Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Abduction and Estimation in Animals

  • Published:
Foundations of Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

One of the most pressing issues in understanding abduction is whether it is an instinct or an inference. For many commentators find it paradoxical that new ideas are products of an instinct and products of an inference at the same time. Fortunately, Lorenzo Magnani’s recent discussion of animal abduction sheds light on both instinctual and inferential character of Peircean abduction. But, exactly for what reasons are Peirce and Magnani so convinced that animal abduction can provide us with a novel perspective? Inspired by Peirce’s and Magnani’s discussions of animal abduction, I propose to compare Peirce’s and Magnani’s views of animal abduction with the estimative power of non-human animals and humans, which was one of the internal senses in medieval psychology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anderson D. R. (1986) The evolution of Peirce’s concept of abduction. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 22(2): 145–164

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson D. R. (1987) Creativity and the philosophy of C. S. Peirce. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Avicenna (1952). Kitãb Al-Najt. In F. Rahman Avicenna’s Psychology (An English Translation of Kitãb Al-Najt, Book II, Chapter VI with Historico-Philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition.). London: Oxford University Press.

  • Barad J. (1995) Aquinas on the nature and treatment of animals. International Scholars Publications, San Francisco/London

    Google Scholar 

  • Black D. (1993) Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and psychological dimensions. Dialogue 32: 219–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Black D. (2000) Imagination and estimation: Arabic paradigms and western transformations. Topoi 19: 59–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brogaard B. (1999) Peirce on abduction and rational control. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 35(1): 129–155

    Google Scholar 

  • Burks A. W. (1946) Peirce’s Theory of abduction. Philosophy of Science 13: 301–306

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burton R. B. (2000) The problem of control in abduction. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 36(1): 149–156

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadwallader T. C. (1975) Peirce as an experimental psychologist. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 11: 167–186

    Google Scholar 

  • Capek M. (1954) James’s early criticism of the automaton theory. Journal of the History of Ideas 15: 260–279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Colapietro V. (2003) The space of signs: C.S. Peirce’s critique of psychologism. In: Jacquette D. (eds) Philosophy, psychology, and psychologism. Kluwer, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Diamond S. (1974) Four hundred years of instinct controversy. Behavior Genetics 4: 237–252

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fann K. T. (1970) Peirce’s theory of abduction. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Feibleman J. (1946) An introduction to Peirce’s philosophy, interpreted as a system. Harper & brothers, New York, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt H. G. (1958) Peirce’s account of inquiry. The Journal of Philosophy 55: 588–592

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Girel M. (2003) The metaphysics and logic of psychology: Peirce’s reading of James’s principles. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 39: 163–203

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman M. H. G. (1999) Problems with Peirce’s concept of abduction. Foundations of Science 4(3): 271–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • James W. (1879) Are we automata?. Mind 13: 1–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Klubertanz G. P. (1952) The discursive power: Sources and doctrine of the vis cogitativa according to St. Thomas Aquinas. The Modern Schoolman, St. Louis, Missouri

    Google Scholar 

  • Lisska A. J. (2009) A look at inner sense in aquinas: A long-neglected faculty psychology. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80: 1–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Lisska A. J. (2010) Deely, aquinas, and poinsot: How the intentionality of inner sense transcends the limits of empiricism. Semiotica 178(1/4): 135–167

    Google Scholar 

  • Magnani L. (2009) Abductive cognition. Springer, Berlin

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Magnani, L., Li, P. (eds) (2007) Model-based reasoning in science, technology and medicine. Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, E. (1976). Medieval light theory and optics and Duns Scotus’ treatment of light in D. 13 of book II of his commentary on the sentences. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York.

  • Paavola S. (2005) Peircean abduction: Instinct or inference?. Semiotica 153(1/4): 131–154

    Google Scholar 

  • Park, W. (2011) On animal cognition: Before and after the beast-machine controversy (forthcoming).

  • Peirce, C. S. (1931–1958). In C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss (vols. I–VI) & A. W. Burks (vols. VII–VIII) (Eds.), Collected Papers, (vol. 8). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Rescher N. (1978) Peirce’s philosophy of science. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosenfield, L. C. (1940, 1968). From beast-machine to man-machine. New and Enlarged Edition, New York: Octagon Books, Inc.

  • Roth R. J. (1988) Anderson on Peirce’s concept of abduction: Further reflections. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 24(1): 131–139

    Google Scholar 

  • Sepper D. (1989) Descartes and the eclipse of imagination, 1618–1630. Journal of the History of Philosophy 27: 379–403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shanahan T. (1986) The first moment of scientific inquiry: C. S. Peirce on the logic of abduction. Transactions of Charles S. Peirce Society 22(4): 450–466

    Google Scholar 

  • Sterrett S. G. (2002) Too many instincts: Contrasting philosophical views on intelligence in humans and non-humans. Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 14: 39–60

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thagard P. (2007) Abductive inference: From philosophical analysis to neural mechanisms. In: Feeney A., Heit E. (eds) Inductive reasoning: Experimental, developmental, and computational approaches. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 226–247

    Google Scholar 

  • Thagard, P. (2010). How brains make mental models. In L. Magnani et al. (Eds.), Model-based reasoning in science and technology, studies in computational intelligence (vol. 314, pp. 447–461). Berlin: Springer

  • Wolfson H. A. (1935) The internal senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew philosophic texts. Harvard Theological Review 28(2): 69–133

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yaldir H. (2009) Ibn Sînâ (Avicenna) and René Descartes on the faculty of imagination. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17(2): 247–278

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Humanities and Social Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373-1 Guseong Dong, Yuseong Gu, Daejeon, 305-701, South Korea

    Woosuk Park

Authors
  1. Woosuk Park
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Woosuk Park.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Park, W. Abduction and Estimation in Animals. Found Sci 17, 321–337 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-011-9275-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-011-9275-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation