Dear Jerry and Edwina: The following is an excerpt from Chapter II of my book, *Hitler and Abductive Logic: The Strategy of a Tyrant (Lexington Books, 2014), *which has just come out in a paperback edition. In it I set out to explain the nature of adductive logic for the purposes of the book. Perhaps this may be useful in this discussion on the nature of abduction relative to syllogisms:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Abductive-Logic-Strategy-Tyrant/dp/0739192248 The Formal Structure of Abduction The best way to explain the formal structure of abduction is to distinguish it from deduction and induction. This can be clearly described by inverting the premises of a single syllogism to show the differences between the three forms of logic. I will use an example given by Peirce, without burdening the reader with all of the technicalities.[i] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_edn1> *Deduction.* A deductive syllogism is made up of a General Rule, a Specific Case, and a Conclusion. Imagine that you walk into a room and see Socrates standing behind a table. On the table you see a large bag. Socrates tells you (and who can doubt Socrates?) that the bag is filled with beans and all the beans are white. This establishes the major premise or General Rule: “All the beans in the bag are white.” Socrates then reaches in the bag and takes a handful of beans, which he then holds behind his back. He asks you if you can logically conclude anything certain about the beans in his hand. Of course, you can: the beans must, logically, be white. Thus the form of the deductive syllogism is as follows: 1. General Rule/Hypothesis All the beans in this bag are white. 2. Specific Case These beans are from this bag. Therefore: 3. Conclusion/Result These beans are white. In deduction, what is important to note is that the reasoning moves forward from a General Rule to a Specific Case. What is sought in the Conclusion/Result is the application of a known or given General Rule upon a Specific Case. In deduction, the conclusion is absolutely certain. If the premises are true, the conclusion must follow. *Induction.* In inductive logic, the terms are reversed. Whereas in deductive logic one argues from a General Rule, the purpose of inductive logic is to reason to a General Rule. Let us now examine the same syllogism, only this time the position of the General Rule/Hypothesis is moved from the beginning of the syllogism to the end. Imagine that you walk into the same room and see Socrates behind a table with a bag on it; only this time you do not know what is in the bag. Socrates asks you if you can logically determine what is in the bag without emptying the entire bag. You reach in and pull out a handful of white beans. You then reach in again, moving your hand around in the bag to mix up whatever is in it. You feel only beans and pull out another handful of white beans. You do this again. After pulling out several more handfuls, all of which consist of white beans, you reasonably infer that all these fistfuls of white beans are Specific Cases of some General Rule, viz., that all the beans in the bag are white. The inductive syllogism thus looks like this: 2. Specific Case These beans are from this bag. 3. Conclusion/Result These beans are white. Therefore: 1. General Rule/Hypothesis All the beans in the bag are white. The purpose of induction is to test a general rule by experiment. If several actions all have the same result, one can assume, based on the law of regularity in nature, that the same actions, under the same conditions, will conform to a general rule. Of course inductive logic is never certain. In the example above, the next fistful may contain a black bean, nullifying the general rule. *Abduction.* In both deduction and induction, both the premises are reasonable. In other words, they are known and make sense, and one can reason smoothly from them. However, the essence of abduction is strangeness. Abduction begins when one is faced with strange, unexpected, and unexplainable premises. Following our example, imagine that you walk into the same room and observe a bag of white beans on the table and beside it a small pile of white beans. Socrates asks you, “Can you logically determine where the pile of beans came from?” One must reason to the Specific Case. In both deduction and induction, the Specific Case is a “given,” and one must reason to a Conclusion/Result or to a General Rule. However, in abduction, one is faced with the specific case, and must reason backward to explain it. Using the same terms as in our above examples, the abductive syllogism looks like this: 1. General Rule/Hypothesis All the beans in the bag are white. 