Automating discovery: what can we learn from the study of abductive reasoning?
The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which abductive inference can be automated. In order to do so, we present the Peircean account of abduction, according to which abduction is the process of generating and selecting an explanatory hypothesis that guides future inquiry (CP 5.171; 1...
| Autores: | , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2024 |
| País: | Brasil |
| Institución: | Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP) |
| Repositorio: | Cognitio (São Paulo. Online) |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/68263 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/cognitiofilosofia/article/view/68263 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Abdução AI-Descartes Automação Inferência à melhor explicação Abduction Automation Inference to the best explanation |
| Sumario: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which abductive inference can be automated. In order to do so, we present the Peircean account of abduction, according to which abduction is the process of generating and selecting an explanatory hypothesis that guides future inquiry (CP 5.171; 1903). Then, we introduce the contemporary concept of abduction characterized as Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE), which aim is to select a hypothesis, among a set of available hypotheses, considering their explanatory potential in terms of likelihood and loveliness (Lipton, 2004). Subsequently, we discuss IBE in relation to Bayesianism, according to which rational agents update their degrees of beliefs in a proposition based on new evidence and explanatory considerations. To illustrate our analysis, we present the software called AI-Descartes, an open-source AI system that combines logical reasoning with symbolic regression, aiming to derive scientific discovery from axiomatic knowledge and experimental data (Cornelio et al., 2023). Finally, we provide considerations about the relevance of studying abduction in the context of Artificial Intelligence. |
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