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New Light on Peirce's Conceptions of

Retroduction, Deduction, and Scientific
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Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen & Francesco Bellucci
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International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2014
Vol. 28, No. 4, 353 373, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02698595.2014.979667
New Light on Peirces Conceptions of

Retroduction, Deduction, and
Scientific Reasoning
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen and Francesco Bellucci
We examine Charles S. Peirces mature views on the logic of science, especially as con-
tained in his later and still mostly unpublished writings (19071914). We focus on two
main issues. The first concerns Peirces late conception of retroduction. Peirce conceived
inquiry as performed in three stages, which correspond to three classes of inferences:
abduction or retroduction, deduction, and induction. The question of the logical form
of retroduction, of its logical justification, and of its methodology stands out as the
three major threads in his later writings. The other issue concerns the second stage of scien-
tific inquiry, deduction. According to Peirces later formulation, deduction is divided not
only into two kinds (corollarial and theorematic) but also into two sub-stages: logical
analysis and mathematical reasoning, where the latter is either corollarial or theorematic.
Save for the inductive stage, which we do not address here, these points cover the essentials
of Peirces latest thinking on the logic of science and reasoning.
1. Introduction
One century after Charles S. Peirces death (Milford, Penn., 19 April 1914), decisive
questions continue to arise in attempting to reconstruct his mature views on the
logic of science and on the nature of logical reasoning. It is well known that Peirce
explicated the logic of science by dividing scientific reasoning into three general
kinds: abduction (or retroduction), deduction, and induction. It is also well known
that these are, for the late Peirce, three stages of inquiry rather than different kinds
of inferences: first comes abduction, the process of forming an explanatory conjecture,
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen is at the Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Tech-
nology, and the Centre for Epistemology and Cognitive Science, Xiamen University. Francesco Bellucci is at the
Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology. Correspondence to:
Ragnar Nurkse innovatsiooni ja valitsemise instituut, Tallinna Tehnikaulikool, Ehitajate tee 5, 19086 Tallinn,
Estonia. E-mail: ahti-veikko.pietarinen@ttu.ee, bellucci.francesco@gmail.com
2015 Open Society Foundation

354 A.-V. Pietarinen and F. Bellucci
then follows deduction which calculates the consequences of the hypothesis, and
finally comes induction, in which the consequences of the hypothesis are put to the
experimental test.
The true picture, however, is more complex than this. Both science and logic become
increasingly more integrated and intertwined as we approach his later and still largely
unpublished material of the years 19071914. We find piles of pages and drafts in which
Peirce struggled to put the pieces together, to gain a final overview which his earlier, still
considerably better known publications did not quite achieve. In these late papers,
Peirce tackles topics such as the ultimate nature of scientific discovery, the precise
role of fallibilism in inquiry, the methodology of science, the role of diagrams and
imagination in deduction, and the overall grounds for the validity of reasoning,
especially of the non-necessary, that is abductive and inductive, forms of reasoning.
We focus on a couple of aspects of these areas that we believe present considerable

novelty. The first concerns Peirces late conception of abduction, which following his
later use we here term retroduction. Retroduction, the least secure though the most
fertile of the three kinds of reasoning, has for Peirce a definite logical form. The
well-known account of retroduction offered in the 1903 Harvard Lectures, and
often tacitly regarded as Peirces definitive statement (Fann 1970; Kapitan 1992,
1997; Kruijff 2005), is only one among several other attempts to construe retroduc-
tions logical form. The fact that Peirce recurrently returned to this problem suggests
that he remained unsatisfied with the 1903 account. Moreover, Peirces later writings
offer ample evidence of his continued preoccupation with the question of the justifica-
tion and methods of retroduction. In 1883 he had argued that the validity of both
induction and retroduction (called hypothesis at that time) depends upon the validity
of the statistical syllogism of which they are the inversion. But while he never aban-
doned the statistical view, he also argued that the justification of retroductive reason-
ing is based on retroductive reasoning itself. The methodology of retroduction should
be derived from its justification, for in the absence of any definite criterion one must
resort to the reasons of why this kind of reasoning is of any use at all, and thereby to its
justification.
Equally interesting and likewise previously unacknowledged in the literature is our
finding that Peirces final view was that the second stage of inquiry, deduction, consists
of two sub-stages. Peirces first real discovery in the philosophy of mathematical
reasoning had been the identification of two kinds of deductive reasoning, the corol-
larial, in which the conclusion follows immediately or trivially from the premises, and
the theorematic, in which the conclusion follows mediately or non-trivially from some
modification of the premises. The importance and relevance of the distinction has
been acknowledged by many (Haaparanta 1994; Levy 1997; Shin 1997; Hoffmann
1999; Cooke 2010; Stjernfelt 2014), though perhaps most effectively by Hintikka
(1980). Hintikka argued that the distinction between corollarial and theorematic
reasoning could be reformulated as follows: a deductive step is theorematic if it
increases the number of layers of quantifiers, otherwise it is corollarial.
What has not been recognized, however, is that the distinction itself, first set forth
in 1901, underwent significant modifications in Peirces later thought. Around
International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 355
19071908 Peirce came to think that any deduction whatever is actually preceded by
what he now calls logical analysis. Deduction is thereby divided into two sub-stages:
logical analysis and demonstration proper, in which the latter may be either corollarial
or theorematic. Further, the split of deduction into stages was accompanied by the par-
allel emergence in the same years of the idea of a theoric step, which for the late Peirce
is the peculiar theorematic element of theorematic reasoning.
The article is divided as follows. Section 2 concerns Peirces conception of retroduc-
tion, its justification (2.1) and its methodology (what Peirce called methodeutic, 2.2).
Section 3 deals with deduction and its sub-stages, logical analysis (3.1) and theore-
matic demonstration (3.2). Overall, save for the inductive stage, which we do not
address here, these points cover the essentials of what we take Peirce to have encom-
passed with his perennial integrated logic of science and reasoning.
2. The First Stage of Inquiry: Retroduction

