Abduction as Deductive Saturation: a Proof-Theoretic Inquiry

Abstract Abductive reasoning involves finding the missing premise of an “unsaturated” deductive inference, thereby selecting a possible explanans for a conclusion based on a set of previously accepted premises. In this paper, we explore abductive reasoning from a structural proof-theory perspective. We present a hybrid sequent calculus for classical propositional logic that uses sequents and antisequents to define a procedure for identifying the set of analytic hypotheses that a rational agent would be expected to select as explanans when presented with an abductive problem. Specifically, we show that this set may not include the deductively minimal hypothesis due to the presence of redundant information. We also establish that the set of all analytic hypotheses exhausts all possible solutions to the given problem. Finally, we propose a deductive criterion for differentiating between the best explanans candidates and other hypotheses.