137

Reorienting t
6. Reorienting the Logic of Abduction

Part B | 6
John Woods

6.1 Abduction.......................................... 138

Abduction, still a comparatively neglected kind of
6.1.1 Peirce’s Abduction .............................. 138
premiss-conclusion reasoning, gives rise to the
6.1.2 Ignorance Problems ............................ 138
questions I want to consider here. One is whether 6.1.3 The Gabbay–Woods Schema ................ 139
abduction’s epistemic peculiarities can be accom- 6.1.4 The Yes-But Phenomenon ................... 140
modated happily in the mainline philosophical
theories of knowledge. The other is whether 6.2 Knowledge ........................................ 141
abduction provides any reason to question the 6.2.1 Epistemology...................................... 141
assumption that the goodness of drawing a con- 6.2.2 Losing the J-Condition ........................ 142
clusion from premisses depends on an underlying 6.2.3 The Causal Response Model
relation of logical consequence. My answer each
of Knowledge ..................................... 142
6.2.4 Naturalism ......................................... 143
time is no. I will spend most of my time on the
6.2.5 Showing and Knowing ........................ 143
first. Much of what I’ll say about the second is
6.2.6 Explaining the Yes-Buts ...................... 144
a promissory note.
6.2.7 Guessing ............................................ 144
6.2.8 Closed Worlds ..................................... 146
6.3 Logic ................................................. 148
6.3.1 Consequences and Conclusions ............ 148
6.3.2 Semantics .......................................... 148
References................................................... 149

Three facts about today’s logic stand out: of that core structure is the relation of logical conse-
quence. It occasions some sensible operational advice:
1. Never has it been done with such technical virtuos-
If in your work you seek to enlarge logic’s present
ity
multiplicities, have the grace to say why you think it
2. Never has there been so much of it
qualifies as logic, that is, embodies logic’s structural
3. Never has there been so little consensus about its
core. This is not idle advice. I hope to give it heed in
common subject matters.
the pages to follow, as we turn our attention to the logic
It would seem that the more we have of it, the less of abduction.
our inclination to get to the bottom of its sprawlingly Although logic’s dominant focus has been the con-
incompatible provisions. There is nothing remotely like sequence relation, in the beginning its centrality owed
this in real analysis, particle physics or population ge- comparatively little to its intrinsic appeal. Consequence
netics. There is nothing like it in the premiss-conclusion was instrumentally interesting; it was thought to be
reasonings of politics and everyday life. Left undealt the relation in virtue of which premiss-conclusion rea-
with, one might see in logic’s indifference to its own soning is safe, or whose absence would expose it to
rivalries some sign of not quite knowing its own mind. risk. Reasoning in turn had an epistemic motivation.
It could be said that one of logic’s more stimulating Man may be many kinds of animal, but heading the
events in our still-young century is the revival of the list is his cognitive identity. He is a knowledge-seeking
idea that it is a universal discipline, that when all is said and knowledge-attaining being to which his survival
and done there is a core structure to which all the mul- and prosperity are indissolubly linked, indispensable
tiplicities of our day are ultimately answerable. If the to which is his capacity to adjust what he believes to
historical record is anything to go on, the cornerstone what follows from what. We might say then that as
 138 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

long as logic has retained its interest in good and bad ductive contexts. It is not a strict partition. Between
Part B | 6.1

reasoning it has retained this same epistemic orienta- the logical and computational paradigms, abductive
tion. Accordingly, a logic of good and bad reasoning logic programming and semantic tableaux abduction
carries epistemological presuppositions that aren’t typ- occupy a more intermediate position. Whatever its pre-
ically explicitly developed. cise details, the logic-computer science dichotomy is
It would be premature to say that abduction by not something I welcome. It distributes the theory of
now has won a central and well-established place in abductive reasoning into different camps that have yet
the research programs of modern logic, but there are to learn how to talk to one another in a systematic way.
some hopeful signs of progress (important sources in- A further difficulty is that whereas abduction is now an
clude [6.1–13]). In the literature to date there are two identifiable research topic in logic – albeit a minority
main theoretical approaches, each emphasizing the dif- one – it has yet to attain that status in computer science.
ferent sides of a product-process distinction. The log- Such abductive insights as may occur there are largely
ical (or product) approach seeks for truth conditions in the form of obiter dicta attached to the main business
on abductive consequence relations and of such other at hand (I am indebted to Atocha Aliseda for insightful
properties as may be interdefinable with it. The compu- advice on this point). This leaves us awkwardly po-
tational (or process) approach constructs computational sitioned. The foundational work for a comprehensive
models of how hypotheses are selected for use in ab- account of abductive reasoning still awaits completion.

6.1 Abduction
6.1.1 Peirce’s Abduction to experimental trial ([6.15, CP 5.599], [6.18, CP
6.469–6.473], [6.17, 7.202–219]).
Although there are stirrings of it in Aristotle’s notion of P5 The connection between the truth of the abduced
apagogē [6.14], we owe the modern idea of abduction hypothesis A and the observed fact C is subjunc-
to Peirce. It is encapsulated in the Peircean abduction tive [6.15, CP 5.189].
schema, as follows [6.15, CP 5.189]: P6 The inference that the abduction licenses is not to
the proposition A, but rather that A’s truth is some-
“The surprising fact C is observed. thing that might plausibly be suspected [6.15, CP
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. 5.189].
Hence there is reason to suspect that A is true.” P7 The hence of the Peircean conclusion is ventured de-
feasibly [6.15, CP 5.189].
Peirce’s schema raises some obvious questions. One
is how central to abduction is the factor of surprise. An- Let us note that P3 conveys something of basic
other is the issue of how we are to construe the element importance. It is that successful abductions are eviden-
of suspicion. A third concerns what we are expected tially inert. They offer no grounds for believing the
to do with propositions that creep thus into our suspi- hypotheses abduced. What, then, is the good of them?
cions. A fourth is what we are to make of the idea that
an occurrence of something is a matter of course. Like 6.1.2 Ignorance Problems
so many of his better ideas and deeper insights, Peirce
has nothing like a fully developed account of abduc- Seen in Peirce’s way, abductions are responses to igno-
tion. Even so, the record contains some important ideas, rance problems. An agent has an ignorance problem in
seven of which I’ll mention here: relation to an epistemic target when it can’t be attained
by the cognitive resources presently at his command, or
P1 Abduction is triggered by surprise [6.15, CP 5.189]. within easy and timely reach of it. If, for some propo-
P2 Abduction is a form of guessing, underwritten in- sition A, you want to know whether A is the case, and
nately by instinct ([6.16, p. 128], [6.15, CP 5.171], you lack the information to answer this question, or to
[6.17, CP 7.220]). draw it out by implication or projection from what you
P3 A successful abduction provides no grounds for be- currently do know, then you have an ignorance problem
lieving the abduced proposition to be true [6.16, with respect to A.
p. 178]. Two of the most common responses to ignorance
P4 Rather than believing them, the proper thing to problems are (1) subduance and (2) surrender. In the
do with abduced hypotheses is to send them off first case, one’s ignorance is removed by new knowl-
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction 6.1 Abduction 139

edge, and an altered position is arrived at, which may 2. R.K; T/ [fact]

