Re: Abduction & Induction Workshop at IJCAI'97

Ryszard S. Michalski (michalsk@aic.gmu.edu)
Wed, 16 Oct 96 13:21:13 EDT

Peter,

If you want to be consistent with recent research findings, what you call
induction should be called inductive generalization.

Induction is a general form of inference, opposite of deduction.
While deduction preserves truth, induction preserves falsity.
Inductive generalization and abduction are two most known and
important forms of induction; other forms are part-to-whole
induction, concretion, inductive specialization, etc.

In many acts of reasoning people mix different forms of induction,
or mix induction with deduction (e.g., make deductive
abstraction in order to create an inductive generalization).

Having a workshop on general induction and its various forms
sounds like a good idea, and your leadership is welcome.

Ryszard