As a consequence of the step first taken around 1901 (Fann 1970, 3132), Peirce
moved from considering abduction, deduction, and induction as three different
kinds of reasoning to considering them as three different stages of scientific inquiry.
While belonging to different stages of inquiry, the three modes of reasoning nonethe-
less are different in kind: There are three kinds of reasoning based upon as many
utterly distinct purposes and principles. They are severally used in the three logical
stages of research (MS 756, 1, c. 1906). To signal their double nature (both stages
and kinds) Peirce in his later writings prefers to speak of grades (MS 843, 1908),
orders (MS 752, 1914), and types (MS 905, 1908) of reasoning.
In the first stage of inquiry, a hypothesis is put forth in order to account for some
surprising phenomenon. The kind of reasoning employed in this stage is what Peirce
had called hypothesis in 1865, abduction in 1878, and retroduction in 1898, after
which the latter two terms are used largely coextensively. Here is one of his last expli-
cations of retroduction from 1911:
By Retroduction I mean that kind of reasoning by which, upon finding ourselves
confronted by a state of things that, taken by itself, seems almost or quite incompre-
hensible, or extremely complicated if not very irregular, or at least surprising, we are
led to suppose that perhaps there is, in fact, another definite state of things, because,
though we do not perceive any unequivocal evidence of it, nor even of a part of it (or
independently of such evidence if it does exist), we yet perceive that this supposed
state of things would shed a light of reason upon the state of facts with which we are
confronted, rendering it comprehensible, likely (if not certain), or comparatively
simple and natural. (MS 856, 3 4, April 1911)
Closely related characterizations abound in his late writings. For instance, in On an
Unpretentious Argument for the Reality of God (MS 905, 1908, a significant earlier
draft of the published Neglected Argument for the Reality of God), Peirce character-
izes retroduction as the search for ways in which
the complexity of experience may be seen to be embraced under a unitary concept,
or idea; and [in] this search he is at length thus led to some more or less reasonable
conjecture, which would subsume if positively asserted the facts of experience under
such a concept. This is the first and logical stage of inquiry. I call it retroduction
because it starts at consequents and recedes to a conjectural antecedent from
which these consequents would, or might very likely logically follow. (MS 905)
We feel that such late portrayals of retroductive reasoning are richer and better
thought out than what is found in the usually quoted schematics that comes from
the 1903 Harvard Lectures:
The surprising fact, C, is observed.
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (CP 5.189)
This schema, dubbed classic in Psillos (2011), and routinely but wrongly glossed as
Peirces definite formulation of the logical form of abduction, does not carry out its
duties in full. There are several reasons for the schemas inadequacy, of which we
mention only one that has caused confusion in the earlier literature. The schema
may misleadingly suggest that abductive reasoning corresponds to the inference to
the best explanation (Harman 1965) or to one of its deflated versions (Lipton
2004). Retroductive processes have relatively little to do with inferences to the best
explanation, however, as has by now been acknowledged in the relevant literature
(see e.g. Hintikka 1998; Minnameier 2004; Paavola 2004; Tiercelin 2005; Campos
2011).
This matter is so important as to merit a specific further point. A feature of a
hypothesis or conjecture may well be that it should explain the facts. Peirce observes
that while in many cases the truth of the hypothesis retroductively inferred may be said
to explain the facts observed, yet what certainly happens in all cases of retroduction is
that
a knowledge that the retroductive hypothesis was actually true would suffice to cause
a knowledge that the original experience would be (or would probably be) such as
they actually were. It thus, at any rate, explains, if not the objective (or in my
language, the real) facts, at least how the knowledge of them would be produced
by a knowledge of the truth of the hypothesis. (MS 905, 1908)
It is not necessary that the hypothesis explain any actual fact. It suffices for Peirce that
the truth of the hypothesis would render the facts at least inferrable, that is, capable of
being known by reasoning. The explanatory role of retroduction is condensed in the
relation between the explaining conjectures and the explananda, which is a subjunctive
conditional: if in such circumstances the hypothesis were true, then the surprising fact
would follow therefrom deductively or syllogistically. The explanation that retroduc-
tion affords is in Peirces terms a syllogism exhibiting the surprising fact as necessarily
following from the circumstances of its occurrence together with the truth of the con-
jecture as premises (MS 843, 41, 1908). Such explaining syllogism is the inversion of
the 1903 formula:
If A were true, C would be observable.
A is true.
Therefore, C is observable.
Moreover, one significant yet until now an entirely unknown formulation of the
schema of retroduction is found in one of Peirces unpublished draft letters to Victoria
Welby:
[The] interrogative mood does not mean the mere idle entertainment of an idea. It
means that it will be wise to go to some expense, dependent upon the advantage that
would accrue from knowing that Any/Some S is M, provided that expense would
render it safe to act on that assumption supposing it to be true. This is the kind
of reasoning called reasoning from consequent to antecedent. For it is related to
the Modus Tollens thus:
Modus Tollens Abduction

If A is True, C {is not/is} true If A is true, C {is not/is} true
But C {is/is not} true But C {is not/is} true

Therefore, A is not true. Therefore, Is A not true?
Instead of interrogatory, the mood of the conclusion might more accurately be

called investigand, and be expressed as follows:
It is to be inquired whether A is not true.

The reasoning might be called Reasoning from Surprise to Inquiry. (Peirce to
Welby, 16 July 1905, MS L 463)
We will return to the relationship between the expenses and the advantages. What is
striking in this description of abduction is the logical form that Peirce attributes to
it: at bottom, it is reasoning in Modus Tollens in which the consequent is affirmed
rather than negated and in which the conclusion is put in the interrogative mood
rather than in the indicative. Peirce also adds that the mood of the conclusion is
not, properly speaking, interrogative. As the conclusion does not present a given
hypothesis for contemplation, it merely suggests that it would be reasonable, given
the overall goals and the context of investigation, to inquire whether a given hypothesis
is true or not. The schema does not commit one to the truth of the hypothesis; it
merely suggests the adoption of hypothesis to be reasonable in the sense of proposing
specific strategic advantages to those who adopt it.
The peculiar interrogative or investigand mood attributed to the conclusion of a
retroductive inference has to do with Peirces parallel experimentation with different
kinds of speech acts and modalities in his classification of signs and in his tinc-
tured/coloured extensions of the diagrammatic system of Existential Graphs (Pietari-
nen 2015). In particular, the extension of the 1903 notion of proposition (dicisigns,
CP 2.310) to the 1906 notion of pheme (CP 4.538) was motivated by his growing
interest in the logic of non-declarative and non-assertive signs. While Peirces 1903
theory of propositions as dicisigns covers non-linguistic and non-symbolic prop-
ositions (Stjernfelt 2014), the 1906 extension was intended to cover a variety of
speech acts. In 1906 we find for the first time a division of signs into ponents (indica-
tive propositions), imperatives, and interrogatives (MS 499, 10, 1906). When he
later classifies signs into ejaculative, or merely giving utterance to feeling; Imperative,
including, of course, Interrogatives; Significative (CP 8.369, 1908), he is subsuming
the interrogative sign under the imperatives (interrogatives are requests for infor-
mation). This is the key point concerning the semantics of questions. For instance,
we may consider the abductive conclusion, such as Is A not true?, as the request
Bring it about whether A!. Remarkably, Peirce includes different kinds of speech
acts (Brock 1981; Hilpinen 1982; Pietarinen 2006) within logic, under that extended
notion of proposition that he called pheme. The reason for this move is evident: if
the conclusion of retroductive inferences is a peculiar variety of interrogation, the
logical status of interrogations becomes of utmost importance to the logician.
Overall, the finding that the logical form of retroductive reasoning has in Peirces
work as its conclusion a request for information vindicates Hintikka (1998), who pro-
posed that abductive inferences aim at answering the inquirers questions put to some
definite source of information (cf. Tiercelin 2008).
According to Peirces late view, logic is concerned with retroduction in two senses.
On the one hand, logic has to provide a justification for retroductive reasoning. Peirce
divides the normative science of logic into three branches: speculative grammar, which
is the physiology of signs, critics, which examines the validity and relative strength of
reasonings, and methodeutic, which studies the principles of valuable research and
exposition (MS 478, 42, 1903). The justification of retroduction is the bottom ques-
tion of logical critic (EP 2, 443, 1908). On the other hand, once critic has justified ret-
roduction, it is up to methodeutic to teach how to reason retroductively in an effective
way. Abductions are for Peirce the only ones in which after they have been admitted to
be just, it still remains to inquire whether they are advantageous (MS L 75, 1902). The
following subsections deal with the critic and methodeutic of retroduction,
respectively.
2.1. The Justification of Retroduction

