Dear Rolf,
What I wrote was:
"I will venture to suggest that 'abduction' is just a name for the sleight of hand of analogy."
Interpreting the above statement as "abduction = analogy" is an error similar to interpreting:
"What people call 'magic' is just the sleight of hand of the magician"
as
"sleight of hand = magician".
---
What I was trying to say is that abduction is built upon an exercise in analogy.
Let's see the textbook example of abduction:
The surprising fact, C, is observed.
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
Now I ask:
What just happened between "C is observed" and "But if A were true" ?
Where does "A" come from?
That's what I was calling the "sleight of hand".
CSP called it "special aptitudes for guessing right".
My question is, of course, not new. Anyone who steps back and tries to find out what has been thought and written about abduction will find that out.
Best regards,
==================================
Carlos Pires
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On 18/02/2015, at 07:29, Rolf Johansson wrote:
> Dear Carlos,
> Abduction is more than analogy, I think. It is a good idea to step back
> and find out what has been thought and written about abduction already,
> before making a statement. I think again.
>
> Best wishes
> Rolf
>
> Carlos Pires wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I will venture to suggest that "abduction" is just a name for the sleight
>> of hand of analogy.
>> I think Dr. Salu is absolutely spot-on: this is a Peirce-ing silver
>> bullet that can hit any target but, in the end, explains nothing.
>> Sometimes, people need to step back from what I lusually call the
>> "canonic interpretation of the obligatory references" and think again.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> ==================================
>> Carlos Pires
>>
>>
>>
>> Rolf Johansson wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>
>
>
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