Certainty, probability and abduction: why we should look to C.S. Peirce rather than Gödel for a theory of clinical reasoning Journal Articles uri icon

  •  
  • Overview
  •  
  • Research
  •  
  • Identity
  •  
  • Additional Document Info
  •  
  • View All
  •  

abstract

  • This paper argues that Gödel's proof does not provide the appropriate conceptual basis on which to counter the claims of evidence‐based medicine. The nature of, and differences between, deductive, inductive and abductive inference are briefly surveyed. The work of the American logician C.S. Peirce is introduced as a possible framework for a theory of clinical reasoning which can ground the claims of both evidence‐based medicine and its critics.

publication date

  • August 1997