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.     

Problems with Peirce's Concept of Abduction

Abductive reasoning takes place in forming``hypotheses' in order to explain ``facts.' Thus, theconcept of abduction promises an understanding ofcreativity in science and learning. It raises,however, also a lot of problems. Some of them will bediscussed in this paper. After analyzing thedifference between induction and abduction (1), Ishall discuss Peirce's claim that there is a ``logic'of abduction (2). The thesis is that this claim can beunderstood, if we make a clear distinction betweeninferential elements and perceptive elements ofabductive reasoning. For Peirce, the creative act offorming explanatory hypotheses and the emergence of``new ideas' belongs exclusively to the perceptive sideof abduction. Thus, it is necessary to study the roleof perception in abductive reasoning (3). A furtherproblem is the question whether there is arelationship between abduction and Peirce's concept of``theorematic reasoning' in mathematics (4). Both formsof reasoning could be connected, because both arebased on perception. The last problem concerns therole of instincts in explaining the success ofabductive reasoning in science, and the questionwhether the concept of instinct might be replaced bymethods of inquiry (5).     

科学发现的本质及其逻辑机制的再发现

不管对科学发现进行语义分析，还是对科学发现活动本身进行历史探究，我们都会发现，科学发现除了具有社会、历史和心理上的属性外，它在本质上乃是新假说的产生、选择、修正、接受和解释的逻辑过程，其逻辑机制正是皮尔士与汉森等所倡导的溯因推理。而且，现代认知科学的新成果促进了溯因推理形式的不断完善，人们意识到在新假说产生与选择中背景理论与背景知识的重要作用，创新了溯因推理的推理形式，令人满意地回答了溯因推理何以能够以及如何能够成为科学发现的逻辑的问题。     

Understanding Natural Science Based on Abductive Inference: Continental Drift

This study aims to understand scientific inference for the evolutionary procedure of Continental Drift based on abductive inference, which is important for creative inference and scientific discovery during problem solving. We present the following two research problems: (1) we suggest a scientific inference procedure as well as various strategies and a criterion for choosing hypotheses over other competing or previous hypotheses; aspects of this procedure include puzzling observation, abduction, retroduction, updating, deduction, induction, and recycle; and (2) we analyze the “theory of continental drift” discovery, called the Earth science revolution, using our multistage inference procedure. Wegener’s Continental Drift hypothesis had an impact comparable to the revolution caused by Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology. Finally, the suggested inquiry inference model can provide us with a more consistent view of science and promote a deeper understanding of scientific concepts.     

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.     

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.     

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。     

Representation and Truthlikeness

Woosuk Park’s paper “Misrepresentation in Context” is a useful plea for a theory of representation with promising interaction between cognitive science, philosophy of science, and aesthetics. In this paper, I argue that such a unified account is provided by Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics. This theory puts Park’s criticism of Nelson Goodman and Jerry Fodor in context. Some of Park’s pertinent remarks on the problem of misrepresentation can be illuminated by the account of truthlikeness and idealization developed by philosophers of science.     

皮尔士论知识的基础及其对当代知识论的启示

20世纪中叶开始,奎因、塞拉斯、戴维森等人对经验主义的攻击使得经验失去了证成知识的作用,威廉姆森倡导的"知识优先"论题将知识视为不可被进一步分析、拆解的单位,经验不再起到首要作用,这最终带来了知识和经验在当代知识论中的分裂问题.皮尔士关于知识基础的讨论蕴含了将经验视为限制和塑造知识的力量,以及将知识视为实际探究的起点这...     

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.     

范·弗拉森反最佳说明推理的无动于衷论证

最佳说明推理的有效性是当前科学哲学研究备受关注的话题.范·弗拉森反驳这种推理的有效性.他通过质询正确的好说明是否在那堆被考虑的可能说明中,表明如果遗漏正确说明,在考虑它时"无动于衷",那就无法认为一堆可能说明中最佳的那个说明是正确的.范·弗拉森对这种推理的理解实际上并不充分.结合他的相关表述,就能看到他的无动于衷论证存...     

Seeking Allies: Modelling How Listeners Choose Their Musical Friends

In this paper we describe in some detail a formal computer model of inferential discourse based on a belief system. The key issue is that a logical model in a computer, based on rational sets, can usefully model a human situation based on irrational sets. The background of this work is explained elsewhere, as is the issue of rational and irrational sets (Billinge and Addis, in: Magnani and Dossena (eds.), Computing, philosophy and cognition, 2004; Stepney et al., Journey: Non-classical philosophy—socially sensitive computing in journeys non-classical computation: A grand challenge for computing research, 2004). The model is based on the Belief System (Addis and Gooding, Proceedings of the AISB’99 Symposium on Scientific Creativity, 1999) and it provides a mechanism for choosing queries based on a range of belief. We explain how it provides a way to update the belief based on query results, thus modelling others’ experience by inference. We also demonstrate that for the same internal experience, different models can be built for different actors.

论豪森对无奇迹论证的反驳与推进

作为实在论辩护的核心策略之一,无奇迹论证试图从科学的经验性成功推论其"近似真理性",并以"无奇迹"作为置信度指标.豪森分析了无奇迹论证的基本逻辑,批评了其在"近似真理"概念上的问题与逻辑困境,并通过揭示论证过程中的基础概率谬误否定了其逻辑有效性.随后,通过引入主观概率解释以及"休谟不等式",豪森提出了一个逻辑上有效的无...     

野口英世的蛇毒研究

二十世纪初多次获得诺贝尔生理学或医学奖提名的日本微生物学家野口英世因梅毒、黄热病等研究著称于世,但人们对他赴美之初的蛇毒研究知之甚少。不过,正是这项研究使其获得了美国免疫学界的认可,并成为首个在洛克菲勒研究所任职的亚洲学者。通过梳理野口早期发表的论文发现,他曾深入研究过蛇毒的凝血与溶血机制、蛇毒与动物血清的作用和抗眼镜蛇毒血清的效用,不仅阐明了蛇毒的毒理、率先研制出抗响尾蛇毒的血清,还论证了动物血清中抗体-补体的作用方式。文章认为,初出茅庐的野口研究蛇毒即取得成功的主要原因有:一、抗体-补体理论作为一种新兴的免疫学理论,为动物毒素研究提供了借鉴;二、刚刚问世的免疫学减毒方法为研制抗蛇毒血清奠定了基础;三、西蒙·弗莱克斯纳和塞拉斯·米切尔的悉心指导;四、野口具有攻坚克难的胆识、勤奋好学的品性和坚忍不拔的毅力。     

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。     

Simulation Methods for an Abductive System in Science

We argue that abduction does not work in isolation from other inference mechanisms and illustrate this through an inference scheme designed to evaluate multiple hypotheses. We use game theory to relate the abductive system to actions that produce new information. To enable evaluation of the implications of this approach we have implemented the procedures used to calculate the impact of new information in a computer model. Experiments with this model display a number of features of collective belief-revision leading to consensus-formation, such as the influence of bias and prejudice. The scheme of inferential calculations invokes a Peircian concept of ‘belief’ as the propensity to choose a particular course of action.

巴特利特创建自相关检验理论的历史探缘

从巴特利特的学术背景出发,立足于"为什么数学",挖掘了巴特利特创建自相关检验理论的发展历程及推动缘由.从理论探究和实践数据分析的双重视角,巴特利特剖析了由于观测数据之间存在"依赖性",普通统计意义下的显著性检验在时间序列分析中通常是无效的.为探讨新的统计推断方式,在推证平稳序列自相关误差公式的基础上,巴特利特最终推断了...     

探索科学实践中认知规范的历史性——评哈金的科学推理风格理论

哈金的科学推理风格理论是历史知识论的重要研究方向之一。最近,马丁.库什从科学知识社会学的角度出发,对哈金的理论提出了一系列批评。这些批评认为,哈金的理论无法避免内在主义编史学和极端相对主义的结论,它是建立在不恰当的论据之上的。     

Detecting Clusters in the Data from Variance Decompositions of Its Projections

A new projection-pursuit index is used to identify clusters and other structures in multivariate data. It is obtained from the variance decompositions of the data’s one-dimensional projections, without assuming a model for the data or that the number of clusters is known. The index is affine invariant and successful with real and simulated data. A general result is obtained indicating that clusters’ separation increases with the data’s dimension. In simulations it is thus confirmed, as expected, that the performance of the index either improves or does not deteriorate when the data’s dimension increases, making it especially useful for “large dimension-small sample size” data. The efficiency of this index will increase with the continuously improved computer technology. Several applications are presented.