What is the ground of validity of retroductive reasoning? Peirce admits that such a
question, though the central one of logic, is elusive from its very simplicity, its
tenuity, or, what I shall say,its lubricity, not presenting any hold for discussion
(MS 905). Did he provide a definite answer somewhere? It has been maintained
that Peirce took abduction to be justified by induction and induction by deduction,
each nonetheless retaining its distinct leading principle and distinct role in inquiry
(Forster 1989). Peirce presents such a view in 1902, stating that as induction is
proved to be valid by necessary deduction, so this presumptive inference must be
proved valid by induction from experience (CP 2.786). He also claimed that both
induction and retroduction manifest a deductive rationale:
While Abductive and Inductive reasoning are utterly irreducible, either to the other
or to Deduction, or Deduction to either of them, yet the only rationale of these
methods is essentially Deductive or Necessary. If then we can state wherein the val-
idity of Deductive reasoning lies, we shall have defined the foundation of logical
goodness of whatever kind. (CP 5.146, 1903)
If this were the whole story, however, the central question of logical critic would be
solved at once: the justification of abduction simply would be deductive. But the
last passage unmistakeably shows that Peirces position is more complex than it
usually has been taken to be.
In his early writings Peirce had claimed that the three leading principles of inference
are indemonstrable, namely that each of them so far as it can be proved must be
proved by means of that kind of inference of which it is the ground, or otherwise
the former kind of inference would be reduced to the latter (W 1, 280, 1865). The
principle of deduction has therefore to be proved deductively, the principle of induc-
tion inductively, and the principle of abduction abductively (W 1, 280 283). The truth
of each principle thus depends on the validity of the inference of which it is the leading
principle (W 1, 184185). One might object that grounding retroduction upon
another retroduction would launch us into a vicious circle. But the threat of infinite
regress never preoccupied Peirce much. He even argued explicitly for a recursive struc-
ture of leading principles (W 1, 412415, 1866; CP 2.466, 1867; CP 3.166, 1880; MS
441, 1898; Bellucci 2013).
In A Theory of Probable Inference, published in Studies in Logic in 1883, Peirce
explained inductions and hypotheses to be inferences from the conclusion and one
premise of a statistical syllogism to the other premise (Peirce 1883, 147). The statistical
syllogism of which induction and abduction are the inversion is called explanatory syl-
logism. In order for an induction or hypothesis to have any validity, it is requisite that
the explanatory syllogism should be a valid statistical deduction (Peirce 1883, 148). It
is to this 1883 doctrine that Peirce would later refer in discussing the validity of induc-
tion and retroduction:
As for the other two types of inference Induction and Retroduction, I have shown
that they are nothing but apagogical transformations of deduction and that the
question of the value of any such reasoning is at once reduced to the question of
the accuracy of a Deduction. (MS 751, 4, 1898)
The validity of Induction consists in the fact it proceeds according to a method
which though it may give provisional results that are incorrect will yet if steadily
pursued, eventually correct any such error. The two propositions, that all Induction
possesses this kind of validity, and that no Induction possesses any other kind that is
more than a further determination of this kind, are both susceptible of demon-
stration by necessary reasoning. The demonstrations are given in my Johns
Hopkins paper. (MS 293, 1907)
Peirce considers the 1883 doctrine of the explanatory syllogism valid still in 1907. A
consequence of this is that, since all deduction is diagrammatic, retroduction, and
induction also depend on diagrammatic reasoning. The dependence of retroduction
on diagrammatic reasoning, either direct or indirect, is indeed a recurring theme in
Peirces later writings (see e.g. MS 293). It is dependent on transformations between
propositions that are not unlike those on which deduction depends. The difference
is that in retroductive transformations one has to deal with extended kinds of prop-
ositions (phemes), as only those can represent and capture what the essential charac-
ters of the meaning of questions is.
However, that the validity of induction ultimately rests on deductive reasoning does
not imply that induction becomes reduced to deduction, just as the possibility that ret-
roduction be justified also inductively and deductively does not reduce it to either of
them. On the contrary, Peirce affirms that each kind of reasoning is also justified by its
own means. The justification for induction, Peirce states, in general rests upon certain
inductions, and the justification of deduction in general rests upon certain deduc-
tions. From these two justifications he draws a conjecture that the justification of ret-
roduction must rest upon certain explanatory conjectures (MS 328, 46, c. 1905).
Let us turn to the retroductive justification of retroduction. Peirce recurrently
returned to this problem. He had concluded that man has an instinct for guessing cor-
rectly, inductively proved by the history of physics (MS 690692, 1901). But plain
instinct is problematic in that it does not possess a logical form and is not subject
to logical criticism (see e.g. Anderson 1986). Suggesting instinct as a justification of

