Dear Ken,
Yes "abduction is ... Nothing but guessing" (CP 7.219). "The abductive
suggestion comes to us like a flash. It is an act of insight, although of
extremely fallible insight" (CP 5.181). /First mentioned "insight" should
be in italics as in the original text, by my mail cannot manage that./
"Nature is a far vaster and less clearly arranged repertory of facts than
a census report; and if men had not come to it with special aptitudes for
guessing right, it may well be doubted whether in the ten or twenty
thousand years that they may have existed their greatest mind would have
attained the amount of knowledge which is actually possessed by the lowest
idiot" (CP 2.753). Peirce wrote. And good guessing requires contextual
knowledge, no doubt about that. But for certainty, we need deductive
reasoning to test our explanatory hypotheses - our results from abduction.
Yours,
Rolf
Ken Friedman wrote:
>Dear Rolf,
>
>The quote from Peirce on Napoleon offers a perfect example of why
>abduction is a logic of discovery and not a logic of proof. The exact
>quote is: "Numberless documents refer to a conqueror called Napoleon
>Bonaparte. Though we have not seen the man, yet we cannot explain what we
>have seen, namely, all these documents and monuments, without supposing
>that he really existed.˛ (quoted in Megill 2007: 130).
>
>But these do not prove that Napoleon really existed. The set us looking.
>From the evidence we find, we learn a great deal more about context and
>likelihood, and we are likely to decide that Napoleon did, indeed, exist.
>The same is true of Lord Nelson, Abraham Lincoln, or Louis Pasteur.
>
>But consider a similar statement about Batman, Sherlock Holmes, or the
>figure described in John's gospel as the Beloved Disciple. "Numberless
>documents refer to a hero called Batman. Though we have not seen the man,
>yet we cannot explain what we have seen, namely, all these documents and
>monuments, without supposing that he really existed.˛ łNumberless
>documents refer to a detective called Sherlock Holmes. Though we have not
>seen the man, yet we cannot explain what we have seen, namely, all these
>documents and monuments, without supposing that he really existed.˛
>łNumberless documents refer to a an apostle at the Crucifixion called the
>Beloved Disciple. Though we have not seen the man, yet we cannot explain
>what we have seen, namely, all these documents and monuments, without
>supposing that he really existed.˛
>
>We know that Batman and Sherlock Holmes are fictional characters, but
>this requires contextual knowledge. There have been centuries of debate
>over the identity of the Beloved Disciple ‹ as well as debates on the
>historical facticity of the gospels.
>
>This demonstrates yet again why Peirce wrote about abduction as a logic
>of discovery, while stating that abduction alone offers no reason for
>certainty.
>
>Yours,
>
>Ken
>
>
>References
>
>Megill, Allan. 2007. Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A
>Contemporary Guide to Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
>
>--
>
>Rolf Johansson wrote:
>
>‹snip‹
>
>To my understanding abduction is only possible within a context. Taking
>an example of retroductive abduction from Peirce:
>
>"Numberless of documents and monuments refer to a conqueror called
>Napoleon Bonaparte. Though we have not seen the man, yet we cannot explain
>what we have seen, namely, all these documents and monuments, without
>supposing that he really existed."
>
>We come across a surprising fact and come up with a principle which is
>contextual (famous people generate, or trigger the production of, certain
>kinds of artifacts within a certain culture in a certain period of time)
>and when we apply that principle, what we have seen becomes
>understandable - the best explanation.
>
>Apropos different kinds of abduction it comes to my mind that Eco makes
>a distinction between overcoded abduction, undercoded abduction, creative
>abduction (When even the rule has to be invented), and meta-abduction.
>(See his chapter in Eco & Sebeok (eds) The sign of the three)
>
>Deduction and induction can be applied in a context-free situation.
>
>‹snip‹
>
>--
>
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