Dear Ben Novak,
On the one hand, in calling attention to surprise and perplexity as the
occasion of abductive inference (as opposed to deductive and inductive
inference), Peirce is talking about a generic necessary condition which
the general character of abduction reflects in being a response to that
condition. The surprise, the violation of accepted explanation or the
unexpected lack of explanation, leads one to needing to think a bit
outside the box, bring into the mix an idea new to the case; that's
abductive inference.
On the other hand, as your police example points out, surprise, - or, in
the phenomenon itself, anomalousness, complication, etc., - was not
generally a sufficient condition for pursuing the abductive trail when
Peirce wrote, any more than it is today. In any actual society and any
actual mind, there needs to be some motivated curiosity, and the social
and psychological conditions can certainly vary in their hospitality to
focused abductive thinking and methods of follow-up. Peirce of course
would have been interested in all that, though it would take more a
inspirational or exemplificative role than a dispositive role in his
_/philosophy/_ of how one _/ought/_ to think. One needs to be not too
trapped in inquiry methods of tenacity, authority, or the a priori (or,
as I would generalize them, the method of willful belief, the method of
contest and ascendancy, and the method of wishful belief, as well as a
method of belief in reaction to others' beliefs - contrarianism,
partisanism, and so on), and the dominance of such a method could mark
an age, an intellectual age at least. To pursue an abductive trail, one
needs to be not too busy with other things, as you say, even if one
knows enough to be surprised by the phenomenon; the means need to be not
too arduous; and one needs the 'means' that consists in having some
notion of how to apply to the case the method of learning from
experience, observation, experiment, etc. There need to be means,
motive, and opportunity (even if the motive is a general devotion to
some research questions). The police and others in the old days did not
familiarize themselves with the kinds of evidence that would provide
them with illuminative surprises, and the methods of thinking and
investigating were correspondingly poor (which is not to say that
they're perfect today). Yet some people, especially the kind who stick
their noses into everybody's business, surely did (as one sees some
doing today) abduce a lot about the people whom they know - relatives,
neighbors, co-workers, and even keep an eye out for evidence that would
affect their surmises. Such a busybody's mind is a novel (somebody once
said to me "His mind is a novel," which struck me as one of the great
remarks), the kind of novel that's full of intrigue. But it's not a work
of deep imagination, it's the busybody's diary, a slice-of-life tell-all
somewhat mixed with fancies, the daily soap opera. A power-seeker may
thrive on, indeed revel in, being such a busybody (as the remark's
subject did, in his way); and the power gained also helps such a person
to be a bigger busybody. Well, of course; knowledge is power. I guess
that a person whose own personality is a kind of blank or has some sort
of emptiness or precisely a shallowness of imagination might be obsessed
with filling his or her mind with other people and all their furniture
too. Continually monitoring them. Well, it could be good, evil,
indifferent, etc. I'm thinking of some of the themes in your thesis.
Getting back to how I started this thread, not that I think that we need
to keep revisiting it, I still can't think of an emotion specific to the
arbitrary (Priman, in Peircean terms) appearance (as opposed to the
conflicting appearance), other than the ones that I mentioned. On the
occasion of attenuative deduction, I'd add that a contingent statement
regarded as false is what seems excluded, insular, "cryptic," barren of
sound conclusions, but when it's reevaluated as true, one may be caught
in a twilight zone where it still seems excluded yet there it is (and
maybe something else needs to be excluded), and that's where somewhat of
a feeling of impatience or suspense about the ramifications comes in. I
like the idea of attenuative deduction as typically resulting like a
recalculation from an update of input, but the idea seems bit "out
there" and seems to lead to some problems.
Best, Ben
On 10/13/2015 4:36 PM, Ben Novak wrote:
Dear Ben Udell:
I really didn't intend to send only to you, but I guess I didn't
notice that merely hitting reply resulted in that. It is my hope that
my email and your reply will now appear on the list, and we can see if
others find them of interest...
Back to the subject. What I am suggesting is that the motivation for
thinking abductively is quite different than it was when Peirce wrote.
I think I mentioned in an earlier email about how revolutionary
Sherlock Holmes stories were to police forces, and that historically
it took several decades before police forces really began using
Holmes' logic in the investigation of cases.
Today, on the other hand, adductive logic is by far the dominant logic
in our culture and society. Most young people naturally and almost
instinctively first evaluate whatever they hear in abductive ways. How
different this was a century ago! The Scotland Yard and police
inspectors in Holms' stories were not caricatures, but normal; it was
Holmes who was different. Today, forensics is the big thing, with NCIS
programs on all the time.
So, I am suggesting two things. First, that the question of what
sparks abductive questioning was certainly different when Peirce
wrote, than it is today. What seems important today is not simply
surprise, but some additional reason to cause one to act on the
strange set of facts. Simply put, there are entirely too many strange
facts to get excited about. For example, once it was possible to take
an auto engine apart and find out how it works, and auto mechanic and
wannabes were everywhere. Today, how an automobile engine works is as
mysterious as how a Boeing 747 Jumbo jet engine works. But few have
the time--or the need--to study either. Millions, such as me, use the
computer every day without any idea of how computers work.
