Re: Peter Woit • Beyond Experiment

Peirce is simply describing the process by which we seize on an initial hypothesis or model.  That choice will in practice be influenced by all sorts of previous experiences with the phenomenon in question but in principle our choice can be very wild indeed, revealed in a dream or stepping off a bus or whatever it may be.  The only real test of the hypothesis or model comes by way of the deductive consequences following from it and the inductive confirmations or falsifications following those.  The word abduction is a clumsy but traditional translation of Aristotle’s apagoge from Prior Analytics 2.25.

Resources

• Inquiry
• Functional Logic • Inquiry and Analogy
• Prospects for Inquiry Driven Systems
• Introduction to Inquiry Driven Systems
• Inquiry Driven Systems • Inquiry Into Inquiry

cc: Peirce List (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)