Hi, Gary R., list
As far as I know, the main reason for the ordering of the premisses in
the traditional categorical syllogistic forms is for consistency in
comparisons among the forms: one always puts the major premiss first,
the minor premiss second, and the conclusion third, in order that when
someone says "EAE-1", one knows that the major premiss and the
conclusion are "E" (universal negatives), and the minor premiss is "A"
(a universal affirmative), and that it's a first-figure syllogism (major
premiss is M-P, minor premiss is S-M). The order of the premisses in the
categorical syllogisms doesn't matter _/logically/_. The syllogism
implicitly treats the premisses as conjoined, and any conjunctive
compound /pq/ is formally equivalent to /qp/. Conjunction is
symmetrical, at least in standard logic. Moreover, logically one could
put the conclusion first, by saying,
"Socrates is mortal, because all men are mortal and Socrates is a man."
Often enough one starts with a thesis to be proved (e.g., that Socrates
is mortal), and one looks for a middle (such as man) in order to link
the thesis to a known rule stated as a major premiss. If the Barbara
deduction's minor premiss (S-M) is only conjectured but the conclusion
(S-P) is already known, then the deductive form should be inverted into
an abductive form, and the erstwhile deduction's conclusion should be a
premiss in the abduction, etc.
Now, when Peirce inverts Barbara (AAA-1), he's inverting the roles of
conclusion and one premiss. To track the propositions shifted through
the inversion, he needs names other than "major premiss", "minor
premiss", and "conclusion", so he uses "rule", "case", "result", in
whatever order. Putting the result (or fact, or character) second in an
abductive inference means putting the surprising observation second. It
could just as well come first, logically. If one wants to reflect a
temporal order of the abductive premisses as judgments, they can go in
either order. On the other hand, we usually think that the rule or
habit, as such, pre-exists the case. As I noted before
(https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2013-03/msg00047.html )
Peirce in CP 2.711 says:
711. The cognition of a rule is not necessarily conscious, but is of
the nature of a habit, acquired or congenital. The cognition of a
case is of the general nature of a sensation; that is to say, it is
something which comes up into present consciousness. The cognition
of a result is of the nature of a decision to act in a particular
way on a given occasion. In point of fact, a syllogism in
_/Barbara/_ virtually takes place when we irritate the foot of a
decapitated frog. The connection between the afferent and efferent
nerve, whatever it may be, constitutes a nervous habit, a rule of
action, which is the physiological analogue of the major premiss.
The disturbance of the ganglionic equilibrium, owing to the
irritation, is the physiological form of that which, psychologically
considered, is a sensation; and, logically considered, is the
occurrence of a case. The explosion through the efferent nerve is
the physiological form of that which psychologically is a volition,
and logically the inference of a result. When we pass from the
lowest to the highest forms of inervation, the physiological
equivalents escape our observation; but, psychologically, we still
have, first, habit—which in its highest form is understanding, and
which corresponds to the major premiss of _/Barbara/_; we have,
second, feeling, or present consciousness, corresponding to the
minor premiss of _/Barbara/_; and we have, third, volition,
corresponding to the conclusion of the same mode of syllogism.
So we see:
2. Minor premiss, case. Sensation, feeling [firstness].
|> 1. Major premiss, rule. Habit [thirdness].
3. Conclusion, result. Decision, volition [secondness].
In abduction, the 'result' is the surprising observation in one of the
premisses. In deduction, it's the conclusion which, if neither vacuously
stating a logical axiom ("/p/ or not /p/") nor merely restating a
premiss or premisses unchanged, brings a new aspect to the premisses, an
element of novelty, even of surprise sufficient to lead one to check
one's premisses and reasoning.
It's seemed to me that the 'new aspect' of a worthwhile syllogistic
deductive conclusion compensates for the deduction's technical
redundancy, its conclusion's saying nothing really new to the premisses.
This is likewise as plausibility, natural simplicity, compensates for
abductive inference's basic wildness. I don't think that one can ignore
either the ratiocinative or instinctual aspects in thoughtful abductive
inference.
So, the question to me is, is the 'new aspect' brought by such deduction
a 'natural,' 'instinctual' kind of novelty, as opposed to logical
novelty (the conclusion saying something unentailed by the premisses),
**likewise** as abductive plausibility is a natural, instinctual
simplicity, as opposed to logical simplicity (a distinction made by
Peirce in "A Neglected Argument" the linked paragraph
https://sites.google.com/site/cspmem/terms#simple )? This kind of
novelty resists being usefully quantified likewise as natural simplicity
resists it. I don't know whether the sense of such novelty is properly
called instinctual. Generally abductive inference seems to depend more
on half-conscious or instinctual inference than deduction does. But the
fruitful tension between abduction's wildness and its targeted natural
simplicity is taken as a lot more troubling than it should be, I think,
insofar as that tension is like the fruitful tension between such
deduction's technical redundancy and its targeted novelty of aspect or
perspective.
Best, Ben
On 4/29/2016 4:55 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Correction:
In my last post I wrote "Your order here (result/rule/ergo case) was
also recently suggested by Jon S as a possible 'inversion' of
rule/case/result for abduction."
