New Light on Peirce's Conceptions of Retroduction, Deduction, and Scientific Reasoning

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 28 (4):353-373 (2014)
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Abstract

We examine Charles S. Peirce's mature views on the logic of science, especially as contained in his later and still mostly unpublished writings. We focus on two main issues. The first concerns Peirce's late conception of retroduction. Peirce conceived inquiry as performed in three stages, which correspond to three classes of inferences: abduction or retroduction, deduction, and induction. The question of the logical form of retroduction, of its logical justification, and of its methodology stands out as the three major threads in his later writings. The other issue concerns the second stage of scientific inquiry, deduction. According to Peirce's later formulation, deduction is divided not only into two kinds but also into two sub-stages: logical analysis and mathematical reasoning, where the latter is either corollarial or theorematic. Save for the inductive stage, which we do not address here, these points cover the essentials of Peirce's latest thinking on the l..

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Author Profiles

Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen
Hong Kong Baptist University
Francesco Bellucci
University of Bologna

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Inference to the Best Explanation.Peter Lipton - 1991 - London and New York: Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group.
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Précis of Inference to the Best Explanation, 2nd Edition.Peter Lipton - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (2):421-423.

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