3. Conclusion/Result: These beans are white. Therefore: 2. Specific Case: These beans are from this bag. Consider the strangeness of Socrates’ question. When one considers only the two given premises—“All the beans in the bag are white” and “These beans are white”—one cannot reason either deductively or inductively to answer Socrates’ question. One does not know where the pile of white beans on the table came from. The pile may have come from the bag beside it; or maybe not. It may have been placed on the table by Socrates from another source. Or perhaps somebody else brought the pile of beans into the room and set it on the table beside the bag. Socrates has asked me a strange question. How would you reason to tell him where the beans came from? Let us consider this a “Strange Case” that involves a strange logic. The logic of it runs like this: One needs to hypothesize a new General Rule, such that, if it were true, and if the Specific Case were considered an instance of that General Rule, the question asked by Socrates would no longer be strange, but rather reasonable.[ii] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_edn2> The structure of the logic runs like this. One needs to form a hypothesis. So one hypothesizes a General Rule in which all the beans in the bag are white much like the beans on the table. If all the beans in the bag are white, and the beans in the pile are white, it would be only reasonable to hypothesize that the beans on the table came from the bag (though not necessarily true). Therefore, one formulates a theory that the beans in the pile came from the bag. What Socrates did in asking the question in the above example of abductive logic was to ask for an explanation of an effect. You were asked to explain where the pile of beans came from. One could have imagined the following General Rule and deductive syllogism that would have been correct: All beans came from bean plants. These are beans. Therefore, these beans came from bean plants. That would have been absolutely true, but it would not have answered the question. Socrates was not asking for a General Rule to account for all beans. Rather, he was asking for a particular explanation of a Specific Case: these beans. What Socrates wanted was not a universal rule about beans such as deductive logic begins with and inductive logic ends with. Rather, what Socrates was asking for was a story—a story that would explain how these particular beans came to be at this particular place at this particular time. Essential to abductive logic is the perception of strangeness. Socrates could have seen the bag of beans on the table and the pile of beans beside it and thought nothing of it. It is only when we saw them as strange and a question arose—“Why is there this particular pile of beans beside this particular bag of beans?”—that the application of abduction arises. In abductive logic one leaves the bright light of universals and the clarity of scientific laws to descend to the darkness and strangeness of explaining specific cases. The epitome of abductive logic is put into practice in private detective novels.[iii] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_edn3> In the very first private detective story, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, two women are found brutally murdered in an apartment in which all the doors and windows are locked from the inside. Who murdered them and how could the murderer possibly have entered or left the apartment? The police are baffled. The first detective in literature, Chevalier C. August Dupin, constantly insists throughout the story on the “strangeness” of the facts and begins to reason backward to find an explanation. He generates hypotheses from clues, tests them, discards them, and generates new hypotheses until he alights on the correct one. At the end of the story he is able to explain the facts, dissolve the strangeness and mystery, and solve the case. Thus the essence of abductive logic is to recognize the strangeness in a set of facts, to reason backward to a hypothesis that will remove the strangeness and explain the strange conjunction of facts, so that they appear natural; that is, “explained.” In the examples of syllogisms given above, the order of a single set of premises and conclusions was manipulated to illustrate the differences among deductive (1-2-3), inductive (2-3-1), and abductive (1-3-2) logic. However, abductive logic has its own special form of syllogism that brings out the strangeness essential to abduction. Peirce’s original formulation of the abductive syllogism is as follows: The surprising fact C is observed. But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. Hence, there is a reason to suspect that A is true. Peirce’s abductive syllogism emphasizes the element of surprise—strangeness—in its first premise. Abduction does not begin with bare facts, but with “surprising” facts—i.e., facts that "call out" for an explanation. Therefore, abductive logic does not begin until one has had an expectation that has been disappointed, or a surprising result. If all the facts are regular and expected, there is no occasion to apply abductive logic. Abductive logic is, therefore, only applicable when a sense of “mystery” arises, and where there is a mystery to solve. Over the years Peirce’s original formulation has undergone modification and development by subsequent scholars. One salutary modification has been to add a third premise before the “Hence” or “Therefore” conclusion. This added premise is that the proposed hypothesis, A, is a better (more plausible) explanation than other possible explanations. Thus, Josephson and Josephson, for example, have proposed the following formulation of the abductive syllogism, replacing the symbols, A and C, by D and H, respectively: D is a collection of data (facts, observations, givens). H explains D (would, if true, explain D). No other hypothesis can explain D as well as H does. Therefore, H is probably true.