Analysis and Synthesis with a Three-Component Inferential System: Augmenting the Explanatory Scope of Conceptual Spaces

The study introduces a model of analysis and synthesis, respective abductive and deductive reasoning, using the three-component inferential system, which is constituted by a perspective-relative augmentation of Gärdenfors’s theory of Conceptual Spaces (CS). A general formulation of Perspective, based on our earlier work, corresponds to prioritization among property dimensions. Instead of assuming one conceptual space as in the CS, a distinction is made between the high-dimensional description of the discourse/domain termed Ontospace, and the two-dimensional perspectival space onto which a Perspectiverelative hierarchical conceptualization is projected, referred to as the Perspectival Space. In this setting, deduction is the inference of Perspective-relative conceptualization of the ontospace, while abduction is the reasoning of the Perspective that accounts for a given conceptualization of the ontospace, given in a form of a target cluster This model is articulated on an abstraction level beyond algorithmic implementation.