Ben, list,
Well thank you so much for the diligent researching!
That is really something, about the eight forms of induction.
Although, from what he said, it sounds like there are eight other
forms of induction, so there would total nine or maybe ten forms,
depending on how one reads what he said there. I suppose he had
written about them elsewhere, but for the time being there is likely
nothing published beyond the memoir, and I don't have access to the
mss.; nor would I relish trying to swim in that ocean to find the drop
or two I'm looking for. Hopefully as the Writings continue to be
published, something will come out that addresses the nine or ten
forms of induction.
It's at least helpful to know that these other eight forms are
supposed to be of lower forms, and my guess is that qualitative and
quantitative are the two he referred to as the first two. Perhaps
crude induction is supposed to represent the other eight forms in some
general way. Then again, in 1883, I don't think he had changed his
idea of abduction, so perhaps crude and quantitative induction are the
two he meant, and qualitative somehow addresses the other eight. Well,
it's all nothing but wild speculation on my part until something gets
published about it.
As for the paragraphs 232 and 233, I think you're right that it refers
to the last clause, but then I don't understand why it's qualitative
induction, and not simply induction. Even accepting your point about
including evidential values, that doesn't explain why it should
normally be restricted to qualitative induction in the first place.
Perhaps I just need to revise my understanding of Peirce's view of
scientific method, and accept that it typically involves qualitative
induction, and not quantitative induction or crude induction.
As for abduction, you make some interesting points. Perhaps I have
attempted to too rigidly understand the tripartite classification of
semiotic logic into stechiology, critic, and methodeutic. My
understanding up to this point had been that critic would, well,
critique inferences and/or arguments from a formal perspective. I also
believed that this meant the analysis of changes in logical quantity
belongs to critic, since in his 1867 paper on information, inferences
play the role of representing changes in the state of information, and
the various ways of changing the state of information offers a
somewhat finer-grained approach to classifying inferences/arguments.
Thus I would expect that abduction would still play some role in
understanding changes in the state of information, because it is an
inference. Maybe this is wrong headed, I'm not sure, and I should
consider such changes to be restricted to induction and deduction now.
Actually, since deduction doesn't technically change the state of
information, perhaps it should really only be restricted to
understanding forms of induction.
On the other hand, you wrote:
If you mean Peirce's theory of information (comprehension ×
extension), Peirce said in 1902 that he had previously made the
syllogistic forms and the doctrine of comprehension and extension
more fundamental than they really are for understanding abductive
inference.
I notice that although they were made more fundamental than they
really are, that doesn't imply that they don't play a role in
understanding abductive inference at all. Even the importance of the
syllogistic forms is still upheld by Peirce into his last years, and
the logical quantities are discussed (though in a short way) in Kaina
Stocheia, so both syllogistic forms and logical quantities possibly
still have some significance for the understanding of abduction. As
far as logical quantity goes, I simply have no idea how.
Franklin
On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 1:02 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Franklin, list, on your other questions,
You wrote,
[CP 8.]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.
[CP 8.]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.
[....]
[Franklin] 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. [....]
[End quote]
In 233, I think Peirce is referring simply to the last clause in
232: "then return to the phenomena to find how nearly these
consequences agree with the actual facts".
You go on to ask,
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.
[End quote]
I'm not too clear on it myself. Qualitative induction involves
evidentiary weighting. In a discussion crude, quantitative, and
qualitative inductions, Peirce says:
1905, CP 2.759. The remaining kind of induction, which I shall
call _/Qualitative Induction/_, is of more general utility
than either of the others, while it is intermediate between
them, alike in respect to security and to the scientific value
of its conclusions. In both these respects it is well
separated from each of the other kinds. It consists of those
inductions which are neither founded upon experience in one
mass, as Crude Induction is, nor upon a collection of
numerable instances of equal evidential values, but upon a
stream of experience in which the relative evidential values
of different parts of it have to be estimated according to our
sense of the impressions they make upon us.
[.... End quote]
It makes more sense to me to say that Qualitative Induction is
based on instances that are not discrete, numerable, and of equal
evidential value, than to say that it is based on instances that
are not discrete and numerable. Maybe, in the letter to Carus,
Peirce accidentally omitted the part about "equal evidential
value"? My expertise on Peirce's views on induction is not strong.
You wrote:
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.
[End quote]
If you mean Peirce's theory of information (comprehension ×
extension), Peirce said in 1902 that he had previously made the
syllogistic forms and the doctrine of comprehension and extension
more fundamental than they really are for understanding abductive
inference.
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-minute-logic-chapter-i-intended-characters-treatise
. Maybe he changed his mind again later, I don't know. He
eventually says that the pragmatic maxim provides the necessary
and sufficient rule for abductive inference, to the extent that it
needs rules at all. Besides that, at the level of critique of
arguments (the 'critical level') he discusses plausibility,
instinctual simplicity, naturalness.
https://sites.google.com/site/cspmem/terms#simple and
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/plausibility . He sees
methodeutical considerations as completing the justification of
particular abductive inferences - not as explanations _/per se/_,
but as explanations _/worth testing/_ - whereas deductive and
inductive inferences are fully justified at the critical level
prior to methodeutical considerations, in Peirce's view. There
seems more to say at a general level about abductive inference in
methodeutic, i.e., in the study of inquiry and its interplay of
the modes of inference. In some sort of counterpoint, if I recall
correctly, somebody said that Peirce sees the main philosophical
study of deductive inference as being in stechiotic rather than in
critique of arguments. Peirce tends to say that deductive
inference gets no real help from philosophy anyway, except when
the topic is probability, which he regards as a philosophical
idea. (Also, in CP 7.525, Peirce sees logic as helping
mathematicians on things like the definition of continuity).
I can't help thinking that abductive inference relies on both
experience and instinct in the sense of inborn talent, and that
whatever not-strictly-instinctual procedures it has at the
critical level as an inference tend to be too tentative or
context-bound or vague or the like, to be worth formulating as
general rules rather than as moves worth trying. I suspect that
psychology, sociology, and whatnot may throw some interesting
light on abductive inference as actually practiced at the critical
level by _/homo sapiens/_.
Best, Ben
Best, Ben
On 11/1/2015 10:20 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Franklin, list,
I ran into a place where Peirce mentions eight forms of induction
besides two that he had discussed in the past. It's in the
Carnegie Application, though which I had looked the other day but
somehow missed this:
MEMOIR 19
ON ARGUMENTS
4th paragraph in "From Draft A - MS L75.35-39" (pp 35-39)
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-06.htm#m19
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-06.htm#m19>
[Begin quote]
Induction is the highest and most typical form of reasoning.
In my essay of 1883, I only recognized two closely allied
logical forms of pure induction, one of which in undoubtedly
the highest. I have since discovered eight other forms which
include those almost exclusively used by reasoners who are
not adepts in logic. In fact, Norman Lockyer is the only
writer I have met with who in his best work, especially his
last book, habitually restricts himself to the highest form.
Some of his work, however, as for example, that on the
orientation of temples, is logically poor.
[End quote]
I'll catch up with your other questions later.
Best, Ben
