Abstract
Essential to Peirce's distinction among three kinds of reasoning, deduction, induction and abduction, is the claim that each is correlated to a unique species of validity irreducible to that of the others. In particular, abductive validity cannot be analyzed in either deductive or inductive terms, a consequence of considerable importance for the logical and epistemological scrutiny of scientific methods. But when the full structure of abductive argumentation — as viewed by the mature Peirce — is clarified, every inferential step in the process can be seen to dissolve into familiar forms of deductive and inductive reasoning. Specifically, the final stage is a special type of practical inference which, if correct, is deductively valid, while the creative phase, surprisingly, is not inferential at all. In neither is abduction a type of inference to the best explanation. The result is a major reassessment of the relevance of Peirce's views to contemporary methodological studies.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achinstein Peter: 1970, ‘Inference to Scientific Laws’, Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science 5, 87–111.
Achinstein, Peter: 1980, ‘Discovery and Rule Books’, in Nickles 1980, pp. 117–137.
Achinstein Peter: 1987, ‘Scientific Discovery and Maxwell's Kinetic Theory’, Philosophy of Science 54, 409–434.
Anderson Douglas R.: 1986, ‘The Evolution of Peirce's Concept of Abduction’, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 22, 145–164.
Belnap Nuel: 1990, ‘Declaratives Are Not Enough,’ Philosophical Studies 59, 1–30.
Blachowicz James: 1989, ‘Discovery and Ampliative Inference’, Philosophy of Science 56, 438–462.
Boyd Richard: 1984, ‘The Current Status of Scientific Realism’, in J. Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism, Univ. of California, Berkeley, pp. 41–82.
Brown W. M.: 1988, ‘The Economy of Peirce's Abduction’, Transactions of Peirce Society 24, 397–411.
Castaneda Hector-Neri: 1975, ‘Thinking and Doing’, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
Curd, Martin: 1980, ‘The Logic of Discovery: An Analysis of Three Approaches’, in Nickles 1980, pp. 201–219.
Foss Jeff: 1984, ‘Reflections on Peirce's Concepts of Testability and the Economy of Research’, Philosophy of Science Association (PSA), 1, 28–39.
Frankfurt, Harry G.: 1958, ‘Peirce's Notion of Abduction’, The Journal of Philosophy, 593–597.
Hanson Norwood Russell: 1958, Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hanson Norwood Russell: 1961, ‘Retroductive Inference’, Philosophy of Science: The Delaware Seminar 1, 21–37.
Hanson, Norwood Russell: 1965, ‘Notes Towards a Logic of Discovery’, in R. Berstein, (ed.), Critical Essays on C. S. Peirce, Yale University Press, pp. 45–65.
Harman Gilbert: 1965, ‘Inference to the Best Explation’, The Philosophical Review 74, 88–95.
Harman Gilbert: 1986, Change in View, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Kapitan Tomis: 1984, ‘Castaneda's Dystopia’, Philosophical Studies 46, 263–270.
Kapitan Tomis: 1990, ‘In What Way is Abductive Inference Creative?’, Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society 26, 499–512.
Kelly Kevin T.: 1987, ‘The Logic of Discovery,’ Philosophy of Science 54, 435–52.
Langley P., Simon H. A., Bradshaw G., and Zytkow J.: 1987, Scientific Discovery, The MIT Press, Cambridge.
Laudan, L.: 1980, ‘Why Was the Logic of Discovery Abandoned?’, in Nickles 1980, pp. 174–185.
Lieb, Irwin C.: 1988, ‘Pragmatism and the Normative Sciences’, Manuscript.
Nickles Thomas (ed.): 1980, Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality, D. Reidel, Dordrecht.
Nickles, Thomas (ed.): 1985, ‘Beyond Divorce: Current Status of the Discovery Debate’, Philosophy of Science 52, 177–206.
Nickles Thomas (ed.): 1987, ‘Twixt Method and Madness’, in N. Nessarian (ed.), The Process of Science. Nijhoff: Dordrecht, pp. 41–68.
Pera Marcello: 1980, ‘Inductive Method and Scientific Discovery’, On Scientific Discovery, M. D. Grmek, R. S. Cohen, and G. Cimono (eds.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 141–165.
Pera Marcello: 1987, ‘The Rationality of Discovery: Galvani's Animal Electricity’, Rational Changes in Science, J. C. Pitt and M. Pera (eds.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 117–202.
Raz, Joseph: 1978, Practical Reasoning, Oxford.
Roth, Robert J.: ‘Anderson on Peirce's Concept of Abduction: Further Reflections’, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 24, 131–139.
Simon Herbert A.: 1973, ‘Does Scientific Discovery Have A Logic?’, Philosophy of Science 4, 471–480.
Simon Herbert A.: 1977, Models of Discovery, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht.
Thagard, Paul: 1981, ‘The Autonomy of A Logic of Discovery’, Pragmatism and Purpose, 248–260.
Thagard Paul: 1988, Computational Philosophy of Science, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Van Fraassen, Bas: 1989, Laws and Symmetries, Oxford.
Zahar Elie: 1982, ‘Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Invention?’, British of Phil. Science 34, 43–61.
Zytkow Jan M. and Simon Herbert A.: 1988, ‘Normative Systems of Discovery and Logic of Search’, Synthese 74, 65–90.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kapitan, T. Peirce and the autonomy of abductive reasoning. Erkenntnis 37, 1–26 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00220630
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00220630