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SUO: Re: Determination




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| There is a large class of reasonings which are neither deductive nor inductive.
| I mean the inference of a cause from its effect or reasoning to a physical hypothesis.
| I call this reasoning 'à posteriori'.  If I reason that certain conduct is wise because
| it has a character which belongs 'only' to wise things, I reason 'à priori'.  If I think
| it is wise because it once turned out to be wise, that is if I infer that it is wise on
| this occasion because it was wise on that occasion, I reason inductively.  But if
| I think it is wise because a wise man does it, I then make the pure hypothesis
| that he does it because he is wise, and I reason 'à posteriori'.  The form
| this reasoning assumes, is that of an inference of a minor premiss in
| any of the figures.  The following is an example.
|
|    Light gives certain fringes.       |    Ether waves give certain fringes.
|    Ether waves gives these fringes.   |    Light is ether waves.
| .: Light is ether waves.              | .: Light gives these fringes.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 180.
| 
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "Harvard Lecture II, 1865",
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857-1866',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

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