Abduction versus Inference to the Best Explanation

How to Analyze Processes of Discovery?

Sami Paavola (University of Helsinki)
There are two different, but very nearly related, basic uses for the concept of abductive
inference. One is related to the discussion concerning abduction as the logic of
discovery. This can be called Hansonian abduction because it is so tightly related to
Norwood Russell Hansons seminal writings concerning abduction (e.g. Hanson 1958).
The other one can be called Harmanian abduction, or IBE, because it has it roots in
Gilbert Harmans writings concerning Inference to the Best Explanation (e.g. Harman
1965). In this paper I shall compare similarities and differences in these two meanings
of abduction. I shall argue that Hansonian abduction is a better model when it comes to
explain processes of discovery, especially when Hansonian abduction is developed
further. I shall use Ignaz Semmelweis famous researches on puerperal fever as an
example, and analyze how these researches can be reconstructed with Hansonian
abduction in contrast to Harmanian abduction (i.e. IBE) (cf. Lipton 1991).
There are many common aspects in Hansonian and Harmanian kinds of
abduction. Both of them have roots in Charles Peirces writings concerning abduction
(although Hansonian abduction more so than IBE). Both of them emphasize that a new
mode of inference is needed in contrast to deductive inference and traditional kind of
inductive inference. And in both cases this new mode of inference is connected to
search for explanations.
But there are also basic differences in these approaches to abduction. Hanson
developed Peirces formulations of abduction explicitly to conceptualize the area of
discovery. IBE-model concentrates more on justification. The basic idea behind IBE is
to argue that an inference from some data to the best explanation is a justified mode of
inference and leads to true hypotheses. So in IBE the discovery of new hypotheses or
explanations is not so central; what is important is the idea that the best explanation is
also a true one. This is also the reason why IBE (and not Hansonian abduction) is
closely related to debates concerning scientific realism (see e.g. Ben-Menahem 1990;
Day & Kincaid 1994). The debate has concerned the issue if we are entitled to think that
our best scientific theories are true (and what implications this have), and not how new
scientific theories are engendered or discovered in the first place.
Peter Lipton has, however, developed IBE so that it explicitly is also a model for
discovery (Lipton 1991). The basic idea is that same kind of inferential and explanatory
processes operate both in the generation of hypotheses and in the selection of the best
among them. In my paper I shall maintain that so interpreted there is no contradiction to
Hansonian abduction, but Hansonian abduction gives still better means for
conceptualizing processes of discovery. Hansonian abduction separates more clearly the
generation phase from the selection and the justification phase of hypotheses, and
concentrates on analyzing this generation phase. When the special emphasis is on
discovery, many aspects of IBE get new meaning, for example the importance of
loveliness in inference (cf. Lipton 1991).

It is, of course, also possible to interpret IBE as consisting of a generation phase

that is like Hansonian abduction, plus the selection phase of hypotheses. But this would
still require a separation of Hansonian abduction and IBE. Anyway, abductive
methodology in both varieties is based on the idea that there must be some means of
finding good or promising hypotheses. This same idea was already one basis for Peirce
to develop abduction. The claim is that there is more reason to discovery than e.g.
hypothetico-deductive methodology has maintained. Otherwise it would be impossible
to understand how we humans have ever discovered anything.
The problem, however, with Hansonian abduction as the logic of discovery is
that it has been under heavy criticism (e.g. Kapitan 1992). I shall maintain that it is
possible to develop Hansonian abduction so that it takes into account this criticism
(Paavola, in press). But this requires that the special nature of abductive inference and
methodology is understood. Abduction is basically a very weak mode of inference based
on clues and hints (it is a mode of inference especially suited for detectives) but it is
made much stronger when strategic aspects of inference are taken into account. This
means that in order to understand the meaning of abduction, the whole process of
inference and the way how various moves are put together in abductive reasoning must
be taken into account. And although abduction is a weak mode of inference (we only get
tentative hypotheses by it) it is much better than no method at all.
As an example I am analyzing Ignaz Semmelweis famous researches
concerning puerperal fever. This is a good example because Carl Hempel has analyzed
this case as an example of the hypothetico-deductive model (Hempel 1966) and Peter
Lipton as an example of the Inference to the Best Explanation (Lipton 1991). I shall
reconstruct Semmelweis case by using Hansonian abduction (a developed version of it)
and show how this reconstruction gives more comprehensive picture of Semmelweis
methodology than the hypothetico-deductive model, or IBE. A basic starting point in
(Hansonian) abductive reconstruction is the way how Semmelweis used various clues in
his long process of inquiry and discovery.

References
Ben-Menahem, Yemima (1990) The Inference to the Best Explanation, Erkenntnis 33,
319-344.
Day, T. & Kincaid, H. (1994) `Putting Inference to the Best Explanation in Its Place',
Synthese 98, 271--295.
Hanson, N. R. (1958) Patterns of Discovery, University Press, Cambridge.
Harman, Gilbert (1965) `The Inference to the Best Explanation, Philosophical Review
64, 88-95.
Hempel, Carl G. (1966) Philosophy of Natural Science, Prentice-Hall, inc., Englewood
Cliffs, N.J., London.
Kapitan, Tomis (1992) `Peirce and the Autonomy of Abductive Reasoning Erkenntnis
37, pp. 1-26.

Lipton, Peter (1991) Inference to the Best Explanation. Routledge, London and New
York.
Paavola, Sami (in press) 'Abduction as a logic of discovery: The importance of
strategies', Foundations of Science, forthcomi