A device that is capable of easily determining discrimination knowledge suitable for recognizing a normal/abnormal state of an object to be inspected in an inspecting and diagnosing apparatus is provided with: a parameter-retrieving unit that retrieves various parameter sets used for calculating feature amounts, a feature-amount operation unit that calculates a plurality of feature amounts based upon the respective parameter sets that have been retrieved by the retrieving unit in association with learning data that includes given normal data and abnormal data, a primary evaluation unit that outputs the effectiveness of each of the parameter sets as evaluated values based upon the results of the operation of the feature amounts calculated by the feature-amount operation unit, an optimal solution candidate output unit that, based upon the results of the primary evaluation found by the primary evaluation unit, outputs the results of a plurality of parameter sets having a high primary evaluated value as a plurality of optimal solution candidates, a discrimination knowledge forming unit that forms a plurality of discrimination knowledge based upon the optimal solution candidates output from the optimal solution candidate output unit, a secondary evaluation unit that evaluates on each of the discrimination knowledge that have been formed in the discrimination knowledge forming unit and an optimal solution output unit that, based upon the results of the secondary evaluation, outputs the discrimination knowledge having a high evaluated value as an optimal solution.