Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:55:48.321Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

COGNITIVE ECONOMICS AND THE LOGIC OF ABDUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

JOHN WOODS
JOHN WOODS*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy University of British Columbia and Group on Logic and Computation King’s College
*
*DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND GROUP ON LOGIC AND COMPUTATION KING’S COLLEGE 1866 MAIN MALL/VANCOUVER, BC, V6T 1Z1 AND/ STRAND/LONDON, UK, ‘WC2R2LS/ E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An agent-centered, goal-directed, resource-bound logic of human reasoning would do well to note that individual cognitive agency is typified by the comparative scantness of available cognitive resources—information, time, and computational capacity, to name just three. This motivates individual agents to set their cognitive agendas proportionately, that is, in ways that carry some prospect of success with the resources on which they are able to draw. It also puts a premium on cognitive strategies which make economical use of those resources. These latter I call scant-resource adjustment strategies, and they supply the context for an analysis of abduction. The analysis is Peircian in tone, especially in the emphasis it places on abduction’s ignorance-preserving character. My principal purpose here is to tie abduction’s scarce-resource adjustment capacity to its ignorance preservation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 148 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aliseda, A. (2006). Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigation into the Processes of Discovery and Evaluation. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flach, P. A., & Kakas, A. C., editors. (2000). Abduction and Induction: Essays on Their Relation and Interpretation. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., D’Agostino, M., & Finger, M. (2008). Cut-based abduction. Logic Journal of the IGPL, 16, 537–560.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Schlecta, K. (2009). Tools for Handling Change in Agent-Based Systems. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Woods, J. (2003). Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics, Vol. 1 of A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Woods, J. (2005a). The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial, Vol. 2 of A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Woods, J. (2005b). Filtration structures and the cut down problem for abduction. In Peacock, K. A., and Irvine, A. D., editors. Mistakes of Reason: Essays in Honour of John Woods. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, pp. 398–417.Google Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Woods, J. (2006a). Advice on abductive logic. Logic Journal of the IGPL, 14, 189–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gabbay, D. M., & Woods, J. (2006b). Formal models of abduction. In Magnani, L., editor. Model Based Reasoning in Science and Engineering. London: College Publications, pp. 301–309.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G. (1996). From tools to theories. In Graumann, C., and Gergen, K. J., editors. Historical Dimensions of Psychological Discourse. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 336–359.Google Scholar
Gigerenzer, G., & Selten, R. (2001). Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goddu, G. C. (2005). Woods and Gabbay’s The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial. Informal Logic, 25, 289–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hintikka, J. (2007). Socratic Epistemology: Explorations of Knowledge-Seeking by Questioning. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kakas, A., Kowalski, R. A., & Toni, F. (1995). Abductive logic programming. Journal of Logic and Computation, 2, 719–770.Google Scholar
Kowalski, R. A. (1979). Logic for Problem Solving. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kuipers, T. A. F. (1999). Abduction aiming at empirical progress of even truth approximation leading to a challenge for computational modeling. Foundations of Science, 4, 307–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macnamara, J. (1986). A Border Dispute: The Place of Logic in Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Magnani, L. (2001). Abduction, Reason and Science: Processes of Discovery and Explanation. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Magnani, L. (2009). Abductive Cognition. The Epistemological and Eco-Cognitive Dimensions of Hypothetical Reasoning. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.Google Scholar
Meheus, J., Verhoeven, L., van Dyck, M., & Provijn, D. (2002). Ampliative adaptive logics and the foundation of logic-based approaches to abduction. In Magnani, L., Nersessian, N., and Prizzi, C., editors. Logical and Computational Aspects of Model-based Reasoning. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer, pp. 39–77.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1992). In Kettner, K. L., editor. Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. 1969. Epistemology Naturalized. In Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescher, N. (1976). Peirce and the economy of research. Philosophy of Science, 43, 71–98.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1957). Models of Man. New York, NY: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1982). Models of Bounded Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
van Harmelen, F., Lipschitz, V., & Porter, B., editors. (2008). Handbook of Knowledge Representation. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Woods, J. (1999). Peirce’s abductive enthusiasms. Protosociology. 13, 117–125.Google Scholar
Woods, J. (2004). The Death of Argument: Fallacies in Agent-Based Reasoning. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, J. (2007a). Lightening up on the ad hominem. Informal Logic, 27, 109–134.Google Scholar
Woods, J. (2007b). Should we legalize Bayes’ theorem? In Hansen, H. V., and Pinto, R. C., editors. Reason Reclaimed: Essays in Honor of J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson. Newport News, VA: Vale Press, pp. 257–267.Google Scholar
Woods, J. (2007c). The concept of fallacy is empty: A resource-bound approach to error. In Magnani, L., and Peng, L., editors. Model Based Reasoning in Science, Technology and Medicine. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, pp. 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woods, J. (2013). Seductions and Shortcuts: Error in the Cognitive Economy. To appear.Google Scholar