The Abductive Structure of Scientific Creativity: An Essay on the Ecology of Cognition (Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics Book 37)

This book employs a new eco-cognitive model of abduction to underline the distributed and embodied nature of scientific cognition. Its main focus is on the knowledge-enhancing virtues of abduction and on the productive role of scientific models. What are the distinctive features that define the kind of knowledge produced by science? To provide an answer to this question, the book first addresses the ideas of Aristotle, who stressed the essential inferential and distributed role of external cognitive tools and epistemic mediators in abductive cognition. This is analyzed in depth from both a naturalized logic and an ecology of cognition perspective. It is shown how the maximization of cognition, and of abducibility – two typical goals of science – are related to a number of fundamental aspects: the optimization of the eco-cognitive situatedness; the maximization of changeability for both the input and the output of the inferences involved; a high degree of information-sensitiveness; and the need to record the “past life” of abductive inferential practices. Lastly, the book explains how some impoverished epistemological niches – the result of a growing epistemic irresponsibility associated with the commodification and commercialization of science – are now seriously jeopardizing the flourishing development of human creative abduction. Read more... Abstract: This book employs a new eco-cognitive model of abduction to underline the distributed and embodied nature of scientific cognition. Read more... Preface 8 Contents 13 1 Enhancing Knowledge 17 1.1 The Ignorance-Preserving Nature of Abduction 18 1.2 The Eco-Cognitive Model (EC-Model) of Abduction: Cutdown and Fill-Up Problems 22 1.3 The EC-Model of Abduction 26 1.4 Abductive Virtues Vindicated. How Does Abduction Supply Knowledge? 29 1.4.1 Why Does Abduction Enhance Knowledge? Instinct, Inference, and Synechism: Mind and Matter Intertwined 31 1.5 Enhancing Knowledge through Reward and Punishment and the Inductive Risk 35 1.5.1 Beneficial and Detrimental Dissent: Inductive Risk 36 1.6 Tracking the External World: Enhancing Predictive Knowledge 38 1.7 Tracking the External World through Scientific Knowledge 41 1.8 Tracking Human Behavior. Rendering Human Behavior Predictable through Ethics 42 References 44 2 Distributed Model-Based Science 47 2.1 Models and Fictions 47 2.2 Models Are Not Fictions. The Inconsistency of the Argument of Imperfect Fit 49 2.3 Models Are Distributed 52 2.4 Perception-Action Common Coding as an Example of ``On-line'' Manipulative Abduction 55 2.5 Model-Based Ignorance 58 References 60 3 Not Everything in Scientific Cognition Is Evidence-Based 63 3.1 The Epistemology of Evidentially Inert Knowledge-Enhancing: Guessing Conventions in Science 64 3.1.1 Dismissing Conventions 67 3.2 The Epistemology of Evidentially Inert Knowledge-Enhancing: Abducing Scientific Models Versus Abducing Fictions 70 3.2.1 Dynamic Versus Static View of Scientific Models and the Revival of the Demarcation Problem 73 3.3 Mathematics, Deduction, and Manipulative Abduction 76 References 79 4 Epistemic Warfare 81 4.1 Are Scientific Models Fictions or Epistemic Weapons? 81 4.2 Scientific Models as Fictions in a Dynamic Perspective and Fictions as ``Façons de Parler'' 85 4.3 Are the In-Vitro Model or a Geometrical Diagram Fictions? 