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While Hurley discusses only four kinds of deductive syllogisms (see note 2), he discusses six kinds of inductive syllogisms: (1) prediction; (2) argument from analogy; (3) inductive generalization; (4) argument from authority; (5) argument based on signs; and (6) causal inference (Hurley 1985: 28-29). In each instance, the standard is "probability": the conclusion in some way moves beyond the premises to something that is less familiar or that little is known about, but the reasoning has warrants and grounds that make it reasonable to think that the conclusion is probable. Still another means of moving toward new knowledge is through abductive reasoning, "that form of reasoning in which a recognizable similarity between A and B proposes the possibility of further similarity" (Gregory Bateson in Bateson and Bateson 1987:206; cf. Lanigan 1995: 60). Abductive reasoning draws an insight in the context of similarity a person observes among phenomena in different fields. There is disagreement among interpreters whether the rhetor or inquirer "invents" or "discovers" similarity. Richard L. Lanigan proposes that "By shock, question, puzzlement, surprise, and the like, the rhetor or inquirer discovers similarity" in a context of deductive and inductive reasoning (Lanigan 1995:59). In the words of C. S. Peirce:
"Putting together what we had never before dreamed of putting together" is in many ways a key to understanding abductive reasoning. When the context of reasoning is a deductive-inductive cycle of argumentation, abduction regularly is a matter of putting the case (grounds or minor premise) together with the result (claim or conclusion) in a way that discovers a new insight. This new combination of case and result becomes a case (grounds or minor premise) that creates a new result (claim or conclusion).3 We will see instances of this in the enthymemic logia within the first nineteen logia in the Gospel of Thomas. Since the abductive process is perhaps the most difficult aspect of this essay to 3 "On Sabre's account..., the abduction creates as its conclusion (...claim) a hypothesis [All S are M] [Robbins addition: or "If...then...], which supplies...the minor premise (...warrant) of the rhetor's deduction supplied...by the conclusion [All M are P] of an induction (...backing). The deductive conclusion [All S are P] is susceptible to material error (...reservation) since (a) it has already functioned as the all important minor premise in the abduction -- a premise [All S are P!] intuitively (non-logically) generated in shock, question, puzzlement or assertion (...qualifier), and (b) since the major premise of the deduction and the abduction are identical [All M are P]. Note that the deduction relies on the claim that M and P are identical, hence the hypothesis that P either explains the meaning of S or not. By contrast, the abduction relies on the claim that M and P are similar, hence the hypothesis that M explains the meaning of both S and P, as Sabre correctly notes for the wrong reasons. The right reasons involve a contemporary understanding of tropic logic as it emerges in rhetoric, not science" (Lanigan 1995: 61, referring to Sabre 1990: 365-369). Back |