So, it is not sufficient to be faced with a surprising set of facts
anymore. When I think of it, the computer I am writing this on is a
total--and surprising--mystery to me.
One of the things I enjoy about the discussions on Pierce L is the
degree of specialty with which many participants can investigate the
subjects of abduction, semiotics, etc., as well as the efforts of some
for a more unified theory. But, on the other hand, I do miss the
observation of, and accounting for, the vast amount of daily things
that are relevant.
I suggest that these subjects are ubiquitous, and that if we were more
conscious of daily life and experiences, we would find much more
fodder for our work. Part of what I think important in this is a lot
more awareness of culture and history.
Ben Novak
*Ben Novak <http://bennovak.net>*
5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142
Telephones:
Magic Jack: (717) 826-5224 /*Best to call and leave messages.* /
Landline: 239-455-4200 */My brother's main phone line./*
Mobile (202) 509-2655*/I use this only on trips--and in any event
messages arrive days late./*
Skype: BenNovak2
/"All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts
themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of
Mozart will have ceased to be — though possibly a colored canvas and a
sheet of notes may remain — because the last eye and the last ear
accessible to their message will have gone."/ Oswald Spengler
On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Benjamin Udell <bud...@nyc.rr.com
<mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com>> wrote:
Dear Ben Novak:
Thanks for this. I don't know why you sent it only to me and not to
peirce-l.
Looking at the history of dominant logics certainly gives a panoramic
dimension to the discussion. I think that it helps that you note the
difference between abductive inference, which is as pervasive as any
other mode of inference in the mind, and abductive logic, and its
methodeutical elaboration (which involves the interplay of all the
modes of inference), as a dominant logic of an age. However, I'm
looking at a feeling that would be involved in the occasion of
induction generally, and it seems similar to, yet not the same as,
the kind of surprise that Peirce discusses as the occasion of
abductive inference, the abduction-inspiring surprise of conflict
with one's beliefs about what can be. What I'm looking at instead is
not the sense that something shouldn't have happened, that it
conflicts with expectations and ought to be impossible, but rather
that it seems kind of arbitrary or 'slanted' or fluky. Downard's
reply to me at peirce-l quotes Peirce on active surprise versus
passive surprise, and Peirce's idea of passive surprise sounds like
what I'm talking about, but Peirce's example of a eclipse that one
had neither expected to happen nor expected not to happen, seems not
the clearest example, it makes it seem as if eclipses were sometimes
feasible or probable but still uncertain.
In the case of attenuative deduction's occasion, I'm thinking of what
one deduces _/from/_ the new observation, not of how one deduces
_/to/_ it from the undoubted already-given. I'm not sure what to call
the emotion associated with it in this case, but maybe it's a kind of
impatience or sense of suspense. I'm somewhat in a welter of thoughts
about these things lately. Anyway, I'm thinking that the occasion is
when one learns that something that one had thought contingently
false turns out to be true or still seems even now pretty much false
but still just plausibly true (a hypothetical explanation that has
arisen). It had seemed contingently false (I mean false but not
impossible) but suddenly there it is, or seems to be, seemingly coy,
cryptic, vague, insular, putting one into suspense. So one decreases
the crypticness and suspense by deducing the consequences, the Excel
chart recalculates the outcomes from updated input, and so on. One
can check those outcomes against reality to corroborate, inductively.
Well, my views on all this are still somewhat tentative.
Best, Ben
On 10/12/2015 1:14 PM, Ben Novak wrote:
Dear Ben Udell:
I recall reading somewhere in Peirce that each age is determined by
the dominant logic of that age, and that when the dominant logic
changes, the perspectives of each age change.
In regard to your question:
". . . if one knew in advance that that the population consists of
reds and greens, and if one found in the sample a 50-50 distribution
of red and green, that would still seem arbitrary. How does one
'explain' it or account for it? One induces that the total
population has a 50-50 distribution of red and green; if true, then
the sample's distribution is _/not so arbitrary/_. I am unsure what
emotional response to associate with such arbitrariness. It may
involve a sense of being detoured, skewed, diverted, interested,
something like that."
Think of two persons from two different ages coming upon a wondrous
landscape, such as, for example, the Grand Canyon. The one from a
deductive age, such as the Scholastic period, may be struck with awe
at the beauty and majesty he perceives, while someone from the age
of induction might wonder how to classify it so as to fit into an
encyclopedia of all knowledge. But someone from the age of adductive
reasoning will be led to ask, "How did this hole in the ground come
to be?"
