Lorenzo Magnani

Aristotle clearly states that in syllogistic theory local/environmental cognitive factors—external to that peculiar inferential process, for example regarding users/reasoners, are given up. Indeed, to define syllogism Aristotle first of all insists that all syllogisms are valid and contends that the necessity of this kind of reasoning is related to the circumstance that “no further term from outside (ἒξωθεν) is needed”, in sum syllogism is the fruit of a kind of eco-cognitive immunization. At the same time Aristotle presents a seminal perspective on abduction, which contrasts with the previous one on syllogismos: the second part of the article considers the famous passage in the chapter B25 of Prior Analytics concerning ἀπαγωγή (“leading away”), also studied by Peirce. I contend that some of the current well-known distinctive characters of abductive cognition are already expressed, which are in tune with what I have called Eco-cognitive Model of abduction. By providing an illustration of the role of the method of analysis and of the middle terms in Plato’s dialectic argumentation, considered as related to the diorismic/poristic process in ancient geometry I maintain that it is just this intellectual heritage which informs Aristotle’ chapter B25 on ἀπαγωγή. Even if, in general, Aristotle seems to sterilize, thanks to the invention of syllogistic theory, every “dialectic” background of reasoning, nevertheless in chapter B25 he is still pointing to the fundamental inferential role in reasoning of those externalities that substantiate the process of “leading away” (ἀπαγωγή). Hence, we can gain a new positive perspective about the “constitutive” eco-cognitive character of abduction, just thanks to Aristotle himself.

In the current epistemological debate scientific models are not only considered as useful devices for explaining facts or discovering new entities, laws, and theories, but also rubricated under various new labels: from the classical ones, as abstract entities and idealizations, to the more recent, as fictions, surrogates, credible worlds, missing systems, make-believe, parables, functional, epistemic actions, revealing capacities. This article discusses these approaches showing some of their epistemological inadequacies, also taking advantage of recent results in cognitive science. I will substantiate my revision of epistemological fictionalism reframing the received idea of abstractness and ideality of models with the help of recent results related to the role of distributed cognition (common coding) and abductive cognition (manipulative).

This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important, innovative, and possibly creative changes in theories and concepts. Gathering revised contributions presented at the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning (MBR023), held on June 7–9, 2023 in Rome, Italy, the book addresses various intertwined topics ranging from the epistemology and applications of models also concerning the problem of knowledge production and scientific methodology (information visualization, experimental methods, and design) to the analysis of their role in cognition, decision-making, also with respect to social implications. The problem of model-based cognition is also illustrated taking advantage of recent results regarding problem-solving, abduction, and logic, paying attention to a critique of the dominant and received approaches, to the aim of fostering new discussions and stimulate new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the fields of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of the latest theories and applications of model-based reasoning.

Eco-cognitive computationalism is a cognitive science perspective that views computing in context, focusing on embodied, situated, and distributed cognition. It emphasizes the role of Turing in the development of the Logical Universal Machine and the concept of machines as “domesticated ignorant entities”. This perspective explains how machines can be dynamically active in distributed physical entities, allowing data to be encoded and decoded for appropriate results. In this perspective, we can clearly see that the concept of computation evolves over time due to historical and contextual factors, and it allows for the emergence of new types of computations that exploit new substrates. Taking advantage of this eco-cognitive framework I will also illustrate the concepts of “locked and unlocked strategies in deep learning systems, indicating different inference routines for creative results. Locked abductive strategies are characterized by poor hypothetical creative cognition due to the lack of what I call eco-cognitive openness, while unlocked human cognition involves higher kinds of creative abductive reasoning. This special kind of “openness” is physically rooted in the fundamental character of the human brain as an open system constantly coupled with the environment (that is an “open” or dissipative system): its activity is the uninterrupted attempt to achieve the equilibrium with the environment in which it is embedded, and this interplay can never be switched off without producing severe damage to the brain. Brain cannot be conceived as deprived of its physical quintessence which is its openness. In the brain, contrary to the computational case, ordering is not derived from the outside thanks to what I have called in a recent book “computational domestication of ignorant entities”, but it is the direct product of an “internal” open dynamical process of the system.

