Questions tagged [abduction]
The abduction tag has no usage guidance.
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Can an extraordinary hypothesis ever be the best explanation for a set of historical facts?
As a motivating example, I have in mind the minimal facts argument for the resurrection of Jesus, espoused by Christian apologists such as Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, and William Lane Craig. The ...
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Fallacy of the Devil You Know
I just made up that name for the fallacy, but I'm wondering if there is a more common term for it. The fallacy is basically inferring from an inconclusive set of evidence to a particular explanation ...
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Is predictive power a criterion for pragmatism?
Is predictive power a criterion for pragmatism?
In inference to the best explanation, one of the criteria is prognostic power.
Does this criterion refer to pragmatism?
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Meaning of falsification in different context
What is the meaning of devil's advocate. Is it same as falsification/falsifiability ?
Can we use falsifiability/falsification for abductive reasoning ?
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abductive reasoning in many fields of study
In continuation of the discussion What is the relation between abductive reasoning and fallacy? my question is that if medical science judiciary history all uses abductive reasoning (almost all the ...
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What does the IBE argument (the best explanation argument) look like in favor of the existence of other minds?
I have read several versions of the IBE argument for the existence of other minds.
But I got a little confused.
Now I'm not sure I know what it should sound like.
How should the IBE argument (argument ...
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How does the IBE arrive at the best explanation?
What is meant by the behavior of other people in argument?
Here it is said that the simplicity of the explanation is decisive in choosing the best explanation.
Solipsism has fewer entities(only my ...
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How is it determined which explanation is simpler?
One of the criteria of IBE is simplicity.
How to determine which explanation is simpler if there are two types of simplicity:
one type counts the number of hearings, and the other type counts the ...
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Is the simpler explanation is the most likely, the most convincing and the most plausible?
Is the simpler explanation is the most likely, the most convincing and the most plausible?
Occam's razor and abduction, on which inference to the best explanation is based, say that the simplest ...
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Please clarify this answer about the argument
I did not understand how this argument should sound.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#BestExpl
The article reads as follows: On this way of thinking, mental states are taken to be inner ...
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Epistemic value of multiple eyewitness accounts: single event vs. multiple events given a fixed number of eyewitnesses?
Intuitively speaking, multiple independent eyewitness accounts of a single event are more convincing than a single eyewitness account. For example, multiple independent eyewitness accounts of a loud ...
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Defeasible reasoning
a. If x is a weekday, Xena goes to work on day x.
b. If Xena is ill, she doesn’t go to work that day.
c.2 Jan ‘07 was a weekday.
d. Xena was ill on 2 Jan. '07.
e. By (a) and (c), Xena went to work on ...
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What is the relation between abductive reasoning and fallacy?
According to WP's article on abductive reasoning:
[A]bduction is formally equivalent to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent [citation needed] because of multiple possible explanations for ...
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How likely is the simplest explanation of something the correct one?
When assuming how something is the way it is, you choose the simplest explanation. But what is the chance of this actually being the explanation? For example, say a cucumber randomly appeared on the ...
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What did evolutionary epistemology discover about our tendency to guess right abductively?
C.S. Peirce wrote: "[...] if the universe conforms, with any approach to accuracy, to certain highly pervasive laws, and if man's mind has been developed under the influence of those laws, it is ...
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Non-Deductive methods in philosophical argumentation
I'm a mathematician, and I'm trying to expand my understanding of the philosophical basis of mathematics. Mathematics is very much taught axiomatically establishing deductive theories, but philosophy ...
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Trying to understand the fallacy in my inductive reasoning regarding this conclusion? [closed]
Consider the following statements:
Anna told you she failed her physics midterm.
Anna hasn't been in physics class since the teacher graded the exams.
Anna has been in sociology class, which meets ...
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Are extraordinary first-hand subjective accounts more likely to be true the more people report the same experience?
For illustrative purposes, let's take as an example the following claim X = "I went to sleep, but then I suddenly woke up at 3:00 a.m. feeling a terrifying evil presence, and then my bed began to ...
user48437
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Justification for the paradigm of abductive reasoning
In Chance , Love and Logic, Peirce defines reasoning into two categories: analytic and non-analytic. All forms of reasoning have three fundamental components: rule, case, result.
Analytic reasoning ...
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