Induction: Representation, strategy and argument

Abstract

In order to be a general theory of human cognition, the theory of mental models needs to accommodate a variety of forms of reasoning in addition to deduction. The mental model theory of induction is a crucial step in establishing generality. After suggesting that the theory of mental models can also account for abduction and analogy, the paper points out that inductive performance is likely to be constrained both by the nature of the representation used and by strategic factors. Since human cognition involves the communication of arguments, a final section explores the relationship between the theory of mental models and the notion of an argument. It proposes that models can contain tokens of inductive arguments which can be referred to in the course of other arguments.