Ben: I remain a bit puzzled by the nature of the work. Perhaps because of the fuzzy nature of CSP's abduction from an abstract point of view.
This area of analysis is remote from my interests, but I would note that I travelled in East Germany in 1971 and lectured (in German) on my scientific work at a biochemistry / genetics institute in Halle. This trip was a profound political experience, to say the least, it strongly influenced my views of the nature of all governments, all social collections flying a flag proclaiming "We are THIS!". BTW, I would note in passing, the logic of the chemical sciences, with the base radix of the chemical table of elements, uses abductive reasoning over the atomic numbers and that this reasoning is exact and validated by physical measurements. Consider your statement below on "conditions" On Jul 9, 2015, at 4:12 PM, Ben Novak wrote: > By the same token, in the Reichstag election of 1930 when Hitler broke > through a leader of the second largest party in Germany, there were 28 > parties on the ballot, the 4 major parties, and 24 smaller parties, each of > which hoped to break through because of he the onset of the Depression. In > the election results, Hitler and his party left all those other parties in > the dust. > > One cannot say that this was the product of conditions--the conditions were > the same for all the parties. Is this statement not self-contradictory? That is, the conditions were different for all parties as collective social organizations. Does it not intermingle a post-hoc conclusion without clearly stating the premises? My own view is that politicians often use rhetoric assertions as if they were using abductive reasoning in their pursuit of (putative) future goals. Without a crisp statement of the premises, a rhetoric mix of conditional and bi-conditional statements often passes as basis for political conclusions, which, necessarily, include emotional / judgmental components. Perhaps you have an example or two of direct quotes from Hitler that exemplify his usage of abduction on premises to reach conclusions and, importantly, examples of political assertions that you do not consider to be abductions? Cheers Jerry
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