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Home > Quote from "Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Types of Reasoning"

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Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Retroduction’ (pub. 12.03.13-18:51). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-cambridge-lectures-reasoning-and-logic-things-types-reasoning-2.
Term: 
Retroduction
Quote: 

… the second figure reads:

Anything of the nature of M would have the character {p}, taken haphazard,
S has the character {p};
.·. Provisionally, we may suppose S to be of the nature of M.

Still more convenient is the following conditional form of statement:

If {m} were true, {p}, {p}’, {p}” would follow as miscellaneous consequences -
But {p}, {p}’, {p}” are in fact true;
.·. Provisionally, we may suppose that {m} is true.

This kind of reasoning is very often called adopting a hypothesis for the sake of its explanation of known facts.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1898). Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Types of Reasoning. MS [R] 441.
References: 
RLT 140
Date of Quote: 
1898
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-cambridge-lectures-reasoning-and-logic-things-types-reasoning-2