SUO: Re: Foundlings Of Ontology
Some further comments on Robert Marty's citations from CSP:
>CP 2.85: "Originality, or Firstness, is another of my Categories."
>
>CP 2.96: "This probational adoption of the hypothesis was an Abduction.
> An Abduction is Originary in respect to being the only kind
> of argument which starts a new idea."
Originality and Originary are not synonyms. So you can't
equate Abduction = Originary = Originality = Firstness.
The point to make is that every argument is a kind of
Thirdness in three different ways. (See Peirce's 10
kinds of signs.) As the third kind of argument, abduction
is Thirdness in one additional way. But of the three kinds
of arguments, it is the only one that is "originary" in the
sense of being the origin of a new idea (a hypothesis).
>CP 2.89: "Obsistence (suggesting obviate, object, obstinate, obstacle, insistence,
> resistance, etc.) is that wherein secondness differs from firstness;
or,
> is that element which taken in connection with Originality, makes
one thing
> such as another compels it to be."
>CP 2.96: "Deduction is Obsistent in respect to being the only kind of argument
> which is compulsive"
This merely says that deduction is obsistent in respect to
its effect on some previously unconvinced listener. That
may be an aspect of Secondness in its effect, but not in
respect to the way it generates its conclusion.
>CP 2.89: "Transuasion (suggesting translation, transaction, transfusion, transcendental,
etc.)
> is mediation, or the modification of firstness and secondness by
thirdness, taken
> apart from the secondness and firstness; or, is being in creating
Obsistence"
>CP 2.96: "A Transuasive Argument, or Induction, is an Argument which sets out
from a hypothesis,
> resulting from a previous Abduction, and from virtual predictions,
drawn by Deduction,
> of the results of possible experiments, and having performed the
experiments, concludes
> that the hypothesis is true in the measure in which those predictions
are verified, this
> conclusion, however, being held subject to probable modification
to suit future experiments."
Indeed, that is so. But that is only when the induction is
used to test a previous abduction. Induction or deduction
can be done by themselves without being linked to a specific
abduction. However, abduction remains unconfirmed unless it
is tested by deduction (which makes predictions) and induction
(which tests them). In that sense, abduction is mediating
because it brings deduction and induction into the arena
to confirm the hypothesis.
In an earlier note, Jon A. defined abduction by the pattern
Given B and A->B, assume A.
However, this pattern, by itself, is a classical fallacy.
It only becomes a productive form of reasoning, when the
other two modes of reasoning, deduction and induction,
are used to confirm A.
John Sowa