Part B | 6.1
serve as a positive basis for new action. In the second 3. Subduance is not presently an option [fact]
case, one’s ignorance is fully preserved, and is so in 4. Surrender is not presently an option [fact]
a way that cannot serve as a positive basis for new ac- 5. H 62 K [fact]
tion (new action is action whose decision to perform is 6. H 62 K  [fact]
lodged in reasons that would have been afforded by that 7. R.H; T) [fact]
knowledge). For example, suppose that you’ve forgot- 8. R.K.H/, T/ [fact]
ten when Barb’s birthday is. If her sister Joan is nearby 9. H R.K.H/; T/ [fact]
you can ask her, and then you’ll have got what you 10. H meets further conditions S1 ; : : : Sn [fact]
wanted to know. This is subduance. On the other hand 11. Therefore, C.H/ [sub-conclusion, 1–7]
if Joan is traveling incognito in Peru and no one else is 12. Therefore, H c [conclusion, 1–8].
about, you might find that knowing Barb’s birthday no
longer interests you. So you might rescind your epis- It is easy to see that the distinctive epistemic feature
temic target. This would be surrender. of abduction is captured by the schema. It is a given
There is a third response that is sometimes avail- that H is not in the agent’s knowledge set K. Nor is
able. It is a response that splits the difference between it in its immediate successor K  . Since H is not in
the prior two. It is abduction. Like surrender, abduc- K, then the revision of K by H is not a knowledge-
tion is ignorance-preserving, and like subduance, it successor set to K. Even so, H R.K.H/; T/. But that
offers the agent a positive basis for new action. With subjunctive fact is evidentially inert with respect to H.
subduance, the agent overcomes his ignorance. With So the abduction of H leaves the agent no closer than
surrender, his ignorance overcomes him. With abduc- he was before to achieving the knowledge he sought.
tion, his ignorance remains, but he is not overcome Though abductively successful, H doesn’t enable the
by it. It offers a reasoned basis for new action in the abducer to attain his epistemic target. So we have it
presence of that ignorance. No one should think that that successful abduction is ignorance-preserving. Of
the goal of abduction is to maintain that ignorance. course, the devil is in the details. Specifying the Si is
The goal is to make the best of the ignorance that one perhaps the hardest open problem for abductive logic.
chances to be in. In much of the literature it is widely accepted that K-
sets must be consistent and that its consistency must
6.1.3 The Gabbay–Woods Schema be preserved by K.H/. This strikes me as unrealistic.
Belief sets are often, if not routinely, inconsistent. Also
The nub of abduction can be described informally. You commonly imposed is a minimality condition. There are
want to know whether something A is the case. But you two inequivalent versions of it. The simplicity version
don’t know and aren’t in a position here and now to advises that complicated hypotheses should be avoided
get to know. However, you observe that if some fur- as much as possible. It is sometimes assumed that truth
ther proposition H were true, then it together with what tends to favor the uncomplicated. I see no reason to ac-
you already know would enable you to answer your cept that. On the other hand, simplicity has a prudential
question with regard to A. Then, on the basis of this appeal. Simple ideas are more easily understood than
subjunctive connection, you infer that H is a conjec- complicated ones. But it would be overdoing things to
turable hypothesis and, on that basis, you release it elevate this desideratum to the status of a logically nec-
provisionally for subsequent inferential work in the rel- essary condition. The other version is a form of Quine’s
evant contexts. maxim of minimum mutilation. It bids the theorist to
More formally, let T be an agent’s epistemic target revise his present theory in the face of new information
at a time, and K his knowledge base at that time. Let in ways that leave as much as possible of the now-
K  be an immediate successor of K that lies within the old theory intact. It advises the revisionist to weigh the
agent’s means to produce in a timely way. Let R be an benefits of admitting the new information against the
attainment relation for T and let denote the subjunc- costs of undoing the theory’s current provisions. This,
tive conditional relation. K.H/ is the revision of K upon too, is little more than prudence. No one wants to rule
the addition of H. C.H/ denotes the conjecture of H out Planck’s introduction of the quantum to physics,
and H c its activation. Accordingly, the general structure never mind the mangling of old physics that ensued.
of abduction can be captured by what has come to be Another of the standard conditions is that K.H/ must
known as the Gabbay–Woods schema [6.6, 19, 20]: entail the proposition for which abductive support has
been sought. In some variations inductive implication is
1. T! E [The ! operator sets T as an epistemic target substituted. Both I think are too strong. Note also that
with respect to some state of affairs E] none of the three – consistency, minimality or implica-
 140 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

tion – could be thought of as process protocols. The Si fully abduced hypotheses the promise of poor-cousin
Part B | 6.1

are conditions on hypothesis selection. I have no very evidential backing; but it wouldn’t be backing with no
clear idea about how this is done, and I cannot but think evidential force. It is an attractive idea, but it cuts too
that my ignorance is widely shared. Small wonder that far.
logicians have wanted to offload the logic of discov- There are too many cases in which successful rea-
ery to psychology. I will come back to this briefly in soning, indeed brilliant reasoning, has the very charac-
due course. Meanwhile let’s agree to regard line (10) as teristic the reformers would wish to suppress. A case
a promissory note [6.21, Chap. 11]. in point is Planck’s quantum hypothesis. In the physics
of 1900s, black body radiation lacked unifying laws for
6.1.4 The Yes-But Phenomenon high and low frequencies. Planck was disturbed by this.
Notwithstanding his lengthy acquaintanceship with it,
Perhaps it won’t come as much of a surprise to learn the disunification of the black body laws was a surpris-
of the resistance with which the ignorance-preservation ing event. It was, for physics, not a matter of course.
claim has been met when the Gabbay–Woods schema Planck wanted to know what it would take to ease his
has been presented to (what is by now a sizable num- cognitive irritation. Nothing he knew about physics an-
ber of) philosophical audiences. There are those who swered this question. Nothing he would come to know
think that precisely because it strips good abductions about physics would answer it either, as long as physics
of evidential force, the G–W schema misrepresents was done in the standard way. Planck recognized that he
Peirce. Others think that precisely because it is faithful would never attain his target until physics were done in
to Peirce’s conditions the G–W schema discredits the a new way, in a way sufficiently at odds with the present
Peircean concept of abduction. Of particular interest is paradigm to get some movement on this question; yet
the hesitation shown by philosophers who are actually not so excessively ajar from it as to make it unrecogniz-
inclined to accept the schema, and accept the Peircean able as physics. That day in 1900 when he announced
notion. It may be true, they seem to think, that abduction to his son that he had overturned Newton, Planck was
is ignorance-preserving, but it is not a truth to which drawn to the conditional that if the quantum hypothesis
they take kindly. Something about it they find unsatis- Q were true then K.Q/ – that is, physics as revised by
fying. There is a conventional way of giving voice to the incorporation of Q – would enable him to reach his
this kind of reticence. One does it with the words, Yes, target. So he put it to work accordingly. At no stage did
but : : :. So we may speak of this class of resisters as the Planck think that Q was true. He thought it lacked phys-
ignorance-preservation yes-buts. ical meaning. He thought that his reasoning provided no
Some philosophers are of the view that there are at evidence that Q was true and no grounds for believing it
least three grades of evidential strength. There is evi- to be true. Peirce wanted a logic that respected this kind
dential strength of the truth-preserving sort; evidential of thinking. This is what I want too. The poor cousin
strength of the probability-enhancing sort; and eviden- thesis doesn’t do this, and cannot.
tial strength of a weaker kind. This latter incorporates Ignorance removal is prompted by the reasoner’s
a notion of evidence that is strong in its way without desire to know something he doesn’t now know, or
being either deductively strong or inductively strong. to have more knowledge of it than he currently does.
It is, as we might say, induction’s poor cousin. Pro- What are the conditions under which this happens? It
ponents of this approach are faced with an interesting seems right to say that without an appreciation of the
challenge. They must try to tell us what it is for pre- general conditions under which a human reasoner is in
misses nondeductively to favor a conclusion for which a state of knowledge, this is a question without a princi-
there is no strong inductive support. If the weak cousin pled answer. If, as I aver, there are abductive modes of
thesis is false, lots of philosophers are nevertheless reasoning prompted by the desire to improve one’s epis-
drawn to it. So perhaps the better explanation of the temic condition which, even when wholly successful,
yes-buts’ resistance to the ignorance-preservation claim do not fulfill that objective, there must be two particu-
is that they think that it overstates the poor cousin the- lar considerations thanks to which this is so. One would
sis, that it makes of abduction a poorer thing than it have to do with abduction. The other has to do with
actually is. The poor cousin thesis says that abduc- knowledge. A fair part of this first factor is captured
tion is the weakest evidential relation of the family. by the Gabbay–Woods schema (or so I say). The sec-
But the ignorance-preservation thesis says that it is an ond is catered for by the right theory of knowledge, if
evidential relation of no kind, no matter how weak. there is one. We asked why, if a philosopher accepted
Accordingly, what the yes-buts are proposing is tanta- the Gabbay–Woods schema for abduction, would he
mount to retention of the G–W schema for abduction dislike its commitment to the ignorance-preservation
minus Peirce’s clause P3. This would allow success- claim? The possibility that we’re now positioned to con-
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction 6.2 Knowledge 141

