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A Mastermind player uses abduction to infer the secret colors (top) from summaries (bottom left) of discrepancies in their guesses (bottom right).. Abductive reasoning (also called abduction, [1] abductive inference, [1] or retroduction [2]) is a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations.
Doctors use abductive reasoning when investigating the symptoms of a patient to determine their underlying cause. Abductive reasoning plays a central role in science when researchers discover unexplained phenomena. In this case, they often resort to a form of guessing to come up with general principles that could explain the observations.
A form of abductive reasoning that suggests we should accept the hypothesis that best explains the relevant evidence. inferentialism The philosophical view that the meaning of a statement is determined by the rules governing its use and the inferences that can be drawn from it. infinitary
Other forms of reasoning are sometimes also taken to be part of logic, such as inductive reasoning and abductive reasoning, which are forms of reasoning that are not purely deductive, but include material inference. Similarly, it is important to distinguish deductive validity and inductive validity (called "strength").
This kind of reasoning allows the conclusion to be false even if the original statement is true. [28] For example, if one observes a college athlete, one makes predictions and assumptions about other college athletes based on that one observation. Scientists use inductive reasoning to create theories and hypotheses. [29]
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The duck test is a frequently cited colloquial example of abductive reasoning. Its usual expression is: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject's habitual characteristics.
Investigators are trying to determine how a woman got past multiple security checkpoints this week at New York’s JFK International Airport and boarded a plane to Paris, apparently hiding in the ...