SUO: Re: Roots Of Abductive Reasoning (ROAR)
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JM = Jean-Marc Orliaguet
JM: But somehow in "THE TRICHOTOMY OF ARGUMENTS" (CP 2.266)
there are three types of inductions (a "Pooh-pooh Argument",
an "Experimental Verification of a general Prediction" or
an "Argument from a Random Sample"), two types of deductions
("Necessary" or "Probable"), and only one type of abduction.
"Necessary Deduction" further divides into "Corollarial"
and "Theorematic" deduction ...
Yes, the situation is complex. That is why I try to approach it from
the perspective of its quasi-historical development, and, what's more,
make an effort to isolate its characteristics as they appear in moving
from very simple logical systems, like "zeroth order theories" (ZOT's),
to incrementally grander theories expressed in the logic of relatives,
to what I dub "differential logic", to opening up the full spectrum of
generalized quantifiers, as Peirce showed us how to do as early as 1870,
though not exactly under that name. It's a stepwise sort of wisdom that
I seek to acquire about inquiry -- it does no good and try and rush it all
in one fell swoop.
A very new thing started happening in the 19th Century intellectual climate.
There was a deep, a persistent, and a widespread shift from thinking in
absolute terms to thinking in relative terms. It is well worth our
attention to study the ins and outs of this transformation, and
not just because it prepared the way for all the strikingly
radical developments of the 20th Century, but because its
intellectual and practical consequences have not yet
finished working themselves through, even today.
Peirce is an especially telling bellweather to try and follow throughout
the course of this slow-motion storm, because his awareness of its nature
was so acute, and because he worked to craft a logical language that would
be sensitive and sharp enough to express his own reflections on the changes.
I read him as an especially clear sign of the prevailing current, but the
change of mind in the world spirit was larger than his own life by far.
JM: Now the fact that one looks upon abduction from a different perspective,
i.e. considered as the relatively genuine genus (thirdness) of a previous
division instead of being the most degenerate (firstness), would in principle
give in the next generation three subclasses of abductions. In that case, since
there is a perspective from which you see it that way, can you make explicit the
three distinct ways in which abduction can "mediate" between deduction and induction?
I started at a point on the trunk of the tree that
is a notch or two lower than even Aristotle's mark.
You'll have to give me time to climb a ways higher.
Jon Awbrey
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