Model-Based Abductive Inference. A Relationship between Logic and Cognition

Abstract

Abductive reasoning has played a central role in philosophical accounts of generation of new explanatory hypotheses in science. On the other hand, cognitive scientists have considered model-based reasoning as a main instrument for creative thinking in science. This latter kind of reasoning is applied not to sentences but to semantic objects called models, and is not governed by formal rules of inference. This paper holds the thesis that abductive inference, in its discovery role, is reinforced by what can be characterized as “model-based abduction”, a notion which has not yet been sufficiently analyzed in the literature.