Logic and abduction: Cognitive externalizations in demonstrative environments

Abstract

In her book Abductive Reasoning Atocha Aliseda (2006) stresses the attention to the logical models of abduction, centering on the semantic tableaux as a method for extending and improving both the whole cognitive/philosophical view on it and on other more restricted logical approaches. I will provide further insight on two aspects. The first is related to the importance of increasing logical knowledge on abduction: Aliseda clearly shows how the logical study on abduction in turn helps us to extend and modernize the classical and received idea of logic. The second refers to some ideas coming from the so-called distributed cognition and concerns the role of logical models as forms of cognitive externalizations of preexistent in-formal human reasoning performances. The logical externalization in objective systems, communicable and sharable, is able to grant stable perspectives endowed with symbolic, abstract, and rigorous cognitive features. I will also emphasize that Aliseda especially stresses that this character of stability and objectivity of logical achievements are not usually present in models of abduction that are merely cognitive and epistemological, and of extreme importance from the computational point of view.