The Theory

A doctor sees a patient with a fever, a rash, and joint pain. She does not deduce the diagnosis from first principles, and she does not need a thousand similar cases to induce it. She generates the most plausible explanation given the evidence — that is abduction, or inference to the best explanation. Peirce called it the only truly creative form of reasoning, because it generates new hypotheses rather than confirming existing ones. Analogical reasoning works differently: you take a structure from a domain you already understand and map it onto a new domain. Both forms of reasoning are less certain than deduction and less data-hungry than induction, which is precisely why they are the workhorses of everyday thought.

What the Research Found

Lipton showed that abductive reasoning is pervasive in scientific discovery and everyday judgment — we constantly generate and select the best available explanation. Magnani argued that most human reasoning is abductive rather than deductive, following Peirce's original insight. Kolodner developed case-based reasoning as the computational implementation of analogical inference — solving new problems by adapting solutions from similar past cases. Gentner's structure-mapping theory proved that good analogies transfer relational structure, not surface features. Green identified dedicated neural circuits for analogical reasoning in the frontopolar cortex.

How We Use It

Question E1 option (c) — "Why manufacturing specifically? What do these clients have in common that explains the success?" — captures abductive reasoning (dimension value 5.3). Option (d) — "This reminds me of what happens in sector X" — captures analogical inference (value 5.4). E2(c) maps abductive prediction (most plausible scenario), while E2(d) maps analogical prediction. E3(c) — "What's the most likely explanation?" — is abduction, and E3(d) — "Where have I seen something like this?" — is analogical reasoning. E4(c) and E4(d) capture persuasion through explanation vs. analogy respectively.

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References (7)

  1. Lipton, P. (2004). Inference to the Best Explanation. DOI
  2. Magnani, L. (2001). Abduction, Reason and Science: Processes of Discovery and Explanation. DOI
  3. Lipton, P. (1990). Contrastive explanation. DOI
  4. Kolodner, J. L. (1993). Case-Based Reasoning.
  5. Hofstadter, D. & Sander, E. (2013). Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking.
  6. Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for analogy. DOI
  7. Green, A. E., Kraemer, D. J. M., Fugelsang, J. A., Gray, J. R. & Dunbar, K. N. (2010). Connecting long distance: Semantic distance in analogical reasoning modulates frontopolar cortex activity. DOI