A logico-philosophical study of heuristic and methodological reasoningin problem solving processes.

Period 01-10-2010 to 30-09-2015
Type Postdoctoral Fellowship
Fellow Dr. Dagmar Provijn
Funding agency Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)

This project will contribute in two ways to the formal study of problem solving processes within the adaptive logic program.
The first aim is to continue the research on goal-directed proof procedures. These proof procedures incorporate part of the heuristic reasoning in cases where more is required than mere sound reasoning according to a specific logic.
They also facilitate the determination of further heuristic principles to obtain proofs that are goal-directed, elegant and in a certain sense relevant and efficient.
The second aim is to reconstruct William Harvey’s discovery of the blood circulation as a problem solving process. This will provide insight in the methodological reasoning processes that were considered as sound by Harvey and his contemporaries. It will also render information on the adequacy of adaptive logics that form a formal explication of these reasoning processes.
Combining both research topics will result in the development of formal tools that play a central role in the formalization of problem solving processes. These formal tools not only explicate methodological reasoning forms but also incorporate heuristic principles that control the progress of this methodological reasoning.