Abduction

Abduction 5

Bibliography Krokvik J (1996). Ivar Aasen: diktar og granskar, sosial frigjerar og nasjonal ma˚lreisar. Bergen: Norsk Bokreidingslag. Linn A R (1997). Constructing the grammars of a language: Ivar Aasen and nineteenth-century Norwegian linguistics. Mu¨nster: Nodus Publikationen.

Vena˚s K (1996). Da˚ tida var fullkomen. Ivar Aasen. Oslo: Novus Forlag. Walton S J (1996). Ivar Aasens kropp. Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget.

Abduction F Merrell, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In addition to the traditional division of inferential reasoning into two categories, deduction and induction, Charles S. Peirce has added a third term – that of abduction. For Peirce, deduction is a logical inferential matter, much as tradition had it, and induction involves the process we would ordinarily term confirmation of deduced hypotheses through observation of particular cases. But how is it that hypotheses come about in the first place? Peirce surmised that there must be some process of insight, or abduction, which then leads to some hypothetical plausibility that precedes the actual logical construction of a hypothesis. This insight, he believed, must follow some style of reasoning and inference of which deductive reasoning knows little (Peirce, 1958: 7.218). Inference can in general be explicative or ampliative. If explicative, it is analytical, involving deduction of the necessary consequence leading from a hypothesis. If ampliative, it is synthetic, involving the creation of a hypothesis by abductive inference and the subsequent confirmation of the hypothesis by means of experience in the physical world (Peirce, 1931–1935: 2.776). Abductive inference initially emerges when there is a surprise, because something other than what was expected occurred. From the surprise, creation of a plausible explanation emerges (abduction); the plausible explanation gives rise to a hypothesis to the effect that in case certain conditions were to inhere, in all such cases a certain consequence would likely ensue (deduction); and if a particular instance of that case confirms the hypothesis, then the confirmation would become what should be expected in all such cases (induction). In this sense, abduction proceeds from a present surprise to what might happen in future instances comparable to the present, deduction passes from the feeling that what might happen should happen in future instances when certain conditions are in place, and induction

proceeds from what actually happened in past and present instances toward a general idea regarding all comparable instances (Peirce, 1931–1935: 2.636). On merging abduction with his belief that feeling has its own style of reasoning, Peirce occasionally suggested that the abductive act is an instinctive capacity of the sufficiently prepared mind for informed guesses, for the mind has ‘‘a natural bent in accordance with nature’’ (Peirce, 1931–1935: 6.478). Can there indeed be a ‘logic’ for creating hypotheses? Tradition responds with an emphatic ‘No.’ Karl Popper, a critic of the idea of a logical process for hypothesis making, wrote that the act of conceiving a hypothesis is not logical; it is the result of blind guesses (Popper, 1959: 20–21). Peirce, in contrast, argued that guesses are informed by the instinctive mind that has been able to get in tune with nature. Only in this manner, he believed, can we abduce what might be, from a virtually infinity of possibilities, with a remarkable degree of wisdom. Abducing what might be, then, is more a matter of instinctive cunning than mere chance. After the abductive act, the ‘reasoning’ mind can take over in determining what should be and what actually is. See also: Creativity in Language; Inference: Abduction, Induction, Deduction; Presupposition.

Bibliography Anderson D R (1986). ‘The evolution of Peirce’s concept of abduction.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 22(2), 145–164. Ayim M (1979). ‘Retroduction: the rational instinct.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 10(2), 34–43. Brown W M (1983). ‘The economy of Peirce’s abduction.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 19(4), 397–411. Burks A W (1946). ‘Peirce’s theory of abduction.’ Philosophy and Science 13, 301–306. Eco U & Sebeok T A (eds.) (1983). The sign of three: Dupin, Holmes, Peirce. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

6 Abduction Fann K T (1970). Peirce’s theory of abduction. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Frankfurt H (1958). ‘Peirce’s notion of abduction.’ The Journal of Philosophy 55, 593–597. Hanson N R (1961). ‘Is there a logic of discovery?’ In Feigl H & Maxwell G (eds.) Current issues in philosophy of science. New York: Holt, Reinhart, and Winston. 20–35. Harris J F & Hoover K (1983). ‘Abduction and the new riddle of induction.’ In Freeman E (ed.) The relevance of Charles Peirce. LaSalle, IL: Open Court. 132–145. Hintikka J (1998). ‘What is abduction? The fundamental problem of contemporary epistemology.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 34(3), 503–533. Hoffmann M (1999). ‘Problems with Peirce’s concept of abduction.’ Foundations of Science 4, 271–305. Pape H (1999). ‘Abduction and the topology of human cognition.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 30(2), 248–269. Peirce C S (1931–1935). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols 1–6, Hartshorne C & Weiss P (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Peirce Charles Sanders (1958). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols 7–8, Burks A W (ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ponzio A (1985). ‘The symbol, alterity, and abduction.’ Semiotica 56(3/4), 261–277. Sabre R M (1990). ‘Peirce’s abductive argument and the enthymeme.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 26(3), 362–372. Santaella L (1991). ‘Instinct, logic, or the logic of instinct?’ Semiotica 83(1/2), 123–141. Savan D (1980). ‘Abduction and semantics.’ In Rauch I & Carr G F (eds.) The signifying animal. The grammar of language and experience. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 252–262. Staat W (1993). ‘On abduction, deduction, induction and the categories.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 29(2), 225–237. Turrisi P (1990). ‘Peirce’s logic of discovery: abduction and universal categories.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 26(4), 465–497. Wirth U (1999). ‘Abductive reasoning in Peirce’s and Davidson’s account of interpretation.’ Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 35(2), 115–127.

Abercrombie, David (1909–1992) J Kelly, Leeds, UK ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

David Abercrombie, a British phonetician, was responsible for establishing and directing the Department of Phonetics at the University of Edinburgh, a major European center of work in the discipline during the latter half of the 20th century. Abercrombie was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire. After study under Daniel Jones at University College, London, and at the Institut de Phone´ tique in Paris, he worked briefly at the London School of Economics and then in an English teaching post with the British Council, which took him to Greece and Egypt during the years of World War II. On his return to Britain, a short spell at the University of Leeds led to his move to Edinburgh in 1948 to take up the headship of the newly founded Department of Phonetics. He was to spend the rest of his career in Edinburgh, retiring as Professor of Phonetics in 1980, and it was there that he died. His department was just one of a number of establishments in the university dedicated to the language sciences that were brought into being during the years following World War II. Others were a Department of General Linguistics, a School of Applied Linguistics, and the Linguistic Survey of Scotland.

The theoretical outlook of all of these was unified to quite a considerable degree since many members of their staffs had been students in London under J. R. Firth. Abercrombie himself had come under Firth’s influence when a student at University College, where Firth held his first London teaching post between 1928 and 1938; and the Edinburgh Phonetics Department was to include other teachers who had studied either at University College or at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. By the time of Abercrombie’s retirement, the three teaching departments had amalgamated. Abercrombie saw his subject as in no way an adjunct to language teaching and learning, a position to which it could sometimes be relegated in universities, but as an independent discipline of long pedigree with manifold connections into, and implications for, other disciplines and a wide range of applications in everyday life and in the world of work. The sets of courses that he designed for his department reflected his interests and convictions. He had an unrivaled knowledge of several centuries of work in phonetics, gathered from assiduous reading in the British Museum during his student days, and was often able to point out in discussion that this or that ‘new’ idea, technique, or technical term was not, in fact, all that new. From this early study arose his belief that some knowledge of the history of the subject was an indispensable part of the