The great logician Charles Sanders Peirce coined the word "abduction" and defined it as a new kind of inference (distinct from deduction and induction).
Let us now consider non-necessary reasoning. This divides itself, according to the different ways in which it may be valid, into three classes: probable deduction; experimental reasoning, which I now call Induction; and processes of thought capable of producing no conclusion more definite than a conjecture, which I now call Abduction. - C. S. Peirce
A more modern view takes into account various pragmatic and contextual clues to estimate the "strength" of an abductive conclusion, that is, an explanation:
Abduction, of inference to the best explanation, is a form of inference that goes from data describing something to a hypothesis that best explains or accounts for the data.
We take abduction to be a distinctive kind of inference that follows this pattern pretty nearly:
D is a collection of data (facts, observations, givens).
H explains D (would, if true, explain D).
No other hypothesis can explain D as well as H does.
... Therefore, H is probably true.The strength of an abductive conclusion will in general depend on several factors, including:
- how good H is by itself, independently of considering the alternatives,
- how decseively H surpasses the alternatives,
- how thorough the search was for alternative explanations, and
- pragmatic considerations, including
- the costs of being wrong and the benefits of being right,
- how strong the need is to come to a conclusion at all, especially considering the possibility of seeking further evidence before deciding.
- Josephson & Josephson, Abductive Inference
Image: Charles Sanders Peirce, from Wikipedia.
