Abstract: This article describes abductions as special patterns of inference to the best explanation whose structure determines a particularly promising abductive conjecture (conclusion) and thus serves as an abductive search strategy (Sect. 1). A classifica- tion of different patterns of abduction is provided which intends to be as complete as possible (Sect. 2). An important distinction is that between selective abductions, which choose an optimal candidate from given multitude of possible explanations (Sects. 3-4), and creative abductions, which intro...
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Topics: 
Epistemology
Artificial intelligence
Mathematical economics