Thomas Albert SebeokRezensionen
Autor von The Sign of Three. Peirce, Holmes, Dupin
Rezensionen
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Peirce realized that the formation of useful hypotheses, the fuel of scientific discovery and explanation in general, is neither formal induction nor deduction but rather what he termed abduction: informed and testable guesses. And whereas induction and deduction are subject to mathematically exact rules of formal logic, no formal rule can comprise useful abduction.
Finding and testing a provisional hypothesis does require the engines of induction and deduction: working out natural consequences implied or deducible from a hypothesis to discover whether those consequences comport with facts. If not, then the hypothesis is in error.
Arthur Conan Doyle let Holmes call his methods variously induction and deduction, but they were rather choosing from multiple hypotheses by eliminating the wrong ones by testing their various consequences. Poe called this ratiocination in the case of Dupin. Holmes's capacities appeared astonishing to Dr. Watson because Watson did not entertain the wealth of Holmes's hypotheses so as to recognize the significance of certain evident facts, nor the chain of their ramifications and of Holmes's testing of them, only to be revealed later. Of course, Holmes benefitted also from a personal fund of forensic facts, like the sources of all kinds of tobaccos, ability to recognize most perfumes, and where different types of dirt were found in London.
The Sherlock Holmes stories are a delight and a fast read. I read one in college and could not resist reading all the rest one weekend.
Peirce is a fine thinker and writer. Wikisource carries a free set of his quite readable and wryly humorous essays along the above lines at:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_12/January_1878/Il... .