retroduction would amount to confessing that no justification was given at all (EP
2, 443, 1908). On Peircean principles, we call instinctive a process by which we pass
directly from a proposition to another without any mediation, while we call reasoning
a process by which we pass from a proposition to another mediately, that is, upon
some reason. In reasoning, there must be some voluntary and controlled act that
can evaluate the conclusion with respect to a range of other alternative acts. Only in
this way can one distinguish acts of reasoning from these other kinds of acts, such
as instinctive and involuntary ones. Therefore, in so far as a given retroduction is per-
formed according to some such principles governing voluntary and controlled acts, it is
subject to logic. Now, what is the principle that could give retroduction its validity?
Peirces answer is that retroductive inference is valid if it is the result of a method
that must lead to the truth if . . . it is possible to attain the truth. Namely we must
assume the human mind has a power of divining the truth, since if not it is hopeless
even to reason (MS 276, 39, 1910). Here we find the substance of Peirces argument for
the justification of retroduction (MS 328, 46 47; MS 876, 34). The leading principle
of retroduction is that nature is explainable. This is the primary abduction, or Ur-
abduction, underlining all possible abductions (CP 7.220, 1901). In other words,
abduction is, as Forster (1989, 434) has it, inescapable. But the retroductive justifica-
tion of retroduction does not prevent it from being justified also inductively:
If Retroduction be constantly employed as a method, wherever Deduction and
Induction are impossible, it must, in the whole lead us closer to the truth than
we can otherwise come. For there is no other rational method. This is a verdict of
pure logic, taking no account of the discoveries of the special sciences. But since all
modern science depends ultimately on this method, its history furnishes such a
sample of intelligent hypotheses, that a student of that history must be blind not
to see that mans mind has a certain power of divining the truth. (MS 638, 14
15, 1909; emphasis added)
Retroduction is supported inductively by the fact that scientists have been able to
arrive at true hypotheses before long, which shows that there is what Peirce took to
be a decided affinity between mans reasoning and the facts reasoned about. Peirce
talks about the power of retroduction and an instinct of Just Reasoning (MS 334)
or lume naturale, especially as far as discoveries in physics are concerned (MS 873, 13
15, 1908). The validity of retroduction is, in part, grounded on experience. But the
argument from the history of science is just one of the justifications of retroduction:
the verdict of pure logic invoked in the preceding passage is that retroduction is valid
in so far as nature is explainable at all. No full answer to why retroduction ought to be
trusted can solely consist of experiential facts and inductive generalization on the basis
of them.
If we identify the rationale mentioned in the Harvard Lectures with the explana-
tory syllogism of 1883, then Peirces mature position may be recovered as follows.
There are three different kinds of reasoning irreducible to the others, each governed
by a specific leading principle. In the first place, induction and retroduction presuppose
the validity of deduction, because they are inversions of a statistical deduction. They
cannot be valid unless their explanatory syllogism is valid. Second, retroduction

draws its validity additionally from the history of science by induction. Finally, each
has its own ground of validity, which is deductive in deduction, inductive in induc-
tion, and retroductive in retroduction. Only deduction is justified only deductively.
Induction is justified deductively (Peirce 1883; CP 2.786, 1902; MS 293, 1906) and
inductively (W 1, 280283; MS 328, c. 1905). Retroduction is justified deductively
(Peirce 1883; CP 5.146, 1903; MS 293, 1906), inductively (CP 2.786, 1902; MS 638,
1909), and retroductively (W 1, 280283; MS 328, c. 1905).
2.2. The Rules of Retroduction

The problems connected with the justification of retroduction prompted Peirce to
direct his attention to the methodological side of the question. Retroduction needs
methodeutic because, although the most fruitful of the kinds of reasoning (Peirces
term here was the most uberous, EP 2, 472, 1913), it is the least secure. In other
words, while the question of retroductions logical form and justification belong to
logical critics, all remaining principles and rules of retroductive logic belong to the
methodological part. In still other words, the rules that ought to be followed in retro-
duction are, generally speaking, strategic rather than definitory rules (Hintikka 1998;
Paavola 2004).
Peirces repeated claim is that the rules that ought to be followed in retroduction
must be deducible from the reasons why this stage of inquiry should be of any use
(MS 905). It is important to distinguish the study of this stage of inquiry carried out
by the logician (logica docens) from the practice of retroduction performed by the scien-
tist (logica utens). Logica docens teaches how to implement our natural logica utens. This
is the task of a methodeutic of retroduction, different from those instinctive habits of
reasoning which Burks (1946, 303) described as pertaining to the logica utens which
can be developed by abductive logic but which it is the task of logic to bring into criti-
cal consciousness. What are, then, the teachings of retroductive logica docens?
The first, obvious feature that allows a hypothesis or conjecture to count as a
rational one is that it might explain the facts observed. This is certainly a
methodological rule deriving directly from the retroductive justification of retroduc-
tion, as required by Peirces dictum that the rules should derive from the reasons why
this stage of inquiry should be of any use.
Second, that which limits the spectrum of possible explanations of the facts is the
testability of hypotheses: those hypotheses must be maintained which have observable
or generally experienceable consequences (MS 637, 12, 1909). We can observe that his
philosophy of pragmaticism teaches largely the same thing (CP 5.196, 1903; Misak
1994) and that this second criterion renders the first superfluous: any experimental
hypothesis will explain the facts, while the reverse is not true.
Thirdly, the rules that apply to experimental hypotheses are the rules of economy.
This is what Peirce had in mind when he wrote to Lady Welby that it is reasonable
to adopt a given hypothesis if it will be wise to go to some expense to put the hypoth-
esis to test, dependent upon the advantage that would accrue from knowing the truth
of the hypothesis. Peirces argument for the quality of economy for the rules of retro-
ductive reasoning is roughly the following. The logical validity of abduction presup-
poses that nature be in principle explainable. But this means that to discover is
simply to expedite an event that would sooner or later come to pass. For what is
real is that which the scientific community would in the long run discover. A good
scientist can anticipate what retroduction would produce as its answers by making
good experienced guesses and investigating how those guesses would fare in the face
of other possible guesses. Peirce accordingly maintained that the whole service of
logic to science, whatever the nature of its services to individuals may be, is of the
nature of an economy (MS 691, 93, 1901). Economy for Peirce depends on three
factors: cost (of money, time, energy, thought), the value of the thing proposed,
and its effects upon other projects (MS L 75, 1902; CP 7.164231, 1901). If a scientist
does not have such positive facts at hand that would make some hypotheses objectively
more probable than some others, then she should select the cheapest ones, which could
for instance mean real cash value or the cognitively or the computationally cheapest
ones.
There is one further, methodological aspect of retroduction that gains prominence
in Peirces later writings. In the Neglected Argument Peirce refers to Galileos maxim
that hypothesis should be as simple as possible. If this maxim is taken in the literal
sense that hypotheses should be logically simple, namely they should add the least
to what has been observed, then, he argued, the following objections apply: (i) there
is in principle no reason why a logically simple hypothesis should be true; (ii) follow-
ing this maxim to perfection would require that we content ourselves with the very
facts observed; (iii) the facts to be explained are often logically quite complicated;
and (iv) those determinations that seemed not to contribute to the explanation
have often turned out to be the most valuable parts of the theories (MS 843, 61
63; EP 2, 444). If on the contrary Galileos maxim is taken to mean that those hypoth-
eses are preferable which are more natural and facile for the human mind than
another which renders the facts equally intelligible (MS 905), then the maxim
becomes perfectly reasonable. For Peirce, the value of logical simplicity is badly sec-
ondary to that of simplicity in the other sense (EP 2, 444445).
Besides the maxim of pragmatism, which suggests choosing experimental hypoth-

