Papers and Book Chapters by Alger Sans Pinillos
Scientific Cognition, Semiotics, and Computational Agents: Essays in Honor of Lorenzo Magnani - Volume 2, 2025
This work pays tribute to the work of Professor Magnani by analyzing and applying his Eco-Cogniti... more This work pays tribute to the work of Professor Magnani by analyzing and applying his Eco-Cognitive Abduction Model (also known as the EC-Model) to introduce axiological values’ role in the generation of scientific hypotheses. For this purpose, the cognitive dimension of the researcher is proposed in this work as a complementary factor to better understand the scientific paradigm shift. In particular, it is assumed that the experience of discovering a surprising fact that neither current theories nor methodologies can account for generates a state of radical ignorance that can provoke in the agent the emotion of anguish in the face of the imperative need to find a solution. Faced with ignorance as the only available evidence of the fact that triggers anguish, the agent’s abducted hypotheses will be much more fragile than usual because they contain very distant elements, which will imply a more significant commitment to the interpretation of the scientific discipline involved, as well as to the agent’s own vision of how the paradigm should be understood. This fragility, however, does not undermine the process but revitalizes the discipline in crisis with novel proposals that motivate suggestive new lines of investigation.
Why Does Evidence-Based Medicine Require Abduction?
Global Philosophy, 2024
Despite the innovation that evidence-based medicine (henceforth EBM) represents for biomedical sc... more Despite the innovation that evidence-based medicine (henceforth EBM) represents for biomedical sciences today, we argue that its strict evidential hierarchies do not faithfully represent the epistemic and practical reality of the evidence that should be used to make appropriate clinical decisions. We defend that it is necessary to make modifications to the methodology and models of clinical decision-making proposed by EBM and make them more sensitive to the use of different types of evidence and reasoning. Since various types of evidence and reasoning, and medical expertise still play an irreducible role in clinical decision-making, rather than continuing with their strict hierarchies, we argue that those who subscribe to the EBM paradigm should discuss in much greater detail different types of evidence and reasoning. Admitting and advocating the role of other types of evidence and reasoning in clinical decision-making will also be necessary to introduce other types of inference and evaluation, as this generates conclusions that do not rely solely on induction or deduction. Both clinical judgment and the clinical eye play a prominent role in this context, particularly in diagnosis, as uncertainty inherently influences the process. If we hit the nail on the head, effective EBM practice requires other types of reasoning beyond biostatistical reasoning. With this in mind, we characterize clinical judgment based on abductive inference.
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Papers and Book Chapters by Alger Sans Pinillos