This discussion is interesting to me, as Jayne Tristan and I address this issue from a different perspective in our upcoming book (available in April from IGI Global).
When thinking about the categories from the perspective of habitual (automatic, non-deliberate applications), we notice that abductive-like Relational thinkers tend to spend quite a bit of time in a sort of exploratory phenomenological messing about (Firstness) before beginning to juxtapose (Secondness) things together. They operate as Peirce describes a phenomenologist ought to do. Often the process of juxtaposing and re-juxtaposing takes even longer and returns them back to more phenomenological exploration, so that before deciding upon what ought to be represented (if they ever do), they consider many potential possibilities and relationships. Based upon many years of observation by means of a non-verbal assessment, very few people operate this way and almost all of them use qualitative induction (which is also observable) as they proceed. On the other hand, Deductive-like thinkers, who tend to be analytical in nature, determine options, qualities, possibilities, etc. relatively quickly, but spend quite a bit of time relating elements before determining a plan for representing these. Because they do not engage significantly in the exploratory stage (Firstness), once they decide their general goal, all of further choices are limited to those that will be most appropriate for achieving that goal. These individuals shut down the discovery process, except for often clever or ingenious adaptations that help them achieve the general goal. They are naturally complex thinkers, but without the abductive-like goal generating process, their goals are necessarily derivative. Crude inductive-like (Direct) thinkers quickly apprehend a terminal goal and apply familiar methods for achieving it, so that they are neither exploratory, nor analytical. Instead, they jump almost immediately to representation, which means that they tend to produce direct copies of something they have seen, learned, copied, or previously done. Given sufficient intelligence, Direct thinkers also tend to make excellent students in many fields. -----Original Message----- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Jon Awbrey Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 10:12 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction GR = Gary Richmond JD = Jonathan DeVore JD: It might be useful to bear in mind that we don't have to think about 3rdnss, 2ndnss, 1stnss in an all-or-nothing fashion. Peirce might have us recall that these elements will be differently prominent according to the phenomenon under consideration -- without being mutually exclusive. JD: So while 3rdnss is prominent and predominant in deduction, there is also an element of compulsion by which one is forced to a particular conclusion. That compulsive element could be thought of as the 2ndness of deduction -- which is put to good use by the predominantly mediated character of deduction: i.e., it serves as the sheriff to the court (of law). GR: I think your point is well taken, Jonathan. I agree with Gary that this point is well taken. If we understand Peirce's categories in relational rather then non-relative terms, that is to say, as a matter of the minimum arity required to model a phenomenon, then all semiotic phenomena, all species of inference and types of reasoning, are basically category three. Nevertheless, many triadic phenomena are known to be "degenerate" in the formal sense that monadic and dyadic relations can account for many of their properties relatively well, at least, for many practical purposes. That recognition allows the categorical question to be re-framed in ways that can be answered through normal scientific means. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey word press blog 1: http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/ word press blog 2: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