eses, and the maxim of economy, which suggests adopting the cheapest ones, we
have here a third maxim of retroduction: those hypotheses are preferable which are
simple in the Peircean Galilean sense. These three maxims (experientiality,
economy, and simplicity) are the bedrocks of Peirces methodeutic of retroductive
logic.
3. The Second Stage of Inquiry: Deduction

The engine of the second stage of inquiry is deduction. Generally speaking, deduction
is the gateway between what abduction outputs and what induction receives. Deduc-
tion has as its object those ideas, scenarios, hypotheses, and models generated by the
preceding stage that is powered by retroduction, of which deduction traces the necess-
ary consequences. The value of a hypothesis, whether about existing things or imagin-
ary objects, is in its practical, observable consequences, and in order to calculate these
consequences we must reason deductively. Deduction is possible only of a perfectly
ideal state of things and therefore only of a hypothesis as its premise.
What was the development of Peirces views on deduction? He had been working on
the algebra of logic since the late 1860s, but it is only in the mid-1880s that he grasps
how critical the idea that deduction is iconic is, and how that idea is then to gain pro-
minence in the overall logic of science. In 1878 he claimed that all deductions are alike
in character, and are merely the application of general rules to particular cases (CP
2.620). In 1883 he still conceived deduction in syllogistic terms as proceeding from
rule and case to result (Peirce 1883, 145). However, in the 1885 The Algebra of
Logic paper he advances for the first time the argument that deduction is iconic
and observational:
The truth, however, appears to be that all deductive reasoning, even simple syllo-
gism, involves an element of observation; namely, deduction consists in construct-
ing an icon or diagram the relations of whose parts shall present a complete analogy
with those of the parts of the object of reasoning, of experimenting upon this image
in the imagination, and of observing the results so as to discover unnoticed and
hidden relations among the parts. (Peirce 1885, 182)
All deductive reasoning is constructive or diagrammatic, even syllogism. In fact,
nothing can be deduced syllogistically from the premises unless we make the imagi-
native observation that the predicate of one premise is the subject of the other (MS
398, 2, 1893). But in syllogism such perceptual element is easily overlooked due to
the rudimentary nature of its illative process. Peirces logic of relatives, by contrast,
makes the observational element evident. The algebra of logic becomes grounded
upon icons (the axioms and rules) and the whole algebraic procedure is in this
sense iconic.
In July 1902, Peirce applied to the Carnegie Institution for financial support in
bringing his works on logic to completion. The application contained the plan for a
set of 36 Memoirs, or chapters, each devoted to a single topic, and the whole was
to present a theory of scientific reasoning (MS L 75, 29). The application, infamously
rejected, meant that the logic was never completed (Brent 1998, 278 290). The fourth
memoir, entitled Analysis of the Methods of Mathematical Demonstration, opened
with the affirmation that his first real discovery about mathematical procedure was
that there are two kinds of necessary reasoning, the corollarial and the theorematic
(MS L 75, 95). These he explained as follows:
Corollarial deduction is where it is only necessary to imagine any case in which the
premisses are true in order to perceive immediately that the conclusion holds in that
case. . . . Theorematic deduction is deduction in which it is necessary to experiment
in the imagination upon the image of the premiss in order from the result of such
experiment to make corollarial deductions to the truth of the conclusion. (MS L 75,
NEM 4, 38)
In corollarial reasoning, the diagram of the premises already represents the conclusion,
while in theorematic reasoning the diagram of the premises must be modified and
experimented upon in order that it might represent the conclusion. Once the manipu-
lation of the diagram is performed, the conclusion follows in a corollarial fashion.
It may be thought that the doctrine of theorematic and corollarial deduction, which
was a relatively late product of Peirces logical investigation, underwent no substantial
modification after its first formulation (MS 339, MS 692, 1901; MS L 75, 1902). It is
indeed true that Peirce would continue to refer to this distinction in roughly the same
terms in the following years. We see him explaining the distinction in a letter to
William James in December 1909 (NEM 3, 869870), for example. However, by
spring 1908 he had come to the conclusion that deduction is actually preceded by
logical analysis (MS 842, 43, 1908). In Peirces final formulations of this position
deduction is divided, first, into two sub-stages, logical analysis (also termed explica-
tion) and deduction proper (also termed mathematical reasoning or demonstration).
Second, the latter sub-stage is either corollarial or theorematic.
The evolution of his thoughts on this matter is evinced in the successive drafts of his
Neglected Argument paper. In the first version, MS 842, Peirce introduces the idea of
two different sub-stages of deduction, the logistic and the syllogical stage:
There are two kinds of deduction, for which no better designations have occurred to
me than the logistic and the syllogical substages of deduction, or definitory and
ratiocinative deduction. The former includes the analysis of concepts, the acqui-
sition of distinct ideas, and the transformation of them into fruitful forms. (MS
842, 35)
In a parallel passage of the same text, these sub-stages are termed branches: the div-
ision of Deduction into the two branches of Logical Analysis which clears up defi-
nitions and Demonstration which invents apodictic proofs (MS 842, 43). In the
second draft of the article, MS 843, these parts, sub-stages, or branches of deduction
are called explication and demonstration:
Deduction has two parts. For the first step must be to Explicate the hypothesis, i.e. to
render it perfectly distinct. This process of Explication or Logical Analysis is an
Argument, since it elicits truth; although it does not rest on distinctly formulated
premises. . . . To describe the process is not my intention: it closely resembles the
second part of Deduction, which is Demonstration. (MS 843, 44)
Yet in another draft, included in MS 905, Peirce puts the pieces together. Deduction is
in fact performed in two stages, the first of logical analysis and the second of math-
ematical deduction properly. It is this second stage that can be either theorematic or
corollarial:
And thus the whole stage of Deduction consists of two sub-stages, the first of logical
analysis and the second of mathematical reasoning, which I take to include syllogistic
reasoning. I may add that the second is again divisible into what I call corollarial and
theorematic reasoning, of which the latter requires the invention of a new icon, or ima-
ginary object diagram, while the former proceeds directly by syllogisms, results of pre-
vious logical analyses and mathematically reasoned conclusions. (MS 905)
This is the division of deduction that eventually goes in the published version of the
Neglected Argument:
Deduction has two parts. For its first step must be, by logical analysis, to Explicate
the hypothesis. . . . Explication is followed by Demonstration, or Deductive Argu-
mentation. . . . demonstration should be Corollarial when it can . . . while Theore-
matic Demonstration resorts to more complicated processes of thought. (EP 2,
441 442)
The metamorphosis of deduction in the drafts of the Neglected Argument is due, we
believe, to the increasing importance that Peirce accorded to logical analysis in his later
years. Logical analysis was becoming for him such an integral part of deduction that he
thought it better to consider the former as the first stage of the latter.
3.1. First Sub-stage: Logical Analysis

