Imagination, Cognition, and Methods of Science in Peircean Abduction

This chapter canvasses some of the most pertinent notions that Peirce allied to his conception of abduction: divination, trustworthiness, hope, investing and, economy, uberty, seduction, instinct, insight, and imagination. While