[iv] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_edn4> While this formulation improves on Peirce’s original syllogism by the addition of a third premise (which Peirce had assumed), it is not entirely satisfactory because the Josephson and Josephson formulation omits the element of “surprise” (strangeness, unexpectedness) that is a major element in abduction. Peirce discusses the importance of this element extensively. Therefore, I suggest the following formulation of the abductive syllogism that includes all of the elements of abduction for the purpose of this work: One encounters a surprising and unexpected set of facts and events that calls out for an explanation. One hypothesizes a plausible explanation that accounts for the surprising and unexpected facts and events. No one else has offered an explanation; certainly not one that is better at accounting for all the facts. Therefore, this explanation is the most plausible explanation upon which to act. This formulation is not stated in the usual abstract terms of textbook logic, but it does contain every element of the strict abductive syllogism, and it is phrased to describe the logic that, I argue, Hitler used to gain power. His ability to “explain” to the German people the traumas they had suffered since 1918 was the basis of his appeal. However, before beginning to offer an explanation of how Hitler used this logic, four points must be made that will bring this logic into focus in relation to Adolf Hitler. All of these points are important because abductive logic is the logic people use most often to make decisions in their daily lives. First, it is obvious that merely inventing an explanation for a surprising set of facts does not make that explanation true. In order to determine the truth of any hypothesis it must be tested. Until it is tested and proved, it is merely plausible. Even the best explanation, though it covers all the facts and seems reasonable, may be false. Second, testing a hypothesis may take a long time. Third, in the meantime decisions must often be made and actions taken in the real world. Fourth, often the only basis for decision and action is one’s understanding of the facts based upon the most plausible explanation available. Thus, although abductively generated hypotheses and explanations may not be either certain or proven, they nonetheless play a very major role in our daily lives, where we are often called to make decisions based on incomplete knowledge, and must simply act on the best hypothesis available. Indeed, the most important decisions both in society and in our individual lives are based on such logic. Generals facing the enemy in war, politicians making policy, citizens deciding how to vote, and everybody in their daily lives must make decisions and take action based upon their best understanding of the factual situations they face. Most often this understanding consists in little more than accepting the best available explanation. Whoever offers the best explanation creates the foundation upon which people form their thinking and direct their actions. Therefore, to provide an explanation is to channel action. ------------------------------ [i] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ednref1> The following examples are a mélange taken from three sources: *The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce: 1934-1966*, vol. 2, ed. Charles Hartshorne (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-1966), 623-625; Umberto Eco, *The Limits of Interpretation* (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 157-158; and Nancy Horwith, “The Body of the Detective Model,” in *The Sign of Three*, ed. Umberto Eco and Thomas Sebeok (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), 182-183. [ii] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ednref2> The last several sentences of this paragraph are close paraphrases of Umberto Eco’s argument in his *The Limits of Interpretation*, 157-158, which have been slightly altered to fit the context of this discussion. Eco’s reads: “To keep to our example, I have a sack of beans on the table, and nearby, also on the table, is a bunch of white beans. I don’t know how they’ve gotten there or who has placed them there, or even where they came from. Let’s consider this Result a Strange Case. Now I need to find a Rule, such that, if it were true, and if the Result were considered a Case of the Result, the Result would no longer be strange, but rather extremely reasonable. At this point I make a conjecture: I theorize a Rule for which that sack contains beans and all the beans are white, and I try to consider the Result as a Case of that Rule. If all the beans in the sack are white and those beans come from that sack, it’s natural that the beans on the table are white.” [iii] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ednref3> This is the thesis of Umberto Eco and Thomas A. Sebeok in The Sign of Three. [iv] <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#_ednref4> Josephson and Josephson, *Abductive Inference*, 5. *Ben Novak <http://bennovak.net>* 5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142 Telephones: Magic Jack: (717) 826-5224 *Best to call and leave messages.