abduction
The generation of hypotheses to explain observations
or conclusions. Applications include fault diagnosis, plan
formation and {default reasoning}.
Both the {semantics} and the implementation of abduction can
be reduced to those for {deduction}. {Negation as failure} in
{logic programming} can both be given an abductive
interpretation and also can be used to implement abduction.
The abductive semantics of negation as failure leads naturally
to an {argumentation}-theoretic interpretation of default
reasoning in general.
[Better explanation? Example?]
(1994-11-08)