Danko, list,
Okay, I've looked again at the section on abduction in your paper. Your
question, as I understand it based on your past messages, is whether you
understand Peircean abduction correctly in your paper.
1. Peircean abductive inference is not Bayesian at any level. Insofar as
you involve Bayesian subjective priors at all (even if not on all
levels), your idea of abduction (or at least of how abduction
normatively ought to work) differs from Peirce's. You're allowed to
disagree with Peirce, of course, I'm just pointing out where you diverge
from Peirce.
2. You discuss the need for abduction as arising in changes of situation
or in lack of understanding of how to solve a problem with which one is
confronted. I guess that that is close enough to Peirce's idea that
abduction is the first step of inquiry and arises in situations of
surprise or extreme complication.
3. You have abduction guessing particular circumstances and general
rules in connection with particular circumstances. Close enough to Peirce.
4a. You don't discuss abduction as inferring through an icon or
likeness. Can't evaluate your treatment of abduction in that respect.
4b. You don't discuss intrinsic value of an abduction - in particular,
natural simplicity, plausibility. Can't evaluate your treatment of
abduction in that respect.
4c. You discuss the testing of abduced hypotheses. That's Peircean
enough in a vague way. You don't discuss the selection of hypotheses for
testing, either for the tests' cheapness or for their strategic value
(breadth, caution, incomplexity) in expediting inquiry. You don't
discuss abduced hypotheses in terms of the (pragmatistic) emphasis on
conceivable (imaginable) practical implications, although more generally
you do see cognitions as implicit in 'action' modules, which I take to
be like dispositions for conduct. Can't evaluate your treatment of
abduction in those respects.
Now, I've already discussed 4b and 4c in previous messages, and have
thought that perhaps you've regarded them as implicit in your discussion
of abduction or elsewhere in the paper, so I was figuring that you would
reply by explaining how you have them covered. Maybe I should have
explicitly asked you!
If you have not dealt with 4a, 4b, and 4c in your treatment of
abduction, then I'd say that your idea of abduction is vague enough in
some important ways with regard to Peirce's, that one could say that
it's partly like Peirce's, and possibly like and possibly unlike
Peirce's idea in ways that you have not made explicit or that you
haven't addressed in your paper.
Best, Ben
On 3/29/2015 1:25 PM, Danko Nikolic wrote:
Dear Ben,
On 29/03/15 17:42, Benjamin Udell wrote:
In reading your links, I didn't seen an emphasis on abduction's
plausibility as naturalness and simplicity, though you did seem to
accept such ideas in one of your messages to peirce-l.
I discuss abduction in section 3.4 entitled "Anapoiesis and abduction
-- the mind" of the following paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002251931500106X
I am seeking feedback on that.
Danko
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