From the logical point of view, abduction is a procedure in
which something that lacks classical explanatory epistemic
virtue can be accepted because it has virtue of another kind:
the GW-Model contends that abduction presents an ignorancepreserving
or (ignorance-mitigating) character. From this perspective
abductive reasoning is a response to an ignoranceproblem.
Is abduction really ignorance-preserving? To better
answer this question I will take advantage of my eco-cognitive
model (EC-model) of abduction. It will be illustrated, also
thanks to cognitive and epistemological considerations, that
through abduction, knowledge can be enhanced, even when
abduction is not considered an inference to the best explanation
in the classical sense of the expression, that is an inference
necessarily characterized by an empirical evaluation phase.