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Hi Gary, John, List,
Thanks again, Gary, for your detailed and informative
response. I am, however, not yet ready to take the bit out of my
teeth.
First, let's talk about this:
Meanwhile,
I believe that most Peirce scholars see abduction as a 1ns
when it is considered within a tripartite inquiry (what
Peirce calls "a complete inquiry") such that:
1st, 1ns, abduction (a
hypothesis is formed)
|> 2nd, 3ns, deduction
(there is an analysis of the implications of the
hypothesis were it valid in the interest of
constructing tests of it
3rd, 2ns, induction (the
actual experiment testing of the hypothesis occurs)
Why the need to form a hypothesis? Where do the possibles
come from? The need for the hypothesis comes from, in my
understanding, a "surprising fact" (we found a unicorn in some
unexplored territory) or for the reasons of purposeful inquiry
when we are questioning what we think we already know (such as
Penzias and crew searching for microwaves; we know there is more
spectrum we don't directly perceive). As I said before, these
are grounded in Thirdness (actually, all categories) to help
form our purposeful abductive inquiries in Firstness. I like and
agree with these sources as you put it:
2nd, 1ns, a well-prepared
scientist makes a guess (an 'aha' moment perhaps;
abduction as a kind of instinct);
|> 1st, 3ns, Out of the
wealth of his knowledge and experience, considering a
scientific problem (involving "a surprising array of
fact"--1907);
3rd, 2ns, the scientist formulates it in such a way that in
the next step of inquiry its implications for testing may be
deduced; that is, he makes of it a bona fide hypo
That makes sense to me as a pretty good listing of sources
for retroduction.
But, I think one of the main weaknesses I see in most
discussion of Peirce's universal categories is to ignore the
dynamism of the process; semiosis, after all, is a process
definition. I think the application of categories are the same.
Why the need to form a hypothesis?
Second, with regard to blueprints and plans:
So,
here's an example of a 'may-be' which could be realized: the
blue print of my dream house may some day result in that
house being built (even, as John suggested, the design will
probably be changed any number of times as new, perhaps
aesthetic or economic, abductions are considered during it's
actual construction. If all the conditions (financial,
design, etc.) are met, it 'would-be' the case that some time
in the future that possible structure would really come to
exist. I think Peirce gave this sort of example himself; a
recipe for apple pie as well (I've forgotten the context(s).
I don't buy it, and I don't think these are examples of
Firstness. A plan or blueprint is, after all, instantiated. The
plan exists, whether on paper or in my head. Sure, the actual house
construction is still a possible, but the plan is not Firstness.
I don't believe anything instantiated is anything but
Secondness. I think the possibility of microwave radiation
telling us about the Big Bang or the possibility of finding blue
chrysanthemums from China may be possible; both are Firstness to
me. But which, if either, may be seen as "real" sufficient to be
"most concerned to insist upon" still sounds pretty opaque to
me. That is why finding the source of this quote is important. I
still think the question of what Firstness possibilities may be
real, and which may not, is still open.
Last, I was NOT suggesting that Peirce thought or was maintaining
that all Firstness is real; quite the opposite. To wit, without
criteria or some guidance, I still see no criteria by which one
can discern real from not in the possibilities of Firstness.
This may seem a bit of esoteric regarding Peirce's universal
categories, but my sense remains there is still something
important to tease out here.
Best, Mike
On 10/19/2017 11:54 AM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Mike, list,
You wrote:
I like your analysis and I see
its logic. I (and others on the list) have at times been
confused as to whether abduction was in Firstness or
Thirdness. I still feel that abduction is applied to the
"surprising fact" that causes us to question the generals
in Thirdness, so is *grounded* there, but the results of
abductive logic informs the possibilities to be considered
anew in the next sequence of inquiry, so informs what to
consider in Firstness. By this thought, abduction is
really a bridge between Thirdness and Firstness in a
dynamic process.
I
will have to think hard about your very intriguing thought that "abduction is a
bridge between 3ns and 1ns in a dynamic process."
Meanwhile,
I believe that most Peirce scholars see abduction as a 1ns
when it is considered within a tripartite inquiry (what
Peirce calls "a complete inquiry") such that:
1st, 1ns, abduction (a
hypothesis is formed)
|> 2nd, 3ns, deduction
(there is an analysis of the implications of the
hypothesis were it valid in the interest of constructing
tests of it
3rd, 2ns, induction (the
actual experiment testing of the hypothesis occurs)
In the terms of categorial
vector analysis, the pattern in which deduction mediates
between abduction and induction (commencing of course at
abduction) is that which I call the vector of process
(the same vector occurs in Peirce's categorial analysis of
biological evolution, btw).
