Gary R,
I think yours is a very astute and context-sensitive way of communicating the
idea abduction/retroduction. To a logician, I guess it would make “abduction” a
“looser” or more vague term than “retroduction”. Or we might say that abduction
is more preconscious than retroduction. This approach seems to be supported by
Peirce’s remark that “I perform an abduction when I so much as express in a
sentence anything I see,” that “Not the smallest advance can be made in
knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at
every step.” The context and source of that remark is here
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/xpt.htm#abdct> in my book (which I’ve just
slightly revised to reflect what I’m learning from this conversation). Anyway,
I think the core idea is the same regardless of whether we call it abduction or
retroduction.
Gary f.
} Entering is the source, and the source means from beginning to end. [Dogen] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ living the transition
From: Gary Richmond <[email protected]>
Sent: 14-Jun-20 17:41
To: Peirce-L <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Communicating An Idea
Jon, Gary F, List,
Gary F wrote:
My tentative hypothesis is that retroduction is the better name because the
retro- prefix suggests a backward or returning movement of thought. This seems
to me related to Peirce’s analogy between causality and reasoning: just as we
think of cause > effect as a forward motion in time, we think of deductive
reasoning as a forward movement from premisses to conclusion. Retroduction,
though, is works back from the observed effect to the hypothesized cause.
And Jon wrote in response:
In Peirce's late writings, he is consistently inconsistent about whether to use
"abduction" or "retroduction" when referring to the kind of reasoning that he
usually calls "hypothesis" in his early writings. As you [Gary F] note, he
goes with "retroduction" in the Cambridge Lectures of 1898 and "A Neglected
Argument" in 1908. However, he reverts to "abduction" in the Harvard and
Lowell Lectures of 1903, even including it in the title of the final
presentation of each series. Personally, I prefer "retroduction," both for the
reasons that you give below and because "abduction" is much more familiar to
most English-speakers as a synonym for kidnapping.
This is an interesting terminological case in which, as Jon wrote, Peirce "is
consistently inconsistent about whether to use "abduction" or "retroduction"
when referring to the kind of reasoning that he usually calls "hypothesis" in
his early writings."
But in his "early writings" 'hypothesis' is always used within the context of
scientific inquiry. Yet it seems to me that there is also in Peirce the
suggestion that 'abduction' can also refer to certain other kinds of 'guesses'
including those which artists in various artistic disciplines are always
making, especially -- but hardly exclusively -- as they begin a work. Such
'guesses' might include in planning a new work (a novel, or a building, or a
sculpture, etc.), say, for a painting: the subject matter being considered, the
size of the canvas appropriate to that subject matter, the choice of materials
(watercolor or oil; on canvas or wood, etc.), the colors to be employed in
order to bring about the intended effect, etc. In any case, that is how I know
some folk in the arts and humanities, sometimes these days actually informed by
Peirce's use of the term, are thinking about 'abduction' (and, btw, I think
'abduction' is often enough used in this way as not easily to be confused with
its more familiar use as "a synonym for kidnapping," as Jon suggested in the
quotation above).
So my tentative conclusion regarding the terminological question is, I believe,
rather similar to Gary F's (with a slight addition). As I think of it,
abduction is a term which can be employed both in science or in the arts, etc.,
to mean 'a kind of 'guess' which might lead to (a) a sort of 'truth' in an
artwork or (b) a possible tentative 'explanation' as science inquires into
some phenomenon within nature (it will, of course, need to be tested). In
science I believe it ought best be referred to, as it ordinarily is, as a
hypothesis.
On the other hand, retroduction ought, in my opinion, be limited to a more
formal act of scientific 'guessing' as it "works back from the observed effect
to the hypothesized cause" as Gary F succinctly put it. However, in reading
that snippet just now, "hypothesized" sounded to me to be, perhaps, redundant,
which is to say, that in Peirce's understanding, I believe, scientific
hypothesis formation is retroductive. But on second thought, I think that Gary
F is correct: that retroduction (hypothesis formation) leads to actual
hypotheses being formed, some of which might eventually be tested.
Jon also wrote:
As you may know, Phyllis Chiasson takes a different tack, claiming
<http://www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/chiasson-phyllis-abduction-aspect-retroduction>
that abduction "refers to a distinct form of logical inference," while
retroduction is "the form of a deliberate and overarching logical method which
incorporates abduction, deduction, and induction for its full performance."
This solution is admittedly clever, but I find it utterly unpersuasive because
I am not aware of any text where Peirce uses both terms, as he surely would
have if that had been what he intended. Moreover, "A Neglected Argument" is
unambiguous in identifying retroduction as "the First Stage of Inquiry,"
followed by deduction and then induction (CP 6.468-473, EP 2:440-442, 1908).
I agree that Phyllis Chiasson's guess (abduction? does it apply to philosophy
as well?) which Jon quotes above, that retroduction is "the form of a
deliberate and overarching logical method which incorporates abduction,
deduction, and induction for its full performance," is certainly clever, but
finally misguided, especially, as Jon notes, since as late as 1908, in "A
Neglected Argument," Peirce clearly makes retroduction "the First Stage of
Inquiry," followed by deduction and then induction."
In any event, this is how I've come to look at the matter and how I employ the
terms 'abduction' and 'retroduction' in my own thinking and writing. Indeed,
more and more I tend to use 'abduction' primarily in consideration of art
creation, and I use 'retroduction' and 'hypothesis' exclusively in
consideration of science.
So, as I see it, in sum: abduction is a general term for a certain kind of
'guessing' in the arts and (possibly) the sciences, while retroduction
specifically and exclusively applies to that familiar kind of scientific
thinking which works backwards, from effect to cause, and which, I believe,
ought best be thought of as 'hypothesis formation." In other words, an
hypothesis is the possible result of a mental act of retroduction.
Best,
Gary R
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