In this article the problem of _discoverability_ and _abductive creativity_ in scientific cognition will be characterized by the analysis of current difficulties that affect various aspects of the scientific enterprise such as in the case of the organization of Research and Development in biopharmaceutical companies. I will contend that this case symbolizes a paradigmatic example of what I have called “impoverished epistemic niches” in which it seems that some of the fundamental aspects that qualify modern science are jeopardized. To refer to some recent challenges to the crucial role played in scientific abductive cognition by the so-called “maximization of eco-cognitive openness” and “optimization of eco-cognitive situatedness”, I will propose the new concept of “_epistemic irresponsibility_”. I will emphasize the importance of the so-called _knowledge in motion_ – in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary scientific research: the concept of knowledge in motion is also the necessary conceptual premise of the analysis of various kinds of epistemic irresponsibility. I indeed will illustrate the current increasing expansion of commodification and commercialization of science, marketing of technoscientific products, impoverishment of the epistemic niches, showing that a consequence is and could further be an attack to the possibility of a further flourishing of human fecund and successful abductive creative cognition in science, and so at the same time human creativity severely compromised.

Throughout my investigation into abductive cognition, which is also associated with the endeavor to naturalize logic of its special consequence relation, I stressed the relevance of the following key elements: ‘optimization of eco-cognitive situatedness’, ‘maximization of changeability’ of both input and output of the general form of an inferential abductive problem and high ‘information-sensitiveness’. These elements will be summarized and further deepened in this article. In addition, I will demonstrate how, in contrast to traditional demonstrative logical ideal systems, which are typified by what I refer to as the ‘maximization of memorylessness’, a naturalized logic of abduction demonstrates the necessity of recording the ‘past life’ of abductive inferential praxes. Lastly, I will analyze the significance and nature of the maximization of eco-cognitive openness, which characterizes abduction in science and describes how the many above-mentioned elements are relevant to the aims of new eco-cognitive epistemology.

In this article, we want to demonstrate how thoughts experiments (TEs) incorporate cognitive structures—abductive inferences as conceptual metaphors—that reliably underpin everyday thinking and are enhanced and rendered more effective in scientific and philosophical contexts. Indeed one might successfully rethink the inferential structure at the heart of thought experiment production as the application of a generative abductive procedure. We shall characterize TES as possessing two characteristics that are essential to the definitions of abductive and metaphorical thinking, but when considered in relation to TE’s description, can excuse mild bewilderment: both knowledge-enhancing and ignorance-preserving features. In sum, we will say that TEs realize extended conceptual metaphors, which instantiate forms of abductive reasoning and, therefore, partially preserve the ignorance of the authors who produce them (even if they also increase a bit their knowledge by—so to speak—mitigating ignorance). In certain fortunate and exceptional instances, however, TEs can also provide a purely knowledge-enhancing benefit; in order to do this, a reference to the innovative and creative function of thought experiments in Galileo’s findings is also included.

This article explores the issue of discoverability and abductive creativity in scientific cognition, focusing on the challenges faced by biopharmaceutical companies in their R&D organization. The author argues that these companies are generating “impoverished epistemic niches”, which threaten fundamental aspects of modern science. The author proposes the concept of epistemic irresponsibility, emphasizing the importance of “knowledge in motion” in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary scientific research. The increasing expansion of commodification and commercialization of science, marketing of technoscientific products, and the impoverishment of epistemic niches seem to already threaten the flourishing of human creativity and successful abductive creative cognition in science.

Morality is the effort to guide one’s conduct by reasons, that is, to do what there are the best reasons for doing. From a cognitive perspective, there are many types of moral hypotheses that provide good reasons in practical and moral deliberation and action. They can take the form of principles, rules, prototypes, previous analogical cases, examples, images, feelings, metaphors, narratives, and so on. I will address the central problems of the logical structure of reasons and of inferring reasons taking advantage of the fundamental distinction, suggested by Searle, between internal and external reasons. What, then, is the role of internal reasons? The answer is that they serve, in a certain way, to mediate between external and internal obligations by connecting them both logically and causally in practical and moral cognition and illustrating the relative importance of abductive cognition. Internal reasons might be based on a desire or an intention, for instance, while external reasons may be grounded in external obligations and duties that we may recognize as such.

