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Home > Quote from "Hume's Argument against Miracles, and the Idea of Natural Law (Hume)"

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Abduction’ (pub. 19.12.12-20:02). 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-humes-argument-against-miracles-and-idea-natural-law-hume.
Term: 
Abduction
Quote: 

Inference is any act of deliberate assent, in any degree, however slight, which a man accords to a proposition because he thinks that assent warranted by his already accorded assent to another proposition or propositions, called the premises. It is one act of inference to adopt a hypothesis on probation. Such an act may be called an abduction. It is an act of the same kind, when a hypothesis is merely suggested as possible worth consideration. For even then some degree of favor is extended to it.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1901). Hume's Argument against Miracles, and the Idea of Natural Law (Hume). MS [R] 873.
References: 
MS [R] 873:3 (var.); HP 2:912
Date of Quote: 
1901
URL: 

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