I gather this impression from the history of the science of geology, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geology
. . . and the story of the man considered to be the Father or
Founder of modern geology, James Hutton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton
In the stories of the birth of geological science, it is easy to see
how different ages applied their best reasoning to the problem of
the origins of the earth and its features. When the question first
arose, they turned to the ancient wisdom to reason deductively to
what they observed. Later, as observations multiplied as a result
both of the invention of the printing press and the idea of
collecting information in encyclopedias, and sharing it through
societies, new theories could encourage testing resulting in new
reports and new theories. Finally, nascent geologists had enough
information to begin to know what to look for, and begin to think
backwards to new and different causes.
Now, adductive logic has always existed, as shown in Eco and
Sebeok's /The Sign of Three/. But adductive logic could not easily
be applied until two preconditions were present. First, a large body
of observations made available by encouraging experiments, together
with recording and publishing. Second, was the divorcing of the mind
from experiences of awe, beauty, and morality. Thus Peirce's comment
about adductive logic not bestowing a "single smile upon beauty,
upon moral virtue, or upon abstract truth--the very things that
alone raise Humanity above Animality." With that in place, both
every regularity, as well as every irregularity, can quite suddenly
seem strange, invoking a "why" and a "how--where every "why" is
understood solely in terms of prior causality, and not teleology.
So, I am proposing that it is a shift in perspective to an abductive
approach (=pragmaticism) that may be part of the answer to your
question about being "unsure what emotional response to associate
with such arbitrariness. A simple change of the perspective in which
problems are seen can induce the feeling you are seeking to
understand, as most horror movies begin with everything seeming
ordinary, until suddenly something happens that makes it all seem eerie.
Insofar as you suggest that "It may involve a sense of being
detoured, skewed, diverted, interested, something like that," I
suggest that the sense of being "detoured," "skewed," or "diverted,"
arises primarily from being focused upon causality and effects, to
the exclusion of feelings of awe, beauty, morality, even pleasure, etc.
Well, that is my contribution.
Ben Novak
*Ben Novak <http://bennovak.net>*
5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142
Telephones:
Magic Jack: (717) 826-5224 /*Best to call and leave messages.*/
Landline: 239-455-4200 */My brother's main phone line./*
Mobile (202) 509-2655*/I use this only on trips--and in any event
messages arrive days late./*
Skype: BenNovak2
/"All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the
arts themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last
bar of Mozart will have ceased to be — though possibly a colored
canvas and a sheet of notes may remain — because the last eye and
the last ear accessible to their message will have gone."/ Oswald
Spengler
On Sun, Oct 11, 2015 at 7:41 PM, Benjamin Udell <bud...@nyc.rr.com
<mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com>> wrote:
List,
Some may remember my attempts to outline, as forming a system, such
heuristic aspects, given by conclusions to premisses, as an
abductive inference's natural simplicity, an induction's
verisimilitude, an attenuative deduction's new aspect, and an
equipollential deduction's nontriviality.
I've hit upon something that strikes a novel (to me) but also
Peircean note, involving the idea of Firstness, so I thought I'd
pass it along.
For a long time I was careful to distinguish between surprise (of
an anomaly) and bewilderment at excessive complexity or
complication. Peirce usually mentions surprise as the occasion of
inquiry in general and of abductive inference in particular, but
occasionally mentions complication as such occasion. Now, the idea
of abductive inference's natural simplicity seems more a response
to complication than to anomaly or surprise. I won't belabor that
appearance, but will just say that I wondered what appearance or
feeling (akin to puzzlement, but not puzzlement) would be the
occasion of a chiefly inductive inquiry, or of an inductive
inference in the course of inquiry. Then it finally dawned on me
that I was paying too much attention to the temporal mode of the
feeling (overturning of expectation versus overturning of
supposition) and not enough to the overturning, the conflict. What
occasions induction (besides an occasioning inquiry) is not a
conflict (a secundan thing), a cognitive dissonance, but a sense of
something _/arbitrary/_, gratuitous, spontaneous, unnecessary
though possible, which, in Peircean terms, means a whiff of
Firstness (see Peirce's "Quale-Consciousness" for example).
If one has a sample from a population about which one had no
particular expectations, then any definite result is bound to seem
arbitrary, arbitrarily one-sided, to seem like some things that one
has seen and unlike other things (unless one supposes some Bayesian
priors in the absence of evidence, which isn't a Peircean approach
anyway). While the occasion of abductive inference seems
surprising, contrarian, so to speak, the occasion of induction
seems partisan, it just takes sides. This arbitrary character,
while not surprising or perplexing, is still, let's say, striking.
From a non-Bayesian viewpoint, if one knew in advance that that the
population consists of reds and greens, and if one found in the
sample a 50-50 distribution of red and green, that would still seem
arbitrary. How does one 'explain' it or account for it? One induces
that the total population has a 50-50 distribution of red and
green; if true, then the sample's distribution is _/not so
arbitrary/_. I am unsure what emotional response to associate with
such arbitrariness. It may involve a sense of being detoured,
skewed, diverted, interested, something like that.
Best, Ben
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