Reasoning Methods

Deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning are three basic reasoning types. In simple terms, deductive reasoning deals with certainty, inductive reasoning with probability, and abductive reasoning with guesswork.

The core concepts to remember are: deductive reasoning deals with certainty and involves reasoning toward certain conclusions, inductive reasoning deals with probability and involves reasoning toward likely conclusions based on data, and abductive reasoning deals with guesswork, involves reasoning toward possible conclusions based on guesswork (a best guess), and it is a type of reasoning that is used in formulating a hypothesis for further testing.

In other words, Abduction is forming a hypothesis, induction is like analyzing the data from testing a hypothesis, and deduction would be used in drawing certain logical conclusions from the data gathered.