sider is that his yes-but hesitancy flows from how he not his logic. If so, the yes part of yes, but : : : is di-

Part B | 6.2
approaches the general question of knowledge. That is rected to the logic, but the but part is directed to the
to say, it is his epistemology that makes him nervous, epistemology.

6.2 Knowledge
6.2.1 Epistemology Corollary 6.1
There are abductive contexts in which knowledge can
I said in the abstract that epistemological considera- be attained in the absence of evidence.
tions affecting the goodness or badness of premiss-
conclusion reasoning are little in evidence in main- The idea of knowledge without supporting evidence
stream logic. In so saying, I intend no slight to the isn’t entirely new or in the least shocking. There is
now large growing and prospering literature on epis- a deeply dug-in inclination to apply this characteriza-
temic logics [6.22–24]. For the most part these logics tion to quite large classes of cases. Roughly, these are
construct formal representations of the standard reper- the propositions knowledge of which is a priori or in-
toire of properties – consequence, validity, derivability, dependent of experience; or, as with Aristotle’s first
consistency, and so on – defined for sentences to which principles, are known without the necessity or even pos-
symbols for it is known that, and it is believed that sibility of demonstration; or, as some insist, are the
function as sentence operators. A central task for these immediate disclosures of sense and introspection. Dis-
logics is to construct a formal semantics for such sen- agreements have arisen, and still do, about whether
tences, typically on the assumption that these epistemic these specifications are accurate or sustainable, but it
expressions are modal operators, hence subject to a pos- would be a considerable exaggeration to call this sort of
sible worlds treatment. Notwithstanding their explicitly evidential indifference shocking, and wildly inaccurate
epistemic orientation, it remains true that there is in as a matter of historical fact to think of it as new.
this literature virtually no express contact with any of In truth, apriorism is beside the point of the right-
the going epistemologies. So here, too, if they operate wrong thesis and its corollary. The knowledge that falls
at all epistemological considerations operate tacitly as within their intended ambit is our knowledge of con-
part of an unrevealed epistemological background in- tingent propositions, whether of the empirical sciences
formation. I intend something different here. I want to or of the common experience of life. The right-wrong
bring epistemology to the fore, which is precisely where claim is that there are contingent propositions about the
it belongs in logics of premiss-conclusion reasoning of world which, without being in any way epistemically
all kinds. privileged, can be ignorance-reducing by virtue of con-
I want also to move on to what I think may be siderations that lend them no evidential weight. So what
the right explanation of the yes-buts’ dissatisfactions. is wanted is a theory of knowledge that allows this to
Before getting started, a caveat of some importance happen.
should be flagged. The explanation I’m about to proffer The historically dominant idea in philosophy is that
attributes to the yes-buts an epistemological perspec- knowledge is true belief plus some other condition,
tive that hardly anyone shares; I mean by this hardly usually identified as justification or evidence. This, the
any epistemologist shares, a notable exception is [6.25]. J-condition, has been with us at least since Plato’s The-
There is a good chance that whatever its intrinsic plau- aeatetus, and much scholarly ink has been spilled over
sibility, this new explanation will lack for takers. Even how it is best formulated and whether it might require
so, for reasons that will appear, I want to persist with it the corrective touch of some further condition. But, as
for awhile. Here is what it proposes. a general idea, the establishment bona fides of the J-
condition are as rock solid as anything in philosophy.
The Right-Wrong Thesis The account of knowledge I am looking for arises at
While the Gabbay–Woods schema gets something the juncture of two epistemological developments. One
right about abduction, it nevertheless gets ignorance- is the trend towards naturalism [6.26] and the other is
preservation wrong. What it gets right is that good the arrival of reliabilism [6.27]. It is a theory in which
abductions are evidentially inert. What it gets wrong is the J-condition fails as a general constraint on epistemi-
that this lack of evidential heft entails a corresponding cally unprivileged contingent knowledge. Accordingly,
failure to lift the abducer in any degree from his present my first task is to try to downgrade the condition, to
ignorance. deny it a defining role. Assuming some success with the
 142 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

first, my second task will be to find at the intersection disengaged. They stand in radical contrast to highly en-
Part B | 6.2

