Book Reviews

There are however, a variety of different approaches that claim to capture the true nature of this concept. One reason for this diversity lies in the fact that abductive reasoning occurs in a multitude of contexts. It concerns cases that cover the simplest selection of already existing hypotheses to the generation of new concepts in science. It also concerns cases where the observation is puzzling because it is novel versus cases in which the surprise concerns an anomalous observation. For example, if we wake up, and the lawn is wet, we might explain this observation by assuming that it must have rained or that the sprinklers have been on.