Conclusion

Abstract

The author has attempted to reconstruct a consistent account of Pierce’s theory of abduction from his fragmentary and often apparently inconsistent writings. As we have seen, Peirce’s ideas fall roughly into two periods. In the early period Peirce treated inference, and hence abduction, as an evidencing process. The three types of inference were considered independent forms of reasoning. Abduction is an inference from a body of data to an explaining hypothesis, or from effects to cause; induction, on the other hand, is an inference from a sample to a whole, or from particulars to a general law. In the later period the concept of inference is widened to include methodological process as well as evidencing process. The three kinds of reasoning became three stages of inquiry. Abduction is the process of forming or inventing an explanatory hypothesis to account for the facts. Deduction explicates hypotheses and induction consists in the process of testing them.