Claudio Pizzi

L. Magnani

Nancy Nersessian

Information technology has been, in recent years, under increasing commercial pressure to provide devices and systems which help/ replace the human in his daily activity. This pressure requires the use of logic as the underlying foundational workhorse of the area. New logics were developed as the need arose and new foci and balance has evolved within logic itself. One aspect of these new trends in logic is the rising impor tance of model based reasoning. Logics have become more and more tailored to applications and their reasoning has become more and more application dependent. In fact, some years ago, I myself coined the phrase "direct deductive reasoning in application areas", advocating the methodology of model-based reasoning in the strongest possible terms. Certainly my discipline of Labelled Deductive Systems allows to bring "pieces" of the application areas as "labels" into the logic. I therefore heartily welcome this important book to Volume 25 of the Applied Logic Series and see it as an important contribution in our overall coverage of applied logic.

Logical and Computational Aspects of Model-Based Reasoning

This book ties together the concerns of philosophers of science and AI researchers, showing for example the connections between scientific thinking and medical expert systems. It lays out a useful general framework for discussion of a variety of kinds of abduction. It develops important ideas about aspects of abductive reasoning that have been relatively neglected in cognitive science, including the use of visual and temporal representations and the role of abduction in the withdrawal of hypotheses.

Processes of Discovery and Explanation

Abduction, Reason and Science

N.J. Nersessian

There are several key ingredients common to the various forms of model-based reasoning considered in this book. The term ‘model’ comprises both internal and external representations. The models are intended as interpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations and are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain. The book’s contributors are researchers active in the area of creative reasoning in science and technology.

Science, Technology, Values

Model-Based Reasoning

Lorenzo Magnani

Paul Thagard

The volume is based on the papers that were presented at the Interna tional Conference Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery (MBR'98), held at the Collegio Ghislieri, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in December 1998. The papers explore how scientific thinking uses models and explanatory reasoning to produce creative changes in theories and concepts. The study of diagnostic, visual, spatial, analogical, and temporal rea soning has demonstrated that there are many ways of performing intelligent and creative reasoning that cannot be described with the help only of tradi tional notions of reasoning such as classical logic. Traditional accounts of scientific reasoning have restricted the notion of reasoning primarily to de ductive and inductive arguments. Understanding the contribution of model ing practices to discovery and conceptual change in science requires ex panding scientific reasoning to include complex forms of creative reasoning that are not always successful and can lead to incorrect solutions. The study of these heuristic ways of reasoning is situated at the crossroads of philoso phy, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and logic; that is, at the heart of cognitive science. There are several key ingredients common to the various forms of model based reasoning to be considered in this book. The models are intended as in terpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations. The models are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain.

Model-Based Reasoning in Scientific Discovery

Philosophers have studied geometry since ancient times. Geometrical knowledge has often played the role of a laboratory for the philosopher's conceptual experiments dedicated to the ideation of powerful theories of knowledge. Lorenzo Magnani's new book Philosophy and Geometry illustrates the rich intrigue of this fascinating story of human knowledge, providing a new analysis of the ideas of many scholars (including Plato, Proclus, Kant, and Poincaré), and discussing conventionalist and neopositivist perspectives and the problem of the origins of geometry. The book also ties together the concerns of philosophers of science and cognitive scientists, showing, for example, the connections between geometrical reasoning and cognition as well as the results of recent logical and computational models of geometrical reasoning. All the topics are dealt with using a novel combination of both historical and contemporary perspectives. Philosophy and Geometry is a valuable contribution to the renaissance of research in the field.

L. Magnani

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