However, a year or so ago
there was a discussion here concerning the vectorial structure
of abduction itself, that is, as a form of inference. Some
thought that it too followed the vector of process (so
commencing at 1ns), while I, with Peirce's famous "bean"
analysis as prime evidential support, held that it followed a
different vector, namely what I call the vector of
representation, commencing at thirdness, mediated at
1ns, and concluding at 2ns, so:
2nd, 1ns, a well-prepared
scientist makes a guess (an 'aha' moment perhaps;
abduction as a kind of instinct);
|> 1st, 3ns, Out of the
wealth of his knowledge and experience, considering a
scientific problem (involving "a surprising array of
fact"--1907);
3rd, 2ns, the scientist
formulates it in such a way that in the next step of
inquiry its implications for testing may be deduced;
that is, he makes of it a bona fide hypothesis.
I have more and more come to
see this as the formof retroduction, inference from effect to
cause, although Peirce not infrequently uses 'retroduction' as
a synonym for 'abduction'. But note this remark:
I
have on reflexion decided to give this kind of reasoning
the name of retroduction to
imply that it turns back and leads from the consequent of
an admitted consequence, to its antecedent. Observe, if
you please, the difference of meaning between a consequent the
thing led to, and a consequence,
the general fact by virtue of which a given antecedent
lead to a certain consequent
(MS
[R] 857: 4-5).
Late in his career (in the
N.A.) Peirce makes this point regarding retroduction (having
just referenced Darwin):
.
. . it is quite indubitable, as it appears to me, that
every step in the development of primitive notions into
modern science was in the first instance mere
guess-work, or at least mere conjecture. But the
stimulus to guessing, the hint of the conjecture, was
derived from experience. The order of the march of
suggestion in retroduction is from experience
to hypothesis (emphasis added).
The final sentence above
gives credence I think to my putting 3ns first in considering
abductive inference (some might argue that 2ns ought be first,
but there are arguments against that position which I won't
bother you with now). You continued:
In that
context, then, "some possibilities" which we should be
"most concerned to insist upon" are those that prove to
be the most pragmatic responses to our inquiry. I think
that is the point you are making here. In that context,
then, virtually any "conditional proposition" worthy of
pragmatic consideration could/would be instantiated in
some pragmatic reality. Even unicorns fit under this
umbrella, since we know of no natural reason to discount
a horse-like animal with a single frontal horn. Under
this formulation, any reasonable "conditional
proposition" could be seen as real.
Any thought, indeed even a
dream, has a kind of reality. But the "conditional
propositions" which arise spontaneously out of a life of
scientific work in, say, a specialized area of science will,
to the pragmatist, have a compelling likeliness to be true.
This is also a matter of the economy of research. One might
imagine that unicorns exist and spend decades hunting all over
the world to find one and, well, in effect simply be wasting
his time. As Peirce comments in a 1910 letter to Paul Carus:
As
for the validity of the hypothesis, the retroduction,
there seems at first to be no room at all for the question
of what supports it, since from an actual fact it only
infers a may-be (may-be and may-be
not).
But there is a decided leaning to the affirmative side
and the frequency with which that turns out to be an
actual fact is to me quite the most surprising of all
the wonders of the universe (emphasis added, CP
8.238).
In other words, a prepared
scientific mind has a tendency--against all odds it would
seem--to guess right!
You concluded:
I get it that possibles,
once instantiated or as a character of what gets
instantiated, can be deemed to exist (and are
obviously real). But I'm also not sure I am
comfortable with a notion that any possible is real
simply because it is possible. My sense is there is
more here.
- I don't think that Peirce would say that all possibles are real, but
only that some are
real. So, here's
an example of a 'may-be' which could be realized: the
blue print of my dream house may some day result in that
house being built (even, as John suggested, the design
will probably be changed any number of times as new,
perhaps aesthetic or economic, abductions are considered
during it's actual construction. If all the conditions
(financial, design, etc.) are met, it 'would-be' the
case that some time in the future that possible
structure would really come to exist. I think Peirce
gave this sort of example himself; a recipe for apple
pie as well (I've forgotten the context(s).
The
quote is, as I recall, from the 1903 lectures on
pragmatism, but I haven't the time just now to check
Finally,
I think John Sowa was quite correct in treating the
discussion of 'existence' and 'reality' from the
standpoint of logic since that is what those threads all
concern. As he pointed out, Peirce was a logician. But he
was also a metaphysician of some considerable ability, so
I'm glad that Jon S moved this discussion to a thread with
a new Subject
Best,
Gary
R
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