Jerry, List,

A very good question.

Susan Awbrey and I tried our hands at answering the “What Next?”
question in the medium of analyzing Dewey's “Sign of Rain” example:

https://www.academia.edu/1266493/Interpretation_as_Action_The_Risk_of_Inquiry

Relevant excerpt below:

<QUOTE>

The Pattern and Stages of Inquiry
=================================

To illustrate the place of the sign relation in inquiry we begin with
Dewey's elegant and simple example of reflective thinking in everyday life:

<QUOTE>
A man is walking on a warm day.  The sky was clear the last time he observed 
it; but
presently he notes, while occupied primarily with other things, that the air is 
cooler.
It occurs to him that it is probably going to rain;  looking up, he sees a dark 
cloud
between him and the sun, and he then quickens his steps.  What, if anything, in 
such
a situation can be called thought?  Neither the act of walking nor the noting 
of the
cold is a thought.  Walking is one direction of activity; looking and noting 
are other
modes of activity.  The likelihood that it will rain is, however, something 
suggested.
The pedestrian feels the cold; he thinks of clouds and a coming shower.

(Dewey 1991, 6-7).
</QUOTE>

In this narrative we can identify the characters of the sign relation
as follows: coolness is a Sign of the Object rain, and the Interpretant
is the thought of the rain's likelihood.  In his 1910 description of
reflective thinking Dewey distinguishes two phases, “a state of perplexity,
hesitation, doubt” and “an act of search or investigation” (Dewey 1991, 9),
comprehensive stages which are further refined in his later model of inquiry.
In this example reflection is the act of the interpreter which establishes a
fund of connections between the sensory shock of coolness and the objective
danger of rain, by way of his impression that rain is likely.  But reflection
is more than irresponsible speculation.  In reflection the interpreter acts
to charge or defuse the thought of rain (the probability of rain in thought)
by seeking other signs which this thought implies and evaluating the thought
according to the results of this search.

Figure 2 illustrates Dewey's “Rain” example, tracing the structure and function
of the sign relation as it informs the activity of inquiry, including both the
movements of surprise explanation and intentional action.  The dyadic faces of
the sign relation are labeled with just a few of the loosest terms that apply,
indicating the “significance” of signs for eventual occurrences and the
“correspondence” of ideas with external orientations.  Nothing essential
is meant by these dyadic role distinctions, since it is only in special
or degenerate cases that their shadowy projections can maintain enough
information to determine the original sign relation.

Figure 2.  Signs and Inquiry in Dewey [see attached]

If we follow this example far enough to consider the import of thought
for action, we realize that the subsequent conduct of the interpreter,
progressing up through the natural conclusion of the episode — the
quickening steps, seeking shelter in time to escape the rain — all of
these acts form a series of further interpretants, contingent on the
active causes of the individual, for the originally recognized signs
of rain and for the first impressions of the actual case.  Just as
critical reflection develops the associated and alternative signs
which gather about an idea, pragmatic interpretation explores the
consequential and contrasting actions which give effective and
testable meaning to a person's belief in it.

</QUOTE>

Regards,

Jon

On 3/9/2016 5:07 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:
> John, Clark,  List:
>
> The simple question arises:  If an abductive step is taken by the inquirer,
> then what?
>
> For example, say that a sinsign and its legisigns and qualisigns provide
> the informative extension to generate an index, how does one take this
> abductive object and move through the inferential steps needed to
> generate a valid argument?
>
> Or, from a different logical perspective, what information is needed
> to extend (in the Aristotelian sense of intensional logic) the index
> to the (telelogical?) goal of the inquirer?
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>

--

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