of these trends an epistemological orientation – perhaps gaged justifications, which we may call forensic.
I would better call it an epistemological sensibility – By construction of the case presently in view, fac-
which might without too much strain be reconciled to tive justification will be the constant companion of any
the loss of the J-condition. For ease of reference let me piece of epistemically unprivileged contingent knowl-
baptize this orientation, this sensibility, the causal re- edge that S chances to have. But we have in this
sponse turn. constancy not conditionhood but concomitance. Fac-
Whereupon task number three, which is to identify tive justification is a faithful accompaniment of such
those further features of the causal response model that knowledge, but it is not a constituent of it. Forensic jus-
link up the notions of evidence and knowledge in the tification is another story. We might grant that if, when
heterodox ways demanded by the right-wrong thesis. S knows that p, he has a forensic justification for his be-
lief, then his justification will have made a contribution
6.2.2 Losing the J-Condition to this knowledge. But in relation to all that S knows it
is comparatively rare that there is a forensic justifica-
The J-condition has attracted huge literature and un- tion. Here is a test case, with a tip of the hat to Peirce:
derwritten a good deal of strategic equivocation. On Do you know who your parents are? Of course you do!
engaged readings of the condition, a person’s belief is Very well, then, let’s have your forensic justification.
justified or evidenced only if he himself has produced This is troublesome. If we persist in making foren-
his justification then and there, or he has presented the sic justification a condition on knowledge, the result
evidence for it on the spot. On disengaged readings, is skepticism on an undesirable scale. If, on the other
a person is justified in believing if a justification exists hand, we decide to go with factive justification, then
but hasn’t been invoked, or evidence exists but hasn’t justifications exist whenever knowledge exists, but they
been adduced or even perhaps found. The engaged aren’t conditions on this knowledge. They are not
and disengaged readings raise an interesting question. a structural element of it. Whereupon we are met with
How deeply engaged does one have to be to meet the J-condition dilemma.
the J-condition on knowledge? Most epistemologists
formulate the engaged-disengaged distinction as one J-Condition Dilemma
between internalist and externalist justification. Depending on how it is read, the J-condition is either an
Engagement here is a matter of case making. The irrelevant concomitant of knowledge, or a skepticism-
two readings of J define a spectrum, but for present inducing discouragement of it.
purposes there is little that needs saying of what lies The forensic-factive ambiguity runs through all the
within. It suffices to note that in its most engaged sense idioms of J-attribution. Concerning his belief that p
a belief is justified or evidenced only if the believer can there might be evidence for p that S adduces or there
himself make the case for it here and now. At the other may be evidence for p that exists without attribution.
extreme, the belief is justified or evidenced if a case for There may be reasons for it that S gives, or reasons for
it is available in principle to someone or other. In the it that exist without being given. Like confusions repose
first case, the individual in question has a high degree in careless uses of have. If we allow that S has a justi-
of case-making engagement. In the other, his engage- fication or has evidence or has reasons whenever these
ment is a gestural, anonymous and proxied one: it is things exist factively, we mislicense the inference from
engagement in name only. the factive to the forensic, allowing, in so doing, S to
Suppose the following were true. Suppose that, for have justifications that he’s never heard of.
every piece of epistemically unprivileged contingent
knowledge p, there were a structure of facts in virtue of 6.2.3 The Causal Response Model
which p is the case. Suppose further that for every such of Knowledge
p a person knows, it would be possible in principle to
discern this structure of the facts and the in-virtue-of re- The causal response (CR) model of knowledge is
lation it bears to p’s truth. (I don’t think there is any re- rightly associated with reliabilism. In all the going
alistic chance of this being so, but let’s assume it for the forms of it, the J-condition is preserved [6.28]. One
point at hand.) Suppose, finally, that we agreed to say of the few places in the reliabilist literature where we
that when in principle knowledge of that structure and see stirrings of the pure version of the causal model is
that relation exists with respect to a p that a subject S Alvin Goldman’s first reliabilist paper, which appeared
knows, there exists a justification of S’s belief that p. For in 1967. It is a rare place in Goldman’s foundational
ease of reference, let’s call these factive justifications. corpus where the J-condition, if there at all, is given
Factive justifications are justifications at their most shortest shrift. In some versions, the J-condition is
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction 6.2 Knowledge 143

satisfied when one’s belief has been reached by reli- aptitude for knowledge. But there are cases galore in

Part B | 6.2
able procedures. In others, the condition is met when which aptitude requires the supplementation of voca-
the belief was reliably produced, that is, produced by tion and talent – and training. CR theorists are no less
belief-forming mechanisms that were working reliably. aware of this than their J rivals. The difference between
In contrast to the standard versions, the pure version them falls in where the emphasis falls. Among J the-
is one in which the J-condition is eliminated, rather orists there is a tendency to generalize the hard cases.
than reinterpreted along reliabilist lines. As a first ap- Among CR theorists there is a contrary tendency to
proximation, the pure theory characterizes knowledge keep the hard cases in their place.
as follows: Let me say again that J-theories give an exag-
gerated, if equivocal, place to the role of showing in
“S knows that if and only if p is true, S believes that,
knowing. Contrary to what might be supposed, the CR
the belief was produced by belief-forming devices,
model is no disrespecter of the showing-knowing dis-
in good working order, operating as they should on
tinction, albeit with a more circumscribed appreciation
good information and in the absence of Gettier nui-
of showing. I want to turn to this now.
sances and other hostile externalities.”
Fundamental to what I’ve been calling the pure 6.2.5 Showing and Knowing
theory is the conviction that knowledge is not in any es-
sential or general way tied to case making, that knowing Consider the case of Fermat’s Last Theorem. The the-
is one thing and showing another. This is not to say that orem asserts that for integers x, y, and z, the equation
case making is never implicated in knowledge. There xn C yn D zn lacks a solution when n > 2. Fermat fa-
are lots of beliefs that would not have been had in the mously left a marginal note claiming to have found
absence of the case makings that triggered their forma- a proof of his theorem. I want to simplify the exam-
tion. Think here of a mother’s sad realization that her ple by stipulating that he did not have a proof and did
son is guilty of the crime after all, or a nineteenth cen- not think or say that he did. The received wisdom is
tury mathematician’s grudging acknowledgment of the that Fermat went to his grave not knowing that his the-
transfinite. But as a general constraint, case making is orem is true. The received wisdom is that no one knew
rejected by pure causalists; by causalists of the sort that whether the theorem is true until Andrew Wiles’ proof
Goldman was trying to be in 1967. of it in 1995. If the forensically conceived J model were
true, this would be pretty much the way we would ex-
6.2.4 Naturalism pect the received wisdom to go.
If the J model is hard on knowledge, the CR model
Epistemology’s naturalized turn supplies a welcoming is a good deal more accommodating. It gives to knowl-
habitat for the CR model. Naturalism comes in vari- edge a generous provenance. But I daresay that it will
ous and competing versions, but at the core of them come as a surprise that, on some perfectly plausible
all is the insistence that human knowledge is a natural assumptions, Fermat did indeed know the truth of his
phenomenon, achieved by natural beings in accordance theorem, never mind (as we have stipulated) that he was
with their design and wherewithal, interacting in the all at sea about its proof. Fermat was no rookie. He was
causal nexi in which the human organism lives out his a gifted and experienced mathematician. He was im-
life. Unlike the J theorist, the CR theorist is a respecter mersed in a sea of mathematical sophistication. He was
of the passive side of knowledge. He knows that there a mathematical virtuoso. Fermat knew his theorem if
are large classes of cases in which achieving a knowl- the following conditions were met: It is true (as indeed
edge of something is a little more than just being awake it is), he believed it (as indeed he did), his highly trained
and on the scene. Even where some initiative is re- belief-forming devices were in good order (as indeed
quired by the knower, the resultant knowledge is always they were) and not in this instance misperforming (as
a partnership between doing and being done to. So even indeed they were not), and their operations were not
worked-for knowledge is partly down to him and partly compromised by bad information or Gettier nuisances
down to his devices. (as indeed was the case). So Fermat and generations
It would be wrong to leave the impression that, on of others like-placed knew the theorem well before its
the CR model, knowing things is just a matter of do- proof could be contrived.
ing what comes naturally. There are ranges of cases in We come now to a related point about showing
which knowledge is extremely difficult to get, if get- and knowing. Showing and knowing mark two distinct
table at all. There are cases in which knowledge is goals for science, and a corresponding difference in
unattainable except for the intelligence, skill, training their satisfaction conditions. Not unlike the law, science
and expertise of those who seek it. Everyone has an is in significant measure a case-making profession –
 144 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

