Ben, list, Thank you for your help with my inquiry, Ben.
I appreciate your searching on my behalf for the nine forms of induction. After thinking about it a bit, I think I must have gotten the idea of nine forms of induction from the 10-trichotomy classification of signs into 66 classes. Ten of those signs are considered "inducent" (as Nathan Houser remarks in his "The Scent of Truth"), so I suppose that would suggest ten, not nine. Besides which, it's not clear that each sign class should come with a distinct form of inference. So, I suppose that's where the idea came from, and is likely mistaken as far as inferring there being so many forms of induction. I'll go with the idea that Peirce only ever identified three--crude, qualitative, and quantitative. As to the other question: I had seen 2.102, but partly had forgotten about it while reading the sections at the end of Vol. 2, and partly it doesn't quite explain how abduction should now be thought of, in particular it's contrast with induction and deduction. The quote from the letter to Carus is interesting in remarking on the point of contrast with induction, although a bit ambiguous to my mind. After looking over the other links you gave, I don't see much of anything I didn't already know, with the exception of the letter to Carus that you pointed out. In Vol. 2, the distinction between plausibility, verisimilitude, and probability are introduced in paragraphs 662 and 663, so I was aware of this later distinction; I note that there are paragraphs in Vol. 8 as well, easily found by looking for the search term "plausibility". Although probability is no longer the unifying idea in addressing the validity of abduction, there does seem (to me, at least) a likeness between plausibility, verisimilitude, and probability, and thus his earlier way of thinking about the three inferences with respect to probability is perhaps not so far off the mark. The passage from the letter to Carus causes me difficulty; I'm unsure how to interpret it. Consider an expanded form of the passage, that includes the intervening paragraphs, from Vol. 8 of CP: "229. When one contemplates a surprising or otherwise perplexing state of things (often so perplexing that he cannot definitely state what the perplexing character is) he may formulate it into a judgment or many apparently connected judgments; he will often finally strike out a hypothesis, or problematical judgment, as a mere possibility, from which he either fully perceives or more or less suspects that the perplexing phenomenon would be a necessary or quite probable consequence. 230. That is a retroduction. Now three lines of reasoning are open to him. First, he may proceed by mathematical or syllogistic reasoning at once to demonstrate that consequence. That of course will be deduction. 231. Or, second, he may proceed still further to study the phenomenon in order to find other features that the hypothesis will explain (i.e. in the English sense of explain, to deduce the facts from the hypothesis as its necessary or probable consequences). That will be to continue reasoning retroductively, i.e., by hypothesis. 232. Or, what is usually the best way, he may turn to the consideration of the hypothesis, study it thoroughly and deduce miscellaneous observable consequences, and then return to the phenomena to find how nearly these consequences agree with the actual facts. 233. This is not essentially different from induction. Only it is most usually an induction from instances which are not discrete and numerable. I now call it Qualitative Induction. It is this which I used to confound with the second line of procedure, or at least not to distinguish it sharply. 234. A good account of Quantitative Induction is given in my paper in Studies in Logic, By Members of the Johns Hopkins University,†14 and its two rules are there well developed. But what I there call hypothesis is so far from being that, that it is rather Quantitative than Qualitative Induction. At any rate, it is treated mostly as Quantitative. Hypothesis proper is in that paper only touched upon in the last section." So my difficulty is with paragraph 233. When he says "[t]his is not essentially different from induction," I'm not sure what 'this' he means.I would think that it refers to the subject of paragraph 232, but paragraph 232 looks to me as though it simply describes ideal scientific method--abduce a hypothesis, deduce its consequences, and then induce the consequents and compare whether the consequents induced conform to the consequents expected to follow from the antecedents. I don't understand why the instances are not usually discrete and numerable, and I do not understand why this is qualitative induction. Why is this restricted to qualitative induction, and why are the instances not usually discrete and numerable? If you could enlighten me here about how I'm misinterpreting the passage, I would be thankful. In general, I find Peirce much more focused on understanding abduction from the standpoint of methodeutic in his later work (I have read some literature which makes just this point), and wonder how he could have given a fuller treatment of abduction from the standpoint of critical logic once he changed his views about how abduction and induction differ. What is the place of abduction in the theory of information, if not the induction of characters? I suspect that getting clearer about this will also help in getting clearer about induction. -- Franklin On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > Franklin, list, > > I looked around but found nothing on the nine forms of induction. As to > abductive inference: > > I guess you've already seen CP 2.102 > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-minute-logic-chapter-i-intended-characters-treatise > > Writing in 1910, Peirce says that "in almost everything I printed before > the beginning of this century I more or less mixed up hypothesis and > induction" and he traces the confusion of these two types of reasoning to > logicians' too "narrow and formalistic a conception of inference, as > necessarily having formulated judgments from its premises." A Letter to > Paul Carus circa 1910, CP 8.227–8. See under "Hypothesis" at the Commens > Dictionary of Peirce's Terms. > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-paul-carus-1 > > Also see CP 8.234 to Carus, where he says that his earlier formulation of > abduction was more quantitative induction than qualitative induction > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letters-paul-carus-0 > > Generally you can look through > > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/hypothesis-%5Bas-a-form-of-reasoning%5D > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/abduction > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/retroduction > > http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/presumption-%5Bas-a-form-of-reasoning%5D > > My sense of it has been that Peirce thought that he had confused two kinds > of inference in his idea of hypothetical inference, and that one of them > was right but got confused with idea of induction in his mistaken effort to > cast hypothetical reasoning as a kind of probable or likely reasoning. In > later years he distinguishes firmly among deductive probability, inductive > likelihood a.k.a. inductive verisimilitude (the conclusion's likeness to > the premissual data), and abductive plausibility, which last he regards as > instinctual simplicity, naturalness. In his early treatments of > hypothetical inference, he pretty consistently has it occasioned by an odd > or surprising phenomenon or observation and gives it an explanatory role. > > Best, Ben > > > On 10/29/2015 6:07 PM, Franklin Ransom wrote: > > Hello list, >> >> I just finished Vol. 2 of the Collected Papers, and had a couple of >> questions, if anyone is interested in helping out. >> >> Going through the material on induction towards the end of the volume, >> much of it seemed to be from Peirce's earlier work on induction, where >> hypothesis or presumption (or abduction) is conceived of as an inference >> having to do with inferring that a character or set of characters apply to >> an object or set of objects. However, the editors included a piece from >> 1905 that treats of crude, qualitative, and quantitative induction. My >> understanding is that Peirce came to believe in his later years that what >> he had originally identified as hypothesis is actually qualitative >> induction, and hypothesis or abduction is something else. But in the >> selected piece from 1905, Peirce is not clarifying that point and instead >> has some other remarks about qualitative induction. I am wondering whether >> Peirce was consistent about maintaining in his later work that the earlier >> view of abduction really should be considered qualitative induction, or if >> Peirce's views about this topic are more complicated. It strikes me as odd >> that the editors might have purposely misled readers about this point >> concerning hypothesis and qualitative induction, but I have difficulty >> seeing it otherwise. Perhaps this point is clarified in later volumes of >> the CP? >> >> My second question is that I recall hearing at some point that Peirce >> identified nine different kinds of induction, but I don't recall seeing >> anything by Peirce about this. I was hoping I would find something in the >> CP, but I'm not so sure I will find it now. Does anyone know anything about >> this, and where I might look for it? I'm not sure if I've asked about this >> before; please forgive me for not remembering if I have. >> >> -- Franklin >> > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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