Abduction

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), the American philosopher and founder of the Pragmatic School of philosophy, maintained that the process of discovery in science is as important as that of proof and must, therefore, meet logical criteria. Peirce claimed that we must not leave scientific discovery to chance, because, in the end, it is the discovery process that creates and advances science and human knowledge. In scientific research, two logical inferences prevail: deductive research logic and inductive research logic. By formulating a third research logic (to be distinct from research methodology), which he called “abduction,” that aimed to cover “the logic of discovery” (Rescher, 1978; Rosenthal, 1993), Peirce enables us to conduct rigorous research stemming from a single fact in the field.

According to Peirce, in a process of discovery, we confront a new or surprising fact (a problem), decide how to address it, create an initial explanation, and test this explanation against all our observations and facts to see if it works. Even one observation that does not fit this preliminary explanation tells us that the explanation is not good enough.

At this stage of drawing conclusions, Peirce demands that we take our explanations or conclusions, convert them into hypotheses “on probation,” and explore farther into a wider scope of data. In each such cycle, our explanations become broader, more general, and more abstract (Levin-Rozalis, 2000; Peirce 1955a, 1955b; Yu, 1994).

A hypothesis on probation is said to meet the logical criteria not if it corresponds with a conception of external reality or theory but, rather, only if it resolves the dilemma, problem, or difficulty for which it was formulated (i.e., it explains the “'surprising fact”). With this logic, Peirce created an inseparable link between new facts that we face in the “real world” (as it is perceived in our minds) and their explanation (Josephson & Josephson, 1996; Levin-Rozalis, 2000, 2004). For more information, see Josephson and Josephson (1996), Levin-Rozalis (2000, 2004), Peirce (1955a, 1955b), Rescher (1978), Rosenthal (1993), and Yu (1994).