But, now I recall that Jon S gave the opposite order, ie.
case/rule/result and remarked that it is the reverse of the categorial
pattern for inquiry (which is correct). In my categorial vector theory
I refer to the order, case/rule/result, as the vector of aspiration,
and the one Ben gave, of result/rule/case as the vector of process (I
often note that both inquiry and biological evolution follow this
order according to Peirce). Adding these 2 to the 3 Peirce gives in
the bean example, we have 5 of the 6 possible categorial vectors, the
remaining one being Hegel's dialectical order. This is not to say that
I'm at all sure that all these five definitely represent inference
patterns. GR
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 3:31 PM, Gary Richmond
<gary.richm...@gmail.com <mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Ben, list,
Thanks for your two recent posts in this thread. I've been reflecting
on them--and the whole matter of abduction--but I'm not sure exactly
where to take that reflection at the moment. Still, I believe that
continuing the inquiry might prove quite well worth the effort.
There are clearly a number of scholars struggling with abduction in
Peirce, and they are considering it from a number of different
angles, yet with no clear cut resolution coming to the fore as far as
I can tell. For example, Sami Paavola in "Peircean abduction:
instinct, or inference?"
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/papers/instinctorinference.pdf
argues "that Peirce did not resolve the relationship between
inference and instinct in a clear-cut manner in his later writings."
He continues:
The interpretation that I advocate is to distinguish abductive
instinct and abductive inference, which suggests that abduction
can be developed further as a ‘pure’ form of inference: Various
aspects of it can be analyzed further, for example, the nature of
its premises, the inferential relationships within it, the
strength and validity of it, how abductive inferences are used.
That is, in Peircean terms, the grammar, the critic, and the
methodeutic of abductive inference should all be further examined.
The proposal that abductive inference should be developed further
as a mode of inference does not mean that abductive instinct
should be neglected, quite the contrary. Peirce analyzes many
phenomena under the guessing instinct that are of interest to
modern cognitive sciences, starting with the idea that human
beings can use, in their problem solving, information of which
they are not conscious. Peirce, of course, did not have at his
disposal many of those conceptions that are attractive to the
modern reader from this perspective (for example the notion of
‘tacit knowledge’, or modern conceptions of expertise). The idea
of abductive instinct could be analyzed further by using these
modern notions (from the conclusion of his paper).
But returning to our discussion of abduction as a mode of inference,
I think that your suggestion that we give some thought to what you
referred to as 'abductive generalization' might prove a fruitful one.
You wrote:
Also in considering the beans example, I forgot that it's just one
way of instancing Barbara and its inversions. After all, Barbara is
named for its vowels as a mnemonic for the universality and
affirmativity of its propositions - AAA. So, in a universe in which
mammals are not _/defined/_ as warm-blooded air-breathing
live-young-bearers:
/Result:/ All whales are warm-blooded, breathe air, and bear live
young.
/Rule:/ All mammals are warm-blooded, breathe air, and bear live young.
Ergo /Case:/ (Plausibly) all whales are mammals.
The "case" there is itself a new rule. I'm not sure whether that's
an example of what Peirce means by abductive generalization, but
there it is.
Your order here (result/rule/ergo case) was also recently suggested
by Jon S as a possible 'inversion' of rule/case/result for abduction.
I was thinking of the bean example (which folllows the usual order:
rule/result/ergo case) when he first suggested it, but yet remarked
that it might be an interesting and valid way of looking at
abduction, and your example above would seem to support that notion.
I must admit that your and Jon S's order still strikes me as somewhat
odd, while the question remains as to whether or not it adequately
represents 'abductive generalization' (not an expression of Peirce's,
I don't believe, but useful).
One last, perhaps minor, matter is that I agree with Jon A that since
'result' only works for deduction, that another term might be better
employed in consideration of induction and abduction. Since I
associate 'result' with 1ns, I've tended to use the term 'character'
rather than 'result' (as I did earlier in this thread and
occasionally in other threads over the past few years). But Jon has
suggested 'fact' to replace 'result', which he says has been used by
others, for example, W. S. McCulloch. Since I associate 'fact' with
2ns (which Peirce, it seems to me, does as well), I'm going to
continue to use 'character' as a substitute for 'result' unless
someone comes up with an even better term.
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690 <tel:718%20482-5690>*
On Fri, Apr 29, 2016 at 6:21 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Gary R., list,
I got careless in my previous message.
I said that "There is /F/, ergo anything is /F/" ("∃/F/∴∀/F/") would
be abductive; however, in a stipulatedly non-empty universe, its
conclusion entails its premiss, and so for my part I would rather
call it inductive than abductive, at least in the "usual" universes.
A better candidate for a toy example of an abduction to a rule would
be "There is /FG/, ergo anything /F/ is /G/" ("∃/FG/∴∀(/F/→/G/)").
These are silly examples, but I like the idea of being able to sort
out even the simplest inference schemata into deductive, inductive,
and abductive, in terms of entailment relations between the premiss
set and the conclusion. In the second example, "∀(/F/→/G/)" is
arguably a selective generalization of "∃/FG/".
Also in considering the beans example, I forgot that it's just one
way of instancing Barbara and its inversions. After all, Barbara is
named for its vowels as a mnemonic for the universality and
affirmativity of its propositions - AAA. So, in a universe in which
mammals are not _/defined/_ as warm-blooded air-breathing
live-young-bearers:
/Result:/ All whales are warm-blooded, breathe air, and bear live
young.
/Rule:/ All mammals are warm-blooded, breathe air, and bear live young.
Ergo /Case:/ (Plausibly) all whales are mammals.
The "case" there is itself a new rule. I'm not sure whether that's
an example of what Peirce means by abductive generalization, but
there it is.
Best, Ben
On 4/28/2016 3:10 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
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