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Recent advances in computing, robotics, and the internet are starting to have a
significant impact on the way scientific research is now being conducted. This
Special Issue aims to examine the potential directions of such a revolution and to
discuss some of the ways in which computational logic could play an important role.
In particular, it will focus on two key types of inference which, for over
a century, philosophers of science have termed abduction and induction.
The nature of these reasoning forms has previously been addressed in
an edited volume called
Abduction and Induction: Essays on their Relation and Integration.
More recent work in applying these techniques within the fields
of artificial intelligence and scientific discovery was the subject of
an IJCAI'09 worksop on
Abductive & Inductive Knowledge Development. This Special Issue
is composed of papers derived from the talks presented at that workshop.
The specific aim of this work is explore a new generation of logical techniques
aimed at assisting the continual evolution of knowledge in real-world applications.
Its particular emphasis is on the use of abductive and inductive logics to formalise
and automate the incremental cycle of knowledge development which arises in many domains.
We are, therefore, particularly interested in (scientific and everyday) tasks
involving some form of
- on-line (as opposed to just off-line) interaction
- active (as opposed to just passive) learning
- revising (as opposed to just completing) theories
- collaborative (as opposed to just autonomous) problem solving
- evaluating (as opposed to just generating) hypotheses
- 21st century (as opposed to just 19th century) science
- real (as opposed to just toy) applications
- embodied (as opposed to just conceptual) intelligence
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