This book discusses how scientific and other types of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important or creative changes in theories and concepts. It includes revised contributions presented during the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning (MBR’015), held on June 25-27 in Sestri Levante, Italy. The book is divided into three main parts, the first of which focuses on models, reasoning and representation. It highlights key theoretical concepts from an applied perspective, addressing issues concerning information visualization, experimental methods and design. The second part goes a step further, examining abduction, problem solving and reasoning. The respective contributions analyze different types of reasoning, discussing various concepts of inference and creativity and their relationship with experimental data. In turn, the third part reports on a number of historical, epistemological and technological issues. By analyzing possible contradictions in modern research and describing representative case studies in experimental research, this part aims at fostering new discussions and stimulating new ideas. All in all, the book provides researchers and graduate students in the field of applied philosophy, epistemology, cognitive science and artificial intelligence alike with an authoritative snapshot of current theories and applications of model-based reasoning.

In this paper we present some algorithms for computing minimal conflicts. First of all we discuss the relationship between minimal conflicts and minimally inconsistent subsets. Then we introduce an algorithm for computing all minimally inconsistent subsets, which is applied to generating all minimal conflicts. Furthermore, an algorithm for computing all minimal conflicts using structured description is introduced, and its correctness is proved; its time complexity is also shown. The algorithm using structured description terminates in polynomial time for some special system, such as the tree–structured systems. The algorithms are also complared with related works

In this paper we aim at discussing cognitive and epistemic features of online communities, by the use of cognitive niche constructions theories, presenting them as virtual cognitive niches. Virtual cognitive niches can be considered as digitally-encoded collaborative distributions of diverse types of information into an environment performed by agents to aid thinking and reasoning about some target domain. Discussing this definition, we will also consider how online communities, as networks displaying a social bias, can both foster civic awareness and promote problematic group-led behaviors in the virtually aggregated crowds. To support this affirmation, we will take into account the use of online communication networks during crises and we will argue that it can lead to ethically dubious consequences.

This book contains contributions presented during the international conference on Model-Based Reasoning (MBR'012), held on June 21-23 in Sestri Levante, Italy. Interdisciplinary researchers discuss in this volume how scientific cognition and other kinds of cognition make use of models, abduction, and explanatory reasoning in order to produce important or creative changes in theories and concepts. Some of the contributions analyzed the problem of model-based reasoning in technology and stressed the issues of scientific and technological innovation. The book is divided in three main parts: models, mental models, representations; abduction, problem solving and practical reasoning; historical, epistemological and technological issues..

Eco-cognitive computationalism explores computing in context, adhering to some of the key ideas presented by modern cognitive science perspectives on embodied, situated, and distributed cognition. First of all, when physical computation is seen from the perspective of the ecology of cognition it is possible to clearly understand the role Turing assigned to the process of “education” of the machine, paralleling it to the education of human brains, in the invention of the Logical Universal Machine. It is this Turing’s emphasis on education that furnishes the justification of the conceptualization of machines as “domesticated ignorant entities”, that is proposed in this article. I will show that conceptualizing machines as dynamically active in distributed physical entities of various kinds suitably transformed so that data can be encoded and decoded to obtain appropriate results sheds further light on my eco-cognitive perspective. Furthermore, it is within this intellectual framework that I will usefully analyze the recent attention in computer science devoted to the importance of the simplification of cognitive and motor tasks caused in organic entities thanks to morphological features: ignorant bodies can be computationally domesticated to make an intertwined computation simpler, relying on the “simplexity” of animal embodied cognition, which represents one of the main qualities of organic agents. Finally, eco-cognitive computationalism allows us to clearly acknowledge that the concept of computation evolves over time as a result of historical and contextual factors, and we can construct an epistemological view that depicts the “emergence” of new types of computations that exploit new substrates. This new viewpoint demonstrates how the computational domestication of ignorant entities might result in the emergence of novel unconventional cognitive embodiments.