88 4.4 Confounding Static and Dynamic Aspects of the Scientific Enterprise 90 4.5 Resemblance and Feyerabend's Counterinduction 94 4.6 Galileo's Modeling Vindicated 98 References 102 5 The Genealogy of Abduction 105 5.1 Naïve Genealogy of Logic: Abduction and Arche-Validity 105 5.1.1 Knowledge-Enhancing Abduction and Arche-Validity 107 5.1.2 Deduction as Eco-Cognitive Immunization: Removing the Origins of Truths 109 5.2 Aristotle's and Its Eco-Cognitive Openness 112 5.3 Geometry and Logic: The Role of Constructions and Middle Terms in Abduction 116 5.3.1 and Geometry 117 5.3.2 , Dialectics, and Logic 118 5.3.3 Geometry and Logic Intertwined: and Its Eco-Cognitive Openness 120 5.4 Dialectics, Rules of Interrogation, Syllogisms: Dialectical Logic Versus Syllogistic Logic? 123 5.5 Abduction and Aristotelian Enthymeme from Signs 125 References 127 6 Maximizing Cognition in Science: Affirming Truths Implies Negating Truths 130 6.1 Reprise: Ignorance-Preserving, Immunization, Validity 131 6.1.1 Ignorance-Preserving and Knowledge Enhancing Abduction 131 6.1.2 Eco-Cognitive Immunization: De-Moralizing Truth 131 6.1.3 ``Recognizing'' Validity 133 6.1.4 Now 134 6.2 EC-Model of Abduction and Logic: Relevance and Plausibility Relativized 135 6.2.1 Inferential Problems: Input and Output Versus Premisses and Conclusions 135 6.2.2 Irrelevance and Implausibility Exculpated 140 6.2.3 Becoming Relevant, Becoming Plausible: The Role of Ignorance and of Creative Agency 141 6.2.4 Abduction and the Production of a Deduction 144 References 147 7 Science Maximizes Abducibility 149 7.1 Abductive Cognition and the Optimization of the Eco-Cognitive Situatedness 149 7.1.1 A Logic of Abduction Is Eco-Cognitively Disciplined 149 7.1.2 Anthropomorphizing the Logic of Abduction 152 7.1.3 A Logic of Abduction Is Naturalized 154 7.1.4 A Logic of Abduction Is Distributed: Benacerraf's Dilemma Revisited 156 7.1.5 Deductive Consequence Repels Information, Logic Programs Are Information-Sensitive 158 7.2 Comparing Traditional Demonstrative Inferences and Abductive Inferences 162 7.2.1 Some Basic Cognitive Features of Traditional Demonstrative Inferences 162 7.2.2 Abductive Inferences 163 7.2.3 Multimodal Abduction Is Present in Traditional Deductive Proofs: The Role of Definitory and Strategic Rules 168 References 171 8 Human Creative Abduction Assaulted 174 8.1 ``Knowledge in Motion'' Defended: Favoring Scientific Abduction through the Eco-Cognitive Openness 175 8.1.1 Marketing Technoscientific Results 178 8.2 Jeopardizing Human Abduction through Impoverished Epistemological Niches 181 8.2.1 Epistemic Irresponsibility I: Expensive Drugs Now and the Undisciplined Commodification of Abduction in Science 181 8.2.2 Epistemic Irresponsibility II: How to Avoid the Eco-Cognitive Shutdown of Creative Abduction 186 8.2.3 Epistemic Irresponsibility III: Neoliberalism Assaults to Epistemic Integrity of Biopharmaceutical Research 190 8.3 Optimizing the Eco-Cognitive Situatedness: Human Creative Abduction Between Academia and Corporations 195 8.3.1 ``The Symbiotic Model of Innovation'' and the Precompetitive Collaborations 197 8.4 Computational Invasive ``Subcultures'' Jeopardize Human Creative Abduction in Science 200 8.5 Science Impoverished: Encouraging Epistemic Irresponsibility Through Ignorance 204 References 207 Appendix Conclusion 211 Appendix Lexicon of Abductive Cognition in Science 216 Index 229 Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii Enhancing Knowledge (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 1-30 Distributed Model-Based Science (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 31-46 Not Everything in Scientific Cognition Is Evidence-Based (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 47-64 Epistemic Warfare (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 65-88 The Genealogy of Abduction (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 89-113 Maximizing Cognition in Science: Affirming Truths Implies Negating Truths (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 115-133 Science Maximizes Abducibility (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 135-159 Human Creative Abduction Assaulted (Lorenzo Magnani)....Pages 161-197 Back Matter ....Pages 199-230