Dear all,
Some years back I did an urban design workshop with Thai and Danish BSc students at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. I used the example below to explain abduction, as opposed to deduction and induction. I find the example useful because it explains the difference by the order of a rule, a case and a result, respectively.
Unfortunately I no longer remember where I got it from.
Best,
Nic
--
Research approach
American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce
Deduction (necessary inferences)
Rule All thai people have dark hair
Case All the people we have met are thai
Result Therefore, all people we have met have dark hair
Induction (probable inferences)
Result All people we have met have dark hair
Case All the people we have met are thai
Rule Therefore, all thai people have dark hair
Abduction (hypotheses)
Rule All thai people have dark hair
Result All people we have met have dark hair
Case Therefore, all the people we have met are thai
Pros and cons of abduction
Does not rely on strong theory building
Does not rely on large samples
Requires a capacity for making 'hunches'
The validity of the conclusion relies on the quality of the hunch
NICOLAI STEINØ
Associate Professor, PhD, GDBA
AALBORG UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN and MEDIA TECHNOLOGY
Rendsborggade 14 · DK - 9000 AALBORG
Office: 6.330a
Office hours: By appointment only
TEL: (+45) 99 40 71 36
CELL: (+45) 28 76 06 98
eMail: [log in to unmask]<applewebdata:[log in to unmask]>
Staff profile: http://personprofil.aau.dk/Profil/107588?languageId=1
Homepage: http://homes.create.aau.dk/steino
Blog: http://steino.wordpress.com
Academia: http://aalborg.academia.edu/NicolaiSteinø<http://aalborg.academia.edu/NicolaiStein%C3%B8>
Den 10/02/2015 kl. 20.29 skrev Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>:
Dear Terry and all,
Abduction is essentially a mode of forming hypotheses. Technically, abduction is “inference to best explanation.” This entails many issues — with room for debate. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy offers an excellent article on abduction, with a good reference list and sources of additional information:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/
While C. S. Peirce wrote at length on abduction, he was not the first to do so earlier or since. The phenomenon has long been described in different ways. The crucial issue is that abduction is a logic of discovery. Abductive inference is not a logic of proof — one requires other means to determine the validity or facticity of abductive inference.
This is why abduction is one method of hypothesis formation. Generating hypotheses is a necessary step in discovery, but for everything human beings have learned, there have been more false or incorrect hypotheses than true or correct hypotheses.
In recent articles and reports, I have seen the incorrect assertion that scientific research makes use of induction and deduction while design research makes use of abduction. This is incorrect. Scientists use abduction to form hypotheses, and researchers in all fields require induction and deduction — as well as experiment and observation — to choose among hypotheses.
Peirce and others treat abduction as a way of knowing, but not as a way of validating the knowledge. This requires other methods.
For those who wish to read further, I have a DropBox collection of articles on abduction in PDF format. If you wish access to the collection, send me an off-list email and I will be happy to grant access to the collection.
Regards,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Elsevier in Cooperation with Tongji University Press | Launching in 2015
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|