Explanatory Coherence: BBS Call for Commentators

[Stevan Harnad]

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important
and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive
sciences. To be considered as a commentator or to suggest other appropriate
commentators, please send email to:
	 harnad at confidence.princeton.edu              or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542  [tel: 609-921-7771]
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                  EXPLANATORY COHERENCE

		  Paul Thagard
		  Cognitive Science Loboratory
		  Princeton University
		  Princeton NJ 08542

Keywords: Connectionist models, artificial intelligence, explanation,
coherence, reasoning, decision theory, philosophy of science

This paper presents a new computational theory of explanatory
coherence that applies both to the acceptance and rejection of
scientific hypotheses and to reasoning in everyday life.  The theory
consists of seven principles that establish relations of local
coherence between a hypothesis and other propositions that explain it,
are explained by it, or contradict it.   An explanatory hypothesis is
accepted if it coheres better overall than its competitors.
The power of the seven principles is shown by their implementation in a
connectionist program called ECHO, which has been applied to
such important scientific cases as Lavoisier's argument for
oxygen against the phlogiston theory and Darwin's argument for evolution
against creationism, and also to cases of legal reasoning.  The
theory of explanatory coherence has implications for artificial
intelligence, psychology, and philosophy.