a forensic profession – made so by the premium it of those successfully abduced hypotheses that happen
Part B | 6.2

places on knowing when knowledge has been achieved, to be true and, contrary to Peirce’s advice, believed
rather than just achieving it. This has something to do by its abducer S. What would it take to get us seri-
with its status as a profession, subject to its own ex- ously to propose that, when these conditions are met,
acting requirements for apprenticeship, advancement S’s belief-forming device’s are malfunctioning or are
and successful practice. These are factors that impose in poor operating order. Notice that a commonly held
on people in the showing professions expectations that answer is not available here, on pain of question beg-
regulate public announcement. Fermat may well have ging. It cannot be said that unevidenced belief is itself
known the truth of his theorem and may have had oc- evidence of malfunction and disorder. That is, it can-
casion to say so to a trusted friend or his mother. But not be said to the CR-theorist, since implicit in his
he was not to say it for publication. Publication is a ve- rejection of justificationism is his rejection of this an-
hicle for case making, and case making is harder than swer.
knowing. Journal editors don’t give a toss for what you Is there, then, any reason to suppose that the arousal
know. But they might sit up and notice if you can show of unevidenced belief might be some indication of prop-
what you know. erly functioning belief formation? Ironically enough,
there is an affirmative answer in Peirce himself. Peirce
6.2.6 Explaining the Yes-Buts is much taken with our capacity for right guessing. Our
facility with guessing is so impressive that Peirce is
The ignorance-preservation claim is rooted in the idea driven to the idea that good guessing is something the
of the no evidence-no knowledge thesis. human animal is built for. But if we are built for good
guessing, and good abduction is a form of guessing,
The No Evidence-No Knowledge Thesis how can the abduction of true hypotheses not be like-
Since successful abduction is evidentially inert, it is wise something we’re built for? Accordingly, there is
also epistemically inert. But this is justificationism: No a case for saying that.
advance in knowledge without some corresponding ad-
vance in evidence. Knowledge Enhancement
The CR model jettisons justificationism. It de- In the CR model of knowledge, there are numbers of
nies the very implication in which the ignorance- instances in which successful abduction is not only not
preservation thesis is grounded. It is not hard to see that ignorance preserving, but actually knowledge enhanc-
the evidence, whose abductive absence Peirce seizes ing.
upon, is not evidence in the factive sense. Peirce in- Part of what makes for the irony of Peirce’s enthu-
sists that we have no business believing a successfully siasm for right guessing is his insistence that guesses
abduced hypothesis. Peirce certainly doesn’t deny that not be indulged by belief. In this he is a justificationist.
behind any plausibly conjectured hypothesis there is Abducers have no business in believing unevidenced
a structure of facts in virtue to which it owes its truth propositions, never mind their abductive allure. This is
value. Peirce thinks that our track record as abductive enough of a basis to pin the ignorance-preservation the-
guessers is remarkably good. He is struck by the ratio sis on Peirce, but not on a CR theorist who accepts the
of right guesses to guesses. He is struck by our aptitude Gabbay–Woods schema. What this shows is that theirs
for correcting wrong guesses. The evidence whose ab- is not a disagreement about abduction. It is a disagree-
sence matters here is forensic, it is evidence by which ment about knowledge.
an abducer could vindicate his belief in the hypothesis There isn’t much likelihood that yes-buts will flock
at hand. But Peirce thinks that in the abductive context to this accommodation. The reason is that hardly any-
nothing vindicates that belief. one (any philosopher anyway) thinks the CR model is
We come now to a critical observation. There is true in its pure form. There is no space left to me to
nothing in Peirce’s account that tells us that abduced debate the ins and outs of this. Suffice it to say that
hypotheses aren’t believed as a matter of fact. Some it offers the abductive logician the very relief that the
clearly are not. At the time of their respective advance- yes-buts pine for. Besides, the CR theory just might be
ments, Planck didn’t believe the quantum hypothesis true [6.21].
and Gell-Mann didn’t believe the quark hypothesis. But
it takes no more than simple inspection to see that there 6.2.7 Guessing
are masses of cases to the contrary, that abductive suc-
cess is belief-inducing on a large scale. In line (10) of the G–W schema the Si occur as place-
There is in this commonplace fact something for holders for conditions on hypothesis selection. Previ-
the CR theories to make something of. Let H be one ously, I said that I didn’t know what these conditions
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction 6.2 Knowledge 145

are [6.7]. In point of fact there are two things that I times that they are rightly guessed is amazing; so much

Part B | 6.2
don’t know. One is the normative conditions in virtue of so that Peirce is led to surmise that our proclivity for
which the selection made is a worthy choice. The other right guesses is innate. Of course, not all good guess-
is the causal conditions that enable the choice to be ing is accurate. A good guess can be one that puts the
made. It is easy to see that there are a good many Hs that guessed-at proposition in the ball park, notwithstand-
could serve as antecedents in line (9)’s H R.K.H/; T/ ing that it might actually not be true. Here, too, good
without disturbing its truth value. It is also easy to see guesses might include more incorrect ones than correct.
that a good many of those Hs would never be abduc- But as before, the ratio of correct to merely good could
tively concluded, never mind their occurrence there. It be notably high. So the safer claim on Peirce’s behalf is
is clear that a reasonable choice of H must preserve that beings like us are hardwired to make for good, al-
the truth of (9). It is also clear that this is not enough though not necessarily correct, guesses with a very high
for abductive significance. A reasonable choice must frequency. It is lots easier to make a ball-park guess than
have some further features. I am especially at a loss to a true one; so much so that the hesitant nativist might
describe how beings like us actually go about finding claim a hardwired proclivity for ball-park, yet not for
things like that. Perhaps it will be said that my difficulty truth, save as a welcome contingency, which in its own
is a reflection on me, not on the criteria for hypothesis turn presents itself with an agreeable frequency. Thus
selection. It is true that the number of propositions that the safe inference to draw from the fact that H was se-
could be entertained is at least as large as the number lected is that H is in the ball park. The inference to H’s
of Hs that slot into the antecedent of (9) in a truth- truth is not dismissable, but it is weaker.
preserving way. Let’s think of these as constituting the Needless to say, nativism has problems all its own.
hypothesis-selection space. Selection, in turn, is a mat- But what I want to concentrate on is a problem it poses
ter of cutting down this large space to a much smaller for Peircian abduction. At the heart of all is what to
proper subset, ideally a unit set. Selection, to this same make of ball-park guesses. The safest thing is to pro-
effect, would be achieved by a search engine operating pose is that, even when false, a ball-park hypothesis
on the hypothesis-selection space. Its purpose would be in a given context is one that bears serious operational
to pluck from that multiplicity the one, or few ones, that consideration there. There might be two overarching
would serve our purposes. reasons for this. One is that ball-park hypotheses show
There is nothing remotely mystifying or opaque promise of having a coherently manageable role in the
about search engines (why else would we bother with conceptual spaces of the contexts of their engagement.
Google?). So isn’t the problem I’m having with the Take again the example of Planck. The quantum hy-
Si that I’m not a software engineer? Wouldn’t it be pothesis was a big wrench to classical physics. It didn’t
prudent to outsource the hypothesis-selection task to then have an established scientific meaning. It entered
someone equipped to perform it? To which I say: If that the fray without any trace of a track record. Even so, for
is a doable thing we should do it. There is no doubt all its foreignness, it was a ball-park hypothesis. What
that algorithms exist in exuberant abundance for search made it so was that P.Q/ was a theory revision recog-
tasks of considerable variety and complexity. There are nizable as physics. Contrast Q with the gold fairy will
algorithms that cut down a computer system’s search achieve the sought-for unification. Of course, all of this
space to one answering to the algorithm’s flags. Perhaps turns on the assumption that Peirce got it right in think-
such an arrangement could be said to model hypothesis ing that hypothesis selection is guessing, and to note
selection. But it is another thing entirely as to whether, that good guessing is innate. Call this the innateness hy-
when we ourselves are performing them, our hypothe- pothesis. The second consideration is that the frequency
sis selections implement the system’s algorithms. So I of true hypotheses to ball-park hypotheses is notably
am minded to say that my questions about the Si are not high.
comprehensively answerable by a software engineer. Whether he (expressly) knows how it’s done, when
Here is where guessing re-enters the picture, which an abductive agent is going through his paces, there is
is what Peirce thinks that hypothesis selection is. Peirce a point at which he selects a hypothesis H. If the innate-
is struck by how good we are at it. By this he needn’t ness thesis holds, then the agent has introduced a propo-
have meant that we have more correct guesses than in- sition that has an excellent shot at being ball-park, and
correct. It is enough that, even if we make fewer correct a decent shot of being true. On all approaches to the
guesses than incorrect, the ratio of correct to incorrect matter, an abduction won’t have been performed in the
is still impressively high. We get it right, rather than absence of H; and on the G–W approach, it won’t have
wrong, with a notable frequency. Our opportunities for been performed correctly unless H is neither believed
getting it wrong are enormous. Relative to the propo- nor (however weakly) evidenced by its own abductive
sitions that could have been guessed at, the number of success. On the other, our present reflections suggest
 146 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