Any mathematical problem begins with the analysis of the state of things, real or ideal,
represented by the premise. Peirces father, the Harvard professor of mathematics Ben-
jamin Peirce (18091880), had defined mathematics as he science that draws necess-
ary conclusions (Peirce 1870, 2). Charles had much respect for Benjamins definition,
to which he added that that which is reasoned upon deductively must be a hypothetical
state of things: according to [Benjamins] definition mathematics must exclusively
relate to the substance of hypotheses (MS 15, 1011, c. 1895). The framing of the
hypothesis is therefore an integral part of the business of the mathematician.
Peirces 1895 emendation of Benjamins definition of mathematics contained in nuce
the later idea that logical analysis is an integral part of all deduction:
When a practical man,a manufacturer, an engineer, or legislator,finds himself
in a muddle as to what would be the effect of his doing something, although he
is in possession of data that it would seem ought to be sufficient to answer his ques-
tion,he has recourse to a mathematician. The mathematician, one may almost say,
can never answer the real question of the practical man, which is What will
happen? because mathematics is the science of the consequences of purely hypothe-
tical conditions. His first business, then, and often his main difficulty, is by logical
analysis to convert a question that is near enough to what the practical man
wants to know into a form in which the investigations of preceding mathematicians,
with such slight supplements as he can make to them, can be applied to its solution.
(MS 905; emphasis added)
As in 1895 mathematics proper was considered to begin with the framing of the
hypothesis, in 1908 it is maintained that it already begins at the level of logical analysis.
The first stage of deduction analyses the nature of premises and translates them into a
form that can be reasoned upon mathematically. Often, such translation involves a
generalization of the problem, and in order to generalize one constructs an icon, in
Peirces terms an intellectual photograph of the relation analyt1on [to be analysed]
(MS 842, 38, 1908). Such a generalized image or schema of the conditions of the
problem is obtained by discarding all the features of the problem that do not
belong to its form, that is, those that have no role in deduction. The image of the pre-
mises is a skeleton image, a diagram from which all superfluities have been removed.
While a concrete image appeals to the eye, Peirce takes a diagram to appeal to the
minds eye (MS 397, 1893; CP 3.556, 1898; CP 6.568, c. 1905; CP 4.564, 1906).
A number of philosophically central elements are involved in the investigation of the

nature and the workings of logical analysis. Peirce considered analysis to be the
decomposition of a concept into its constituent parts: if these are not more compli-
cated than the concept analyt1on, then that concept is said to have been analysed
in terms of its constituents (CP 1.294, c. 1905). Definitions are logical analyses of pre-
dicates in general terms (NEM 4, 237, 1904). The two notions of definition and logical
analysis are in fact nearly synonymous in Peirces later writings (e.g. NEM 3, 844, 1909;
MS 643, 1909; MS 653, 1910) and he understands the latter only slightly more widely
so as to include not only the analysis of concepts but also the transformation of them
into fruitful forms (MS 842, 35, 1908).
In logic, analysis may be contrasted with calculus. Peirce always considered that his
work in philosophy has consisted in an accurate analysis of concepts, showing what is
and what is not essential to the subject of analysis, while in logic, his motive for study-
ing the algebra of the subject, has been the desire to find out with accuracy what are the
essential ingredients of reasoning in general and of its principal kinds; he states that
to make a powerful calculus has not been in his interest (Peirce to Ladd-Franklin, MS
L 237, 29 August 1891). According to Peirce, one calculates when one seeks to reach the
conclusion from given premises in the least number of distinct steps or in the speediest
way possible. By contrast, one analyses something when one dissects it into its smallest
components and finds its elementary steps. The chief value of a notation lies in its
affording an aid in logical analysis (MS 450, 1903). For example, the chief instrument
of discovery in infinitesimal analysis had been Leibnizs notation for the differential,
the symbol d/dx, and not the routine that constitutes the calculus (MS 498, 1906; Pie-
tarinen 2014). Logical notations may differ in the level of analysis they provide: the
algebras of logic are more analytic than natural language, and Existential Graphs are
more analytic than algebra (MS 481, 1896; MS 1147, 1901; Pietarinen 2011; Legg
2013). The system of Existential Graphs alone, he argued, enables us to carry logical
analysis to the furthest point possible (MS 296, 1908). The contrast between analysis
and calculus would remain a constant theme in Peirces later logical thought (MS 498
499; Pietarinen 2014).
That mathematics, the practice of deduction, also involves logical analysis is percep-
tively acknowledged in Levys (1997) discussion of the theorematic/corollarial
distinction. Peirce notoriously contrasted mathematics and formal logic as the science
that draws necessary conclusions and the science of drawing necessary conclusion,
respectively (CP 4.239). In a sense, logic depends on mathematics because mathemat-
ics is the emporium of deduction (MS 328). But Levy showed how for Peirce the
mathematician may avail herself of the aid of logical analysis and thus of logic. For
example, the principal problem of the doctrine of multitude (set theory) is to form
a definition of a collection, a problem that Peirce considered to be a logical one
(NEM 3, 1070). When Peirce wrote to Cantor in 1900 he acknowledged him precisely
for his accomplishments on being able to frame those exact hypotheses by the analysis
of unclear notions, which made Cantor in Peirces estimate a logician of our school of
Exact Logic (NEM 3, 769). This is a consequence of the 1895 amendment of Benja-
mins definition (the framing of hypothesis becomes part of mathematics), later
reflected in the 1908 development documented above (logical analysis becomes the
first stage of all deduction).
Peirce came to see a strict connection between logical analysis and that kind of
abstraction that he called hypostatic. That a collection is a hypostatic abstraction is
revealed as soon as the notion of collection is properly defined: Peirce took a collection
to be a substance whose existence consists in the existence of certain other things
called its members (NEM 4, 164, 1903). Hypostatic abstraction is the operation of
turning the predicate of a proposition into the subject position. By hypostatic abstrac-
tion we convert or analyse (1) Socrates is wise into (2) Socrates possesses wisdom.
Hypostatic abstraction is a necessary inference whose conclusion refers to a subject
not referred to by the premiss (CP 4.463, 1903). (1) does not mention wisdom;
yet the derivation of (2) from (1) is a necessary one.
In one of the most crucial drafts of the Neglected Argument, logical analysis is said
to be irreducible to ordinary (syllogistic or corollarial) reasoning:
But this second stage of inquiry which I call Deduction, very commonly involves a
process of logical analysis which, as far as I see, cannot be reduced to the ordinary
necessary reasoning. . . . By the aid of logical analysis . . . we convert B is heavy into
B has weight. No doubt by introducing suitable definitions as premisses the same
result can be reached syllogistically; but that is only because logical analysis has
aided in the formation of those definitions. (MS 905)
What is striking about this passage is that as an example of logical analysis Peirce pre-
sents a clear case of what he in other places calls hypostatic abstraction. The argument
is that the logical analysis of the proposition B is heavy as B has weight introduces an
element that cannot be obtained by corollarial deductive reasoning alone. That analy-
sis is not merely a superficial modification of the form of expression. In hypostatic
abstraction, a modification in the form of expression is actually a passing from one
thought to another, new thought, that is, is of the nature of an inference. If it were
objected that by means of appropriate definitions the latter proposition could be syl-
logistically derived from the former, Peirces reply would have been that even in that
case logical analysis has been used to get at those very definitions, because definition
is logical analysis of a general predicate. His point in this passage is that in reasoning,
logical analysis introduces certain abstractions that no mere corollarial reasoning could
introduce. This observation leads us to the aforementioned distinction in the second
sub-stage of deduction, that between the two kinds of demonstrations, the theore-
matic and the corollarial.
3.2. The Second Sub-stage and the Theoric Step

