> On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > > Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said, "Methodeutic has a > special interest in abduction, or the inference which starts a scientific > hypothesis. For it is not sufficient that a hypothesis should be a > justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains the facts is justified > critically. But among justifiable hypotheses we have to select that one which > is suitable for being tested by experiment." That adverb "critically" is a > reference to logical critic, the critique of arguments. In the rest of that > quote he is discussing why methodeutic gets involved. In 1908 in "A Neglected > Argument" he discusses plausibilty as natural simplicity and is explicit in > placing the issue in logical critic.
Ben, I’m really learning a lot here. I confess I always separated the logical vs. methodeutic more as whether ones analysis was focused in on objects or interpretants. I think I’m rethinking this quite a bit. I hope you won’t mind me quoting a selection from your discussion with Joe that you mentioned. I’d be very curious as to what, if anything, you disagree with now. (This is from May 25, 2007) I meant that I see economy as an element at least as basic as chance and probability in the world. (Between equi-feasibility and chance as equi-probability, there's something obviously in common, but I'm not sure how to think about this.) In the Cotary Propositions, Peirce speaks of abductions which are irresistable, abductions which shade into irresistability in shading into being perceptual judgments. So there will also be abductions which are very compelling even when not irresistable. There'll be the whole continuum. Often, for instance, an abduction is compelling not just in itself but in respect of the lack of strong alternatives. Peirce's argument for discovery's being an economic question is beautiful, no question about it. Now, Peirce says in your third quote, "Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly a question of heuretic and is the first question of heuretic, is to be governed by economical considerations. I show how this leads to methodeutic inquiries of other kinds and at the same time furnishes a key for the conduct of those inquiries." Abduction, as an art, is to be governed by economical considerations. This sounds like abduction as inference to the simplest, most economic, most "natural" explanation. Methodeutic is concerned not only with abduction per se but with applying such economics as a key for the conduct of other kinds of methodeutic inquiries into research -- _expanding_ that economism into an economics of research generally. Abduction is the discovertive mode of inference. Therefore it is to be govermed by economic considerations, an economics of explanation. Research aims to discover. Therefore it is likewise to be governed by economic considerations, an economics of research. Sometimes the simplest explanation is compelling enough that inquiry reasonably settles there. Sometimes there is no single simplest explanation, sometimes there's none at all, and then inquiry reasonably proceeds further into the given question, and, for instance, conducts tests of competing hypotheses. At that point you saw methodeutic as more about considering an abductive hypothesis in terms of further inquiry. It becomes a question of how economical inquiry is. As an aside, at the time I recall thinking this economic view applied not just to particular hypotheses but also what questions one takes up given finite time. So relative to the NA it may well be that many atheists or agnostics just don’t think it worth their time to inquire about God. The problem as I see it is that these methodological considerations each depend upon abductive hypothesis quite far down in an argument. Again the history of string theory and supersymmetry offers interesting ways of thinking through this issue.
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