that the very fact that H was selected is evidence that swer. Some consequence relations are truth-preserving;
Part B | 6.2

it is ball-park, and less good but not nonexistent ev- all the others aren’t. Truth-preserving consequence is
idence that it is true. Moreover, H is the antecedent (said to be) monotonic. (It isn’t. To take an ancient
of our subjunctive conditional (9) H R.K.H/; T/. If example, Aristotle’s syllogistic consequence is truth-
H is true so is R.K.H/; T/ by modus ponens; and if preserving but nonmonotonic.) Premisses from which
R.K.H/; T/ holds the original ignorance problem is a conclusion follows can be supplemented at will and
solved by a form of subduance. In which case, the the conclusion will still follow. One way of captur-
abduction simply lapses. It lapses because the nonevi- ing this point is that truth-preserving consequence is
dential weight lent to a successfully abduced hypothesis impervious to the openness of the world. As far as
is, on the G–W model, weaker than the evidential sup- consequencehood is concerned, the world might as
port given it by way of the innateness hypothesis as well be closed. Once a consequence of something, al-
regards its very selection. ways a consequence of it. It is strikingly otherwise
If, on the other hand, H is not true, but ball-park – with non-truth-preserving consequence. It is precisely
hence favorably evidenced – and being evidenced is this indifference to the openness of the world that is
closed under consequence, then the reasoning at hand lost.
also goes through under the obvious adjustments.
The problem is that there are two matters on which 6.2.8 Closed Worlds
Peirce can’t have his cake and eat it too. If he re-
tains the innateness thesis he can’t have the ignorance- When we were discussing the J condition on knowl-
preservation thesis. Equally, if he keeps ignorance edge, we called upon a distinction between the factive
preservation he must give up innateness, which nota justification of a belief and its forensic justification. In
bene is not the thesis that guessing is innate but that a rough and ready way, a factive justification is down
good guessing is innate. Yet if we give up innateness to the world, whereas a forensic justification is down to
we’re back to where we started, with less than we would us. We find ourselves at a point at which the idea of fac-
like to say about the actual conditions for which the tivity might be put to further good use. To see how, it is
G–W Si are mere placeholders. I leave the innateness- necessary to acknowledge that the distinction between
ignorance preservation clash as an open problem in open and closed worlds is systematically ambiguous. In
the abduction research program. Since, by our earlier one sense it marks a contrast between information states
reasoning, there is an epistemology (CR) that retains at a time, with the closed world being the state of total
ignorance preservation only as a contingent property of information, and open ones states of incomplete infor-
some abductions, my present uncertain inclination is to mation. In the other sense, a closed world can be called
retain G–W as modified by CR and to rethink innate- factive. A closed world at t is everything that is the case
ness. But I’m open to offers. I’ll get back to this briefly at t. It is the totality of facts at t. A closed world is also
in the section to follow. open at t, not with regard to the facts that close it at t, but
Having had my say about the epistemological con- in respect of the facts thence to come. We may suppose
siderations that play out in the logic of abduction, I want that the world will cease to open at the crack of doom,
to turn to the question of how, or to what extent, a logic and that the complete inventory of all the facts that ever
of abduction will meet universalist conditions on logic. were would be logged in the right sort of Doomsday
I want to determine whether or to what extent abductive Book. It is not, of course, a book that any of us will get
theories embody the structural core assumed by univer- to read. Like it or not, we must make do with openness.
salists to be common to any theory that qualifies for Both our information states and the world are open at
admittance to the province of logic. any t before the crack. But the diachronics of facticity
Whatever the details, abduction is a form of outpace the accuracy of information states. When there
premiss-conclusion reasoning. By the conclusions- is a clash, the world at t always trumps our information
consequence thesis, whenever the reasoning is good about it at t-n.
the conclusion that’s drawn is a consequence of those At any given time the world will be more closed
premisses. As logics have proliferated, so too the con- than its concurrent information states. At any given
sequences, albeit not exactly in a strict one-to-one time the state of the world outreaches the state of our
correspondence. If today there are more logics than one knowledge of it. When we reason from premisses to
can shake a stick at, there is a concomitant plenitude conclusions we are not negotiating with the world.
of consequences relations. Much of what preoccupies We are negotiating with informational reflections of
logicians presently is the classification, individuation, the world. We are negotiating with information states.
and interrelatedness of this multiplicity. Whatever their Given the limitations on human information states, our
variations, there is one distinction to which they all an- representations of the world are in virtually all respects
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction 6.2 Knowledge 147

open, and most premises-conclusion relations are sus- track record with both invites a nativist account each

