Published on Commens (http://www.commens.org)

Home > Quote from "PAP [ed.]"

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Abduction’ (pub. 04.01.13-18:30). 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-pap-ed.
Term: 
Abduction
Quote: 

Let us now consider non-necessary reasoning. This divides itself, according to the different ways in which it may be valid, into three classes: probable deduction; experimental reasoning, which I now call Induction; and processes of thought capable of producing no conclusion more definite than a conjecture, which I now call Abduction.
[—]
Abduction is no more nor less than guessing, a faculty attributed to Yankees. [—] Such validity as this has consists in the generalization that no new truth is ever otherwise reached while some new truths are thus reached. This is a result of Induction; and therefore in a remote way Abduction rests upon diagrammatic reasoning.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1906-7). PAP [ed.]. MS [R] 293.
References: 
NEM 4:319-320
Date of Quote: 
1906-7
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-pap-ed