HiPhiS Seminar “On the Nature of Sherlock Holmes’ ‘Deductions’”

Triolet Campus, IAE, Robert Reix lecture hall, building 29, Place Eugène Bataillon, Montpellier.
Free admission.

By Denis Vernant, philosopher of logic and language, professor emeritus at the University of Grenoble-Alpes.

The successes of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes are generally attributed to his deductive abilities. In fact, his reasoning leading to the arrest of the culprit is all based on abductions. Unlike deduction and induction, abduction is a specific inference that consists of making assumptions about the supposed cause of an unexpected event.
We will first define abduction as a procedure combining logical reasoning and praxeological investigation involving empirical data.
We will illustrate its inventive capacity by recalling Kepler's discovery of the elliptical nature of planetary orbits.
Finally, using the example of Arthur Conan Doyle's short story Silver Blaze, we will examine how Sherlock Holmes discovers the identity of the thief.

• Learn more