* Landline: 239-455-4200 *My brother's main phone line.* Mobile (202) 509-2655* I use this only on trips--and in any event messages arrive days late.* Skype: BenNovak2 *"All art is mortal, **not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts themselves.* *One day the last portrait of Rembrandt* *and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be — **though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes may remain — **because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message **will have gone." *Oswald Spengler On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 10:10 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > I think the basic underlying question around abduction is - Is the > generation of a new Rule-of-Formation, a product of the mind or pure mutant > chance? > > The Darwinian answer is that new Rules-of-Formation of species emerge by > mutation; pure chance. I think that Peirce's abduction is showing that > these new Rules are products of the Mind [or quasi-mind if you prefer] > and emerge WITHIN the informational realities of the environment. So, real > situations are observed, and a new Rule [and thus new species] develops to > deal with these real situations. Whether it is the change in the beak of a > bird to deal with hardening seed shells, or the development of camoflauge > colours to hide from predators or.... Abduction is a flexible process of > the universal Mind to generate adaptive rules. Within the scientific > method, abduction is similar - it keeps explanations open to evidentiary > proof and is able to abandon one rule and generate another. > > Edwina > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > *To:* Jerry Rhee <[email protected]> > *Cc:* Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> ; Peirce-L > <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Sunday, April 24, 2016 9:43 AM > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Is CP 5.189 a syllogism? > > Jerry R., List: > > As Edwina has explained, the formulation in CP 5.189 is NOT a syllogism, > so it cannot be precisely what Peirce was referencing in the quoted passage > from the Neglected Argument. We can, however, construct a syllogism that > fits the bill by paying careful attention to the nature of the two > propositions, A and C, and a third that is only implicit in CP 5.189--which > I will call R, because it serves as the REASON why C follows from A as a > matter of course. C is "the surprising fact," R is "the circumstances of > its occurrence," and A is "the credible conjecture" that "furnishes a > possible Explanation." A and R thus serve as premisses from which C > follows "as necessarily consequent." We can use Peirce's bean example to > illustrate such a syllogism. > > Premiss A = These beans are from this bag. > Premiss R = All of the beans from this bag are white. > Conclusion C = These beans are white. > > This is deductively valid, a restatement of "if A then C because R." If > we let X = these beans, Y = beans from this bag, and Z = white things, then > the syllogism looks like this. > > A = X is Y. > R = Y is Z. > C = X is Z. > > Abduction, on the other hand, is starting with C and R, then inferring A > as the (probable) explanation for C. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 9:18 PM, Jerry Rhee <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> >> As for whether I am allowed the power to equate B = (surprise or >> suspect), my *spirited* reasons are: >> >> >> >> “The inquiry begins with pondering these phenomena in all their aspects, >> in the search of some point of view whence the wonder shall be resolved. At >> length a conjecture arises that furnishes a possible *Explanation, by >> which I mean a syllogism exhibiting the surprising fact as necessarily >> consequent upon the circumstances of its occurrence together with the truth >> of the credible conjecture, as premisses*. On account of this >> Explanation, the inquirer is led to regard his conjecture, or hypothesis, >> with favour.” >> >> ~A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God >> > ----- Original Message ----- >>>>> *From:* Jerry Rhee <[email protected]> >>>>> *To:* Peirce-L <[email protected]> >>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, April 23, 2016 7:12 PM >>>>> *Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Is CP 5.189 a syllogism? >>>>> >>>>> Would you say the following is a syllogism? Why or why not? >>>>> >>>>> The surprising fact, C, is observed. >>>>> But if A were true, C would be a matter of course. >>>>> Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. >>>>> >>>>> > > ----------------------------- > 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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