mind’s hidden complexities, 2002) from cognitive linguistics describes how one constructs meaning from various stimuli, such as text and diagrams, through conceptual integration or blending. The conceptual integration networks that describe the conceptual integration process characterize cognition that occurs unconsciously during meaning construction. These same networks are used to describe some of the cognition while resolving an anomaly in molecular genetics called RNA interference (RNAi) in a case study. The RNAi case study is a cognitive-historical reconstruction (Nersessian, In: Giere (ed) Cognitive models of science, 1992) that reconstructs how the RNAi anomaly was resolved. This reconstruction traces four relevant molecular genetics publications in describing the cognition necessary in accounting for how RNAi was resolved through strategies (Darden 1991), abductive reasoning (Peirce, In: Hartshorne, Weiss (eds) Collected papers, 1958), and experimental reasoning (Gooding 1990). The results of the case study show that experiments play a crucial role in formulating an explanation of the RNAi anomaly and the integration networks describe the experiments’ role. Furthermore, these results suggest that RNAi anomaly resolution is embodied. It is embodied in a sense that cognition described in the cognitive-historical reconstruction is experientially based.