ONT Re: Inquiry Into Inquiry
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Subj: Inquiry & Analogy
Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 00:06:16 -0400
From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
To: Arisbe <arisbe@stderr.org>,
SemioCom <semiocom@listbot.com>,
Standardize Unto Others <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
Inquiry SIG,
Here is an excerpt from a paper that I wrote a few years ago
on some relationships that exist between inquiry and analogy
in Peirce's way of analyzing their component phases over the
three types of inference. Specifically, in a first approach,
he treats reasoning by analogy, just as Aristotle before him,
as a combination of deduction and induction, while the first
two stages of the inquiry process are tantamount to the dual
of this link-up, bringing into train abduction and deduction.
In this excerpt I consider the "Example of the Three Wisdoms"
from CSP's Harvard Lectures "On the Logic of Science" (1865),
the quote that I recently gave on the "Determination" thread:
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg05056.html
Jon Awbrey
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| Document History:
|
| Project: Intelligent Systems Engineering
| Heading: Inquiry and Analogy
| Contact: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
| Version: Draft 3.0
| Created: 1995 Feb 11
| Revised: 2001 May 20
| Faculty: F. Mili & M.A. Zohdy
| Setting: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
| Excerpt: "Types of Reasoning in C.S. Peirce"
Types of Reasoning in C.S. Peirce
Here we present one of Peirce's earliest treatments of the three types of reasoning,
from his Harvard Lectures of 1865 "On the Logic of Science". It illustrates how the
same proposition might be reached from three different directions, as the result of
an inference in each of the three modes.
| We have then three different kinds of inference.
| Deduction or inference 'à priori',
| Induction or inference 'à particularis',
| Hypothesis or inference 'à posteriori'.
|
| CSP, CE 1, 267.
| 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 ['à particularis'].
|
| 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'.
|
| CSP, CE 1, 180.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "Harvard Lectures 2 & 8, 1865",
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857-1866',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.
Suppose we let:
| A = "Wisdom",
| B = "a certain character",
| C = "a certain conduct",
| D = "done by a wise man",
| E = "a certain occasion".
Recognizing that a little more concreteness will aid the understanding,
let us make the following substitutions in Peirce's example:
| B = "Benevolence", a certain character,
| C = "Conributes to Charity", a certain conduct,
| E = "Earlier today", a certain occasion.
The converging operation of all three reasonings is shown in Figure 1.
| D = Done by a Wise Man
| \*
| \ *
| \ *
| \ *
| \ *
| \ *
| \ *
| \ A = A Wise Act
| \ /| *
| \ / | *
| \ / | *
| . | B = A Certain Character
| / \ | *
| / \ | *
| / \| *
| / C = A Certain Conduct
| / *
| / *
| / *
| / *
| / *
| / *
| /*
| E = A Certain Occasion
|
| Figure 1. A Thrice Wise Act
The common proposition that concludes each argument
is AC, to wit, "contributing to charity is wise".
Deduction could have obtained the Fact AC from
the Rule AB, "benevolence is wisdom", along with
the Case BC, "contributing to charity is benevolent".
Induction could have gathered the Rule AC, after a manner of
saying that "contributing to charity is exemplary of wisdom",
from the Fact AE, "the act of earlier today is wise", along
with the Case CE, "the act of earlier today was an instance
of contributing to charity".
Abduction could have guessed the Case AC, in a style of expression
stating that "contributing to charity is explained by wisdom", from
the Fact DC, "contributing to charity is done by this wise man", and
the Rule DA, "everything that is wise is done by this wise man". Thus,
a wise man, who happens to do all of the wise things that there are to do,
may nevertheless contribute to charity for no good reason, and even be known
to be charitable to a fault. But on seeing the wise man contribute to charity
we may find it natural to conjecture, in effect, to consider it as a possibility
worth examining further, that charity is in deed a mark of his wisdom, not just
an accidental trait or an immaterial peculiarity -- in essence, that wisdom is
the 'reason' he contributes to charity.
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