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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]
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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

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