Abductive reasoning
<p>Jan 24, 2011 11:51 AM
 
Abduction   Charles Sanders Peirce .... GUESSING.
 
arriving at an explanatory hypothesis.
 
Try to explain B...
 
Peirce said that to ABDUCE an explanation means to 
 
surmise that is A may be the true (or the case) because then B would follow.
 
That is, A is SUFFICIENT to explain B, altho not necessary for B.
 
For example, <i><b>the lawn is wet</b></i><b>.</b> But if<b> </b><i><b>it rained last night</b></i><b>,</b> then it would be unsurprising that<b> </b><i><b>the lawn is wet</b></i><b>.</b>
Therefore, by abductive reasoning, <i><b>it rained last night</b></i>
 
<i><b>Deduction is deriving the consequences of what is assumed.</b></i>
 
<i>Deduction and abduction differ in the direction in which a rule like "a entails b" is used for inference<b>.</b></i>
 
 
 
 
 
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