>
> His definition of 'abduction' was 'to guess' - nothing more complex.
> This suggests that the value of the concept of abduction is limited in
> design research unless one creates a whole lot more theory sophistication
> about the activity of 'making a guess'.
>
Rather, we should look to abduction as being a feedback loop (!!!) within
scientific practice, as envisaged by Peirce. Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy @ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#dia more useful than
wiki here:
The most important extension Peirce made of his earliest views on what
> deduction, induction, and abduction involved was to integrate the three
> argument forms into his view of the systematic procedure for seeking truth
> that he called the “scientific method.” As so integrated, deduction,
> induction, and abduction are not simply argument forms any more: they are
> three phases of the methodology of science, as Peirce conceived this
> methodology.... Scientific method begins with abduction or hypothesis:
> because of some perhaps surprising or puzzling phenomenon, a conjecture or
> hypothesis is made about what actually is going on. This hypothesis should
> be such as to explain the surprising phenomenon, such as to render the
> phenomenon more or less a matter of course if the hypothesis should be true.
> Scientific method then proceeds to the stage of deduction: by means of
> necessary inferences, conclusions are drawn from the provisionally-adopted
> hypothesis about the obtaining of phenomena other than the surprising one
> that originally gave rise to the hypothesis. Conclusions are reached, that
> is to say, about other phenomena that must obtain if the hypothesis should
> actually be true. These other phenomena must be such that experimental tests
> can be performed whose results tell us whether the further phenomena do
> obtain or do not obtain. Finally, scientific method proceeds to the stage of
> induction: experiments are actually carried out in order to test the
> provisionally-adopted hypothesis by ascertaining whether the deduced results
> do or do not obtain. At this point scientific method enters one or the other
> of two “feedback loops.” If the deduced consequences do obtain, then we loop
> back to the deduction stage, deducing still further consequences of our
> hypothesis and experimentally testing for them again. But, if the deduced
> consequences do not obtain, then we loop back to the abduction stage and
> come up with some new hypothesis that explains both our original surprising
> phenomenon and any new phenomena we have uncovered in the course of testing
> our first, and now failed, hypothesis. Then we pass on to the deduction
> stage, as before. The entire procedure of hypothesis-testing, and not merely
> that part of it that consists of arguing from sample to population, is
> called induction in Peirce's later philosophy.
>
Thus abduction a vital part of thought process of sciences. If you want to
systematise design this might be a profitable point to remember. It's the
hypothesis formation aspect of problem solving.
Gotta run, still in trimester 1 hellhole, but at least lurking again now...
Tails now trimmed to assist readers with obsolete mail clients...
Cheers
Adam
--
Adam Parker
Senior Lecturer, Games Design
Qantm College
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