According to Peirce, the inventive, theorematic demonstration is centred upon the
processes of hypostatic abstraction, which is part and parcel of mathematicians
work, namely how to consider operations of thought as subjects of thought (MS
691, 110, 1901). Hypostatic abstraction is essential, Peirce thinks, in every mathemat-
ical idea that merits that high title (MS 288, 4243, 1905).
Around 1908, however, he becomes more inclined to say that what really dis-
tinguishes theorematic from corollarial demonstration is the presence in the former,

and the absence in the latter, of that peculiar logical step that he calls theoric and
which is the step that accounts for mathematical inventions imaginative and non-
mechanical character.
Everybody knows that mathematics, which covers all necessary reasoning, is as far as
possible from being purely mechanical work; that it calls for powers of generaliz-
ation in comparison with which all others are puny, that it requires an imagination
which would be poetical were it not so vividly detailed, and above all that it demands
invention of the profoundest. There is, therefore, no room to doubt that there is
some theoric reasoning, something unmechanical, in the business of mathematics.
(MS 201, 81, 1908)
This shift to focus on the theoric element in invention and real discovery, it is worth to
notice, is contemporaneous with the re-structuring of deduction in the two stages. But
Peirce never explains what a theoric step is in so many words. It can certainly be
defined negatively: a theoric step is that element, moment, or step of deduction
which remains after any other logical element or step has been explained away in a cor-
ollarial fashion. It has also been proposed that theoric steps have various forms (Hoff-
mann 2010; Stjernfelt 2014). A theoric step introduces into a demonstration a new
idea not explicitly or directly contained in the premisses of the reasoning (CP
4.613, 1908). Sometimes, those foreign ideas are hypostatic abstractions:
Almost all the theoric inferences are positively creative, that is, they create, not exist-
ent things, but entia rationis which are quite as real. This blackboard is black.
Theoric deduction concludes that the board possesses the quality of blackness
and that blackness is a single object, called an ens rationis because that theoric
thought creates it. (MS 773, 23, 1907)
However, there are also non-abstractional theoric steps. His famous example is
the Ten point theorem (MS 318, 50 56, 1907), which is proved by seeing the two-
dimensional diagram as three-dimensional, that is, by seeing it as a representation
in perspective. In this example, the brute proof is corollarial, but the idea of the
figure as a projection from two- to three-dimensional space is not, since the
problem does not contain anything concerning such projections. So the specific
theoric step of a piece of deductive reasoning may consist in the transformation of
the problem,or its statement,due to viewing it from another point of view