Starting from the analysis of Marx’s Chapter 26 of the first volume of Capital, this article describes Marxian emphasis on the extremely violent aspects—a list of the main cases is also provided—of the so-called “enclosures” as fundamental procedures that favored the “primitive accumulation”, that is, the first social and economic step that led to capitalism. The “enclosures” that characterized the primitive accumulation process, violently expropriating peasants, razing their cottages and dwellings, are illustrated in detail. At the same time, we will describe what we call the “moral bubble”, created by the narratives—morally edifying—about enclosures, only devoted to the emphasis on the positive economic and social outcomes: the moral bubble acts as a powerful conceptual device capable of concealing the violence that accompanies enclosures. The second part of the article stresses the fact that the mechanism of enclosures can be traced back not only to violently expropriating common lands in which the peasants flourished but also to the violent processes against women to have them basically reduced to machines for the production of new workers, in the framework of the new “patriarchy of the wage”. The importance of the so-called “new enclosures” is further delineated after having shown how enclosures express the historical and general tendency of capitalistic accumulation and not only of the primitive one. The violent aspects of primitive accumulation, and so of primitive enclosures, are described as the main characters of every phase of the recent capitalist globalization, marked by continuous and unprecedented assault (as smart social, political, and economic mechanisms for producing enclosures) on the commons, perpetrated by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, coronavirus lockdown and, currently, also by the paradoxical economic effects of the interplay between the green era and Ukraine war–global food and energy crisis. Finally, the last section provides insight on what we called the “terminal enclosure” related to the aggression of the ultimate common good: water.

I propose that the relationship between moral and violent behavior is overlooked in current philosophical, epistemological, and cognitive studies. To the aim of clarifying the complex dynamics of this interplay, I will describe, adopting an evolutionary perspective, the concepts of coalition enforcement, cognitive moral niche, and of what I call moral bubbles. Showing the interesting relationships between these three basic concepts, I will explain the role of morality in causing and justifying violence. The main theoretical merit of the concept of coalition enforcement is that it permits the naturalization of morality that is the only conceptual means to unveil, in a naturalized way, the status of violence beyond the constraints generated by the so-called moral bubbles that prevent agents from seeing the potential violence generated by their own moral acts.

_Locked_ and _unlocked_ strategies are illustrated in this article as concepts that deal with important cognitive aspects of deep learning systems. They indicate different inference routines that refer to poor (locked) to rich (unlocked) cases of creative production of creative cognition. I maintain that these differences lead to important consequences when we analyze computational deep learning programs, such as AlphaGo/AlphaZero, which are able to realize various types of abductive hypothetical reasoning. These programs embed what I call locked abductive strategies, so, even if they present spectacular performances for example in games, they are characterized by poor types of hypothetical creative cognition insofar as they are constrained in what I call _eco-cognitive openness_. This openness instead characterizes unlocked human cognition that pertains to higher kinds of abductive reasoning, in both the creative and diagnostic cases, in which cognitive strategies are instead unlocked. This special kind of “openness” is physically rooted in the fundamental character of the human brain as an open system constantly coupled with the environment (that is, an “open” or “dissipative” system): its activity is the uninterrupted attempt to achieve the equilibrium with the environment in which it is embedded, and this interplay can never be switched off without producing severe damage to the brain. The brain cannot be conceived as deprived of its physical quintessence that is its openness. In the brain, contrary to the computational case, ordering is not derived from the outside thanks to what I have called in a recent book “computational domestication of ignorant entities”, but it is the direct product of an “internal” open dynamical process of the system.

This Handbook offers the first comprehensive reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of abductive cognition, providing readers with extensive information on the process of reasoning to hypotheses in humans, animals, and in computational machines. It highlights the role of abduction in both theory practice: in generating and testing hypotheses and explanatory functions for various purposes and as an educational device. It merges logical, cognitive, epistemological and philosophical perspectives with more practical needs relating to the application of abduction across various disciplines and practices, such as in diagnosis, creative reasoning, scientific discovery, diagrammatic and ignorance-based cognition, and adversarial strategies. It also discusses the inferential role of models in hypothetical reasoning, abduction and creativity, including the process of development, implementation and manipulation for different scientific and technological purposes. Written by a group of internationally renowned experts in philosophy, logic, general epistemology, mathematics, cognitive, and computer science, as well as life sciences, engineering, architecture, and economics, the Handbook of Abductive Cognition offers a unique reference guide for readers approaching the process of reasoning to hypotheses from different perspectives and for various theoretical and practical purposes. Numerous diagrams, schemes and other visual representations are included to promote a better understanding of the relevant concepts and to make concepts highly accessible to an audience of scholars and students with different scientific backgrounds.