Part B | 6.2
ceptible to rupture. Truth-preserving consequences are time. Oversimplified, we are as good as we are at se-
an interesting exception. The world can be as open as lecting hypotheses because that’s the way we were built.
openness gets, but a truth-preserving consequence of We are as good as we are at closing the world because
something is always a consequence of it, never mind the that too is the way we were built. I suggested earlier
provisions at any t of our information states. Nonmono- that in abductive contexts the very fact that H has been
tonic consequence is different: Today a consequence selected is some evidence that it is true (and even better
tomorrow a nonconsequence. evidence that it is ball-park). But this seems to contra-
We might think that the more prudent course is dict the Peircian thesis that abductive success confers
to cease drawing conclusions and postpone the deci- on H nothing stronger than the suspicion that it might be
sions they induce us to make until our information state true. Since Peirce’s account of abduction incorporates
closes, until our information is permanently total. The both the innateness thesis and the no-evidential-support
ludicrousness of the assumption speaks for itself. Cog- thesis, it would appear that Peirce’s account is inter-
nitive and behavioral paralysis is not an evolutionary nally inconsistent. I said a section ago that I had a slight
option. Thus arises the closed world assumption. Given leaning for retaining the no-evidence thesis and lighten-
that belief and action cannot await the arrival of total in- ing up on the innateness thesis. Either way is Hobson’s
formation, it behooves us to draw our conclusions and choice. That, anyhow, is how it appears.
take our decisions when the likelihood of informational In fact, however, the appearance is deceptive. There
defeat is least high, at which point we would invoke the is no contradiction. Peirce does not make it a condition
assumption that for the matter at hand the world might on abductive hypothesis-selection that H enter the fray
just as well be closed. entirely untouched by reasons to believe it or evidence
The key question about the closed world assump- that supports it. He requires that the present support-
tion is the set of conditions under which it is reasonable status of H has no role to play in the abductive process.
to invoke it. The follow-up question is whether we’re That H is somewhat well supported doesn’t, if true,
much good at it. I am not much inclined to think that we have any premissory role here. Moreover, it is not the
have done all that well in answering the first question. goal of abduction to make any kind of case for H’s truth.
But my answer to the second is that, given the plenitude The goal is to find an H which, independently of its own
of times and circumstances at which to invoke it, our epistemic status, would if true enable a reasoner to hit
track record is really quite good; certainly good enough his target T. But whatever the target is, it’s not the tar-
to keep humanity’s knowledge-seeking project briskly get of wanting to know whether H is true. It is true that,
up and running. Even so, the closed world assumption if all goes well, Peirce asserts that it may be defeasibly
is vulnerable to two occasions of defeat. One is by way concluded that there is reason to suspect that H might
of later information about later facts. Another is by way be true. But, again, abduction’s purpose is not to make
of later information about the facts now in play. It is a case for H, no matter how weakly. The function of
easy to see, and no surprise at all, that new facts will the suspectability observation is wholly retrospective.
overturn present information about present facts with It serves as a hypothesis-selection vindicator. You’ve
a frequency that matches the frequency of the world’s picked the (or a) right hypothesis only if the true sub-
own displacement of old facts by new. Less easy to see junctive conditional in which it appears as antecedent
is how we manage as well as we do in invoking closure occasions the abducer’s satisfaction that that, in and
in the absence of information about the present destruc- of itself, would make it reasonable to suspect that H
tive facts currently beyond our ken. Here, too, we have might be so. In a way, then, the G–W schema misrepre-
a cut-down problem. We call upon closure in the hope- sents this connection. It is not that the abduction implies
ful expectation that no present unannounced fact will H’s suspectibility, but rather that the abduction won’t
undo the conclusions we now draw and the decisions succeed unless the truth of line (9) induces the sus-
they induce us to make. Comparatively speaking, vir- pectibility belief [6.21] (for more on the causal role in
tually all the facts there are now are facts that no one inference, readers could again consult [6.21]). And that
will ever know. That’s quite a lot of facts, indeed it is won’t happen if the wrong H has been selected, never
nondenumerably many (for isn’t it a fact that, for any mind that it preserves (9)’s truth. For the point at hand,
real number, it is a number, and is self-identical, and so however, we’ve arrived at a good result. The innateness
on?). thesis and the no-support thesis are both implicated in
There is a point of similarity between hypothesis se- the Peircean construal of abduction, but are in perfect
lection and the imposition of world closure. Our good consistency.
 148 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

6.3 Logic
Part B | 6.3

6.3.1 Consequences and Conclusions lation that is also truth-preserving. The monotonicity
of consequence provides the sole instance in which
I said at the beginning that for nearly two and a half a consequence is impervious to the informational open-
millennia the central focus of logic has been the con- ness of the world. It is the one case in informational
sequence relation. More basic still was a concomitant openness at t that is indifferent to the world’s factive
preoccupation with premiss-conclusion reasoning. For closure at t, to say nothing of its final closure at the
a very long time logicians took it as given that these crack of doom. It has long been known that logicians,
two matters are joined at the hip. then and now, harbor an inordinate affection for deduc-
tive consequence. It’s not hard to see why. Deductive
Conclusions and Consequences consequence has proved more responsive to theoreti-
When someone correctly draws a conclusion from some cal treatment than any of the nondeductive variety. But
premisses, his conclusion is a consequence of them. more centrally, it is the only consequence relation that
captures permanent chunks of facticity.
Corollary 6.2 Whatever else we might say, we can’t say that
If a conclusion drawn from some premisses is not a con- nonmonotonic relations are relations of semantic con-
sequence of them, then the conclusion is incorrectly sequence. If B is a nonmonotonic consequence of A it
drawn. holds independently of whatever makes for the truth
of A and B. Sometimes perhaps it holds on account
If this were so, it could be seen at once that there is of probability conditions on A and B, but probability
a quite intuitive distinction between the consequences has nothing to do with truth. If there is such a thing
that a premiss set has and the consequences that a rea- as probabilistic consequence – think here of Carnap’s
sonable reasoner would conclude from it. Any treat- partial entailment – it is not a semantic relation. We
ment of logic in which this distinction is at least implic- may have it now that the evidence strongly supports the
itly present, there is a principled role for agents, for the charge against Spike in last night’s burglary. We might
very beings who draw what conclusions they will from come to know better tomorrow. We might learn that at
the consequences that flow from the premisses at hand. the time of the offense Spike was spotted on the other
In any such logic there will be at least implicit provision side of town. So the world at t didn’t support then the
for the nature of the agent’s involvement. In every case proposition that Spike did do it, never mind the state of
the involvement is epistemically oriented. People want information the day after t.
to know what follows from what. They want to know No one doubts that yesterday there existed between
how to rebut an opponent. They want to know whether, the evidence on hand and the charge against Spike a re-
when this follows from that that, they can now be said lation of epistemic and decisional importance, a kind
to know that. In a helpful simplification, it could be said of relation in whose absence a survivable human life
that logic got out of the agency business in 1879. It is would be impossible. But a fair question nevertheless
not that agency was overlooked entirely, but rather that presses for attention: Where is the gain in conceptualiz-
it was scandalously short-sheeted. For consequence, the ing these vital premiss-conclusion relations as relations
having-drawing distinction would fold into having; and of logical consequence? Where is the good of trying
having, it would be said, would be the very things to construe nonmonotonic relations on the model of at-
drawn by an ideally rational reasoner. Of course, this tenuated and retrofitted monotonic consequences? My
downplaying of cognitive agency was never without its own inclination is to say that talk of nomonotonic con-
dissenters. Indeed today we are awash in game theoretic sequence misconceives the import of nonmonotonicity.
exuberance, to name just one development of note. We tend to think of it as a distinguishing feature of con-
sequence relations, when what it really is is the defining
6.3.2 Semantics feature of nontruth preservation.
When premiss-conclusion reasoning is good but not
Consequence derives its semantic character from its at- truth-preserving, it is made so by an underlying relation.
tachment to truth, itself a semantic property in an odd Any theory of premiss-conclusion reasoning had better
baptismal bestowal by Tarski. In the deductive case, it have something to say about this, about its nature and
is easy to see how truth is implicated in consequence how it operates. We should give it the name it both de-
and how, in turn, consequence assumes its status as serves and better reflects how it actually does function.
a semantic relation. Not only does truth ground the Let’s call it conclusionality. Conclusionality is an epis-
very definition of consequence, but it makes for a re- temic or epistemic/prudential relation. It is a relation
 Reorienting the Logic of Abduction References 149

that helps rearrange our belief states, hence possessing eral to be a species of consequence, the faster we’ll