(MS 318, 68). Hoffmann (2010, 581) has rightly called attention to the fact that a
theoric step in an argument means changing the perspective.
That the centrality of theoric steps in deductive reasoning is to be considered as an
evolution of Peirces first real discovery of 1901 is further supported by a passage from
MS 754 (1907, not contained in the Microfilm Edition):
I formerly, quite dubiously, divided Deductions into the Corollarial & the Theore-
matic. Explain these. Deduction will better be called Demonstration. But further
study leads me to lop off a corollarial part from the Theorematic Deductions,
which follows that part that originates a new point of view. This part of the theore-
matic procedure, I will call theoric reasoning. It is very plainly allied to retroduction,
from which it only differs as far as I now see in being indisputable. (MS 754, quoted
in Hoffmann 2010, 590)
The theorematic procedure, whose characterizing element is the theoric step or theoric
reasoning, is taken to be very plainly allied to retroduction. Hoffmann sees this as a
problematic assertion in that being like abduction is not the same thing as being
abduction (Hoffmann 2010, 571). But Peirce explains that the two are alike only in
creating new ideas and differing in what the nature of those ideas is and what the
security of the proceeding is. In abduction, new ideas come in the form of scientific
hypotheses. In theoric steps, they have to do with conceptual changes in the very
notions involved. He in fact suggests that theoric steps are in many cases non-demon-
strative while not falling short of yielding necessary conclusions: every theorem of any
particular prepotency,every one not almost nauseously childish,is really not
demonstrative (MS 334, 6); those major propositions, which alone, as it seems to
me, merit the high-sounding title of theorems, never do follow necessarily from
their alleged premises (MS 683, 5). There is an echo here of the treatment of
logical analysis discussed above: just as logical analysis is not purely corollarial, so the-
orematic reasoning is not purely demonstrative.
In the Neglected Argument the retroductive character of the theoric step clearly
emerges. Peirces example concerns Euclids 16th proposition, which states that in
any triangle, if one of the sides is produced, then the exterior angle is greater than
either of the interior and opposite angles. Here the peculiar theoric step involved is
the hypothesis retroductively inferred that the triangle in question essentially rep-
resents every possible plane triangle; so that what is observed to be the case in his
figure, will be true of every triangle (MS 905). But this supposition, Peirce argues,
holds only in the infinite space of Euclidean geometry, while it does not hold in elliptic
geometry. The supposition is nonetheless indispensable, and consequently the
theorem cannot be said to having been derived from the premises in a purely demon-
strative manner. As he had observed much earlier, the space in which Euclids 16th
proposition holds is merely an ideal space,a hypothetical space,of which we
know this true, because we choose to make our hypothesis so (MS 590, 3, 1892).
He later expresses the same idea by stating that here a theoric step has been introduced
which is retroductive. Since all great hypotheses of mathematics come to us through
retroduction (MS 754, 7, 1907), the theoric step that distinguishes theorematic
from corollarial reasoning may be considered as the retroductive element of
deduction.
Our conclusion is also confirmed by a further consideration, which seems to have
been overlooked by commentators. In the Amazing Mazes of 1908, after having pre-
sented his definition of theoric step reported above, Peirce writes:
I wish a historical study were made of all the remarkable theoric steps and noticeable
classes of theoric steps. I do not mean a mere narrative, but a critical examination of
just what and of what mode the logical efficacy of the different steps has been. Then,
upon this work as a foundation, should be erected a logical classification of theoric
steps; and this should be crowned with a new methodeutic of necessary reasoning.
(CP 4.615)
In order to study and classify the different varieties of theoric step one cannot proceed
completely a priori. Just as Peirce believed that reasoning should not be studied as
something that happens within the mind but as something embodied in external
signs, so he was confident that the proper way to study deductive reasoning is to
look at the history of mathematics. The desired logical classification of the different
methods of mathematical demonstration should be based on a historico-critical exam-
ination of the remarkable theoric steps in the history of mathematics, which is the
emporium of deduction.
Such research (historical and classificatory) is part of a methodeutic of necessary
reasoning. The reason of the necessity of methodeutic is that the theoric steps, and
a fortiori theorematic reasoning, contain retroductive elements. Just as retroductive
reasoning has maxims and rules (methodeutical or strategic rules), so theorematic
reasoning with its retroductive elements needs to be complemented by a methodeutic
of deduction. The immense variety, Peirce writes, of those systematic devices by
which mathematicians do their experiments is so vast that nobody has ever pre-
tended to draw up a complete classification of them (MS 617, 1112, c. 1906). He
was unable to carry out the project of such classification, however, and held the
task to pertain to that department of logic that still awaits a master (MS 617, 1112).
4. Conclusion
Peirces later theory of retroduction explored a variety of logical forms of retroduction.
His completed theory of the validity of retroduction, still in 1908 considered the
bottom question of logical critic, involves deductive, inductive, and retroductive jus-
tification. The maxims of retroduction, so important in the methodology of retroduc-
tion, concern the experientiality, economy, and Peircean Galilean simplicity of
hypotheses. The second stage of inquiry, deduction, divides into two stages: logical
analysis and demonstration. All deduction, no matter how simple, begins with the
logical analysis of hypothetical states of things. All propositions directly inferred in
this stage are corollaries and the reasoning is corollarial. On the other hand, all prop-
ositions inferred by means of an invention or theoric step, abstractional or not, are
theorems, and such reasoning is theorematic. Peirce proposed, remarkably, that
these special moments of necessary reasoning are retroductive, not deductive.
Therefore, as with retroduction in general, their investigation has a prominent and

uneliminable methodological aspect which Peirce names the methodeutic of necessary
reasoning. We leave for future examination the question of what, in the light of our
reconstruction, makes deductive inferences ultimately justified (Haack 1976;
Crombie 1997) and what the justification in Peirces view was.
Acknowledgements
Research supported by the Estonian Research Council, Project PUT267, Diagrammatic
Mind: Logical and Communicative Aspects of Iconicity, Principal Investigator Ahti-
Veikko Pietarinen. We have presented parts of this paper at the following conferences:
Philosophy of Science in the 21st CenturyChallenges and Tasks, Lisbon, 46
December 2013; Applying Peirce II, TallinnHelsinki, 21 23 April 2014, and

Charles S. Peirce: Logic and Metaphysics, College de France, Paris, 12 May 2014.
We thank the three anonymous referees of this journal for the considerable thought
they have put into their helpful comments and suggestions.
Abbreviations for the Works of C. S. Peirce

CP, followed by volume and paragraph number: Peirce (1931 1958).
EP 2, followed by page number: Peirce (1998).
MS, followed by manuscript number and, when available, page number: unpublished manuscripts in
the Houghton Library, Harvard University. MS enumeration according to Robin (1967).
NEM, followed by volume and page number: Peirce (1976).
W, followed by volume and page number: Peirce (19822009).
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2015 Open Society Foundation

We focus on a couple of aspects of these areas that we believe present considerable

2. The First Stage of Inquiry: Retroduction

Modus Tollens Abduction

But C {is/is not} true But C {is not/is} true

Instead of interrogatory, the mood of the conclusion might more accurately be

It is to be inquired whether A is not true.

2.1. The Justification of Retroduction

to logical criticism (see e.g. Anderson 1986). Suggesting instinct as a justification of

cannot be valid unless their explanatory syllogism is valid. Second, retroduction

2.2. The Rules of Retroduction

Besides the maxim of pragmatism, which suggests choosing experimental hypoth-

3. The Second Stage of Inquiry: Deduction

3.1. First Sub-stage: Logical Analysis

A number of philosophically central elements are involved in the investigation of the

3.2. The Second Sub-stage and the Theoric Step

tinguishes theorematic from corollarial demonstration is the presence in the former,

the problem,or its statement,due to viewing it from another point of view

Therefore, as with retroduction in general, their investigation has a prominent and

December 2013; Applying Peirce II, TallinnHelsinki, 21 23 April 2014, and

Abbreviations for the Works of C. S. Peirce

Indiana University Press.

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