In this article I will take advantage of the logical and cognitive studies I have illustrated in my recent book The Abductive Structure of Scientific Creativity. An Essay on the Ecology of Cognition, in which the process of building new hypotheses is clarified thanks to my eco-cognitive model of abduction. Also resorting to a new interpretation of Aristotle’s seminal work on abduction, I will emphasize the crucial role played in abductive cognition by the so-called “optimization of eco-cognitive openness and situatedness”. Indeed, in the chapter B25 of Prior Analytics concerning, we can see some of the current well-known distinctive characters of abductive cognition already expressed, which are in tune with the EC-Model: Aristotle is still pointing to the fundamental inferential role in reasoning of those externalities that substantiate the process of “leading away” (). Hence, we can gain a new positive perspective about the “constitutive” eco-cognitive character of abduction, just thanks to Aristotle himself. Situatedness is related to eco-cognitive aspects: to favor the solution of the abductive problem input and output of the formula Λ1,…,Λi,?I⊩LXΥ1,…,.Υj\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\begin{aligned} \Lambda _1,\ldots,\Lambda _i,?_I\Vdash _L^X\Upsilon _1,\ldots,.\Upsilon _j \end{aligned}$$\end{document}have to be thought as optimally positioned: indeed I also contend than a disregarded issue concerning abduction is related to the current lack of knowledge about what I call “discoverability” and “diagnosticability”. In the formula above ⊩LX\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Vdash _L^X$$\end{document} indicates that inputs and outputs do not stand each other in an expected relation and that the modification of the inputs?I\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$?_I$$\end{document} can provide the abductive solution. In general, in this characterization the direction is not from evidence/premises to abductive result but the forward fashion is adopted, where the inferential parameter ⊩\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\Vdash $$\end{document} sets some appropriate logical relationship between an input which consists in both the abductive guess to be found and a background theory, and an output—for example an evidence, a novel phenomenon to be abductively “explained” through facts, rules, or even new theories. Further, in the case of scientific settings, this optimality is made possible by a maximization of changeability of both input and output: not only inputs have to be enriched with the possible solution but, to do that, other inputs have usually to be changed and/or modified. This changeability first of all refers to a wide epistemological openness.

Taking advantage of Denis Noble’s description, in “The Illusions of the Modern Synthesis” of the first illusion, related to the concept of natural selection itself, I will further strengthen the criticism by adding three groups of considerations mainly concerning human cognition: 1) how semiotic brains build cognitive niches; 2) the role of abduction – and in particular of manipulative abduction – in building a semiotic artificial world; 3) the biosemiotics of the so-called disembodiment of the mind. Human semiotic brains are engaged in a continuous process of delegation and distribution of cognitive functions to the environment to lessen cognitive limitations, also and especially taking advantage of what I have called “manipulative abduction”. These design semiotic activities are closely related to the process of cognitive niche construction, which should be regarded as the second major participant, after natural selection, in evolution. An important effect of this semiotic brain activity is a continuous process of disembodiment of the mind that exhibits a new cognitive perspective on the mechanisms underlying the semiotic emergence of meaning processes.

The present contribution describes the nature of social practices based on habitual behavior. The first part concerns the notion of “habit” from a perspective that crosses philosophy and science. Habits structure our daily life and possess a social nature, as shown by informally shared habits and institutionalized rituals. After a brief reference to the philosophical debate, we point out the fundamental dimensions of habitual behavior, i.e., routine and goal-directed behavior. They also characterize shared social habits like rituals because we need to: (a) simply follow social institutional practices and (b) actively cooperate to reach a certain goal. Our descriptive strategy aims at promoting the aspect of “control” in habitual behavior, namely, the possibility of accepting or refusing to do something. This control does not work in many pathological cases and cases of auto-illusion. The second part of the article will illustrate the interesting but disregarded case of the epistemic and moral embubblement, explaining it as an individual cognitive process and as a specific social practice that once followed or institutionalized becomes a shared practice routinely performed. The main features of an epistemic bubble concern the widespread situation in which the cognitive agents always resolve the tension between their thinking that they know _P_ and their knowing _P_ in favor of knowing that _P_”. The related case of the moral bubble indicates the situation in which agents are potentially or actually violent and unaware of it. This cognitive process expresses how difficulties in recognizing one’s own violence leads to disregarding the possible or actual inflicted harm: in this case, a process of what can be called “autoimmunity” is at play. We will contend that the concept of moral bubble can provide an integrated and unified perspective able to interpret in a novel way many social practices in which morality and violence are intertwined.