Part B | 6
decisional significance. Any struggle to discern whether achieve some theoretical respectability. We would be
it is also a consequence relation seems to me to be sail- better served to place conclusionality at the core of logic
ing into the wind. and to place consequence in an annex of less central im-
Abductive conclusions are on the receiving end of portance. If we did that, we could reinstate the logic of
this relation; they are occupants of its converse do- abduction and equip it for admittance into universalist
main. If our present reflections can be made to stand, respectability. But we could also reinvest to good effect
there is no relation of abductive consequence; and it all that energy we’ve devoted to consequentializing the
will cause us no end of distraction trying to figure out conclusionality relation, in a refreshed effort to figure
how to make it one. It hardly needs saying that depriv- how conclusionality actually works in the epistemically
ing a logic of abduction of its own relation of abductive sensitive environments in which, perforce, the human
consequence must of necessity rearrange how abductive organism must operate.
logic is conceptualized. There are plenty of logicians
more than ready to say that a logic without consequence Acknowledgments. I would know a good deal less
relations is a logic in name only – a logic façon de par- than I presently do about abduction without stimulat-
ler, hence a logic that fails universalistic prescriptions. ing instruction from Dov Gabbay, Lorenzo Magnani,
I am otherwise minded. Logic started with conclusion- Atocha Aliseda, Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen, Peter Bruza,
ality relations. It was adventitiousness, not essence, that Woosuk Park, Douglas Niño and more recently – es-
brought it about that the ones first considered were also pecially in relation to sections 11 and 12 – Madeleine
consequence relations. Logic has had a good innings Ransom. To all my warmest thanks. My student Frank
right from the beginning. In a way, this has been un- Hong has also pitched in with astute suggestions; equal
fortunate. The success we’ve had with consequence has gratitude to him. For technical support and everything
obscured our view of conclusionality. It has led us to else that matters, Carol Woods is my go-to gal. Without
think that the more we can get conclusionality in gen- whom not.

References

6.1 J.R. Josephson, S.G. Josephson (Eds.): Abduc- 6.10 P.D. Bruza, D.W. Song, R.M. McArthur: Abduction in
tive Inference: Computation, Philosophy, Technology semantic space: Towards a logic of discovery, Logic
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1994) J. IGPL 12, 97–110 (2004)
6.2 T. Kapitan: Peirce and h structure of abductive in- 6.11 G. Schurz: Patterns of abduction, Synthese 164, 201–
ference. In: Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders 234 (2008)
Peirce, ed. by N. Housser, D.D. Roberts, J. Van 6.12 P. Bruza, A. Barros, M. Kaiser: Augmenting web ser-
Evra (Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1997) vice discovery by cognitive semantics and abduction,
pp. 477–496 Proc. IEEE/WIC/ACM Int. Joint Conf. on Web Intelli-
6.3 J. Hintikka: What is abduction? The fundamen- gence and Intell. Agent Technol. (IET, London 2009)
tal problem of contemporary epistemology, Trans. pp. 403–410
Charles S. Peirce Soc. 34, 503–533 (1998) 6.13 L. Magnani: Abductive Cognition. The Epistemolog-
6.4 P.A. Flach, C.K. Antonis: Abduction and Induction: ical and Eco-Cognitive Dimensions of Hypothetical
Essays on Their Relation and Interpretation (Kluwer, Reasoning (Springer, Heidelberg 2009)
Dordrecht 2000) 6.14 Aristotle: Categories. In: The Complete Works of Aris-
6.5 L. Magnani: Abduction, Reason and Science: Pro- totle, ed. by J. Barnes (Princeton Univ. Press, Prince-
cesses of Discovery and Explanation (Kluwer, Dor- ton 1985)
drecht 2001) 6.15 C.S. Peirce: Pragmatism and Pragmaticism, Collected
6.6 D.M. Gabbay, J. Woods: The Reach of Abduction: In- Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 5 (Harvard Univ.
sight and Trial, A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems, Press, Cambridge 1934), ed. by C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss
Vol. 2 (North-Holland, Amsterdam 2005) 6.16 C.S. Peirce: Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The
6.7 S. Paavola: Peircean abduction: Instinct or infer- Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898 (Harvard Uni-
ence?, Semiotica 153, 131–154 (2005) versity Press, Cambridge 1992), ed. by K.L. Kettner
6.8 A.-V. Pietarinen: Signs of Logic: Peircean Themes on 6.17 C.S. Peirce: Science and Philosophy, Collected Papers
the Philosophy of Language, Games and Communi- of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 7 (Harvard Univ. Press,
cation (Springer, Dordrecht 2006) Cambridge 1958), ed. by A.W. Burks
6.9 A. Aliseda: Abductive reasoning. In: Logical Investi- 6.18 C.S. Peirce: Scientific Metaphysics, Collected Papers
gation into the Processes of Discovery and Evalua- of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vol. 6 (Harvard Univ. Press,
tion, (Springer, Dordrecht 2006) Cambridge 1935), ed. by C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss
 150 Part B Theoretical and Cognitive Issues on Abduction and Scientific Inference

6.19 J. Woods: Peirce’s abductive enthusiasms, Protoso- York 2011)

Part B | 6

ciol. 13, 117–125 (1999) 6.25 N.E. Sahlin, W. Rabinowitz: The evidentiary value
6.20 J. Woods: Cognitive economics and the logic of ab- model. In: Handbook of Defeasible Reasoning and
duction, Review of Symbolic Logic 5, 148–161 (2012) Uncertainty Management Systems, Vol. 1, ed. by
6.21 J. Woods: Errors of Reasoning: Naturalizing the Logic D.M. Gabbay, P. Smets (Kluwer, Dordrecht 1998)
of Inference, Vol. 45 (College Publications, London pp. 247–265
2013), Studies in Logic Ser. 6.26 W.V. Quine: Epistemology naturalized. In: Ontolog-
6.22 P. Gochet, G. Gribomont: Epistemic logic. In: Logic ical Relativity and Other Essays, ed. by W.V. Quine
and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century, Hand- (Columbia University Press, New York 1969)
book of the History of Logic, Vol. 7, ed. by M. Dov 6.27 A. Goldman: What is justified belief? In: Justification
Gabbay, J. Woods (North-Holland, Amsterdam 2006) and Knowledge Philosophical Studies Series in Phi-
pp. 99–195 losophy 17, ed. by G. Pappas (Reidel, Dordrecht 1979)
6.23 R. Fagin, J.Y. Halpern, Y. Moses, Y.M. Vardi: Reasoning pp. 1–23
About Knowledge (MIT, Cambridge 1995) 6.28 A. Goldman: A causal theory of knowing, J. Philoso-
6.24 J. Van Benthem: Logical Dynamics of Information phy 64, 357–372 (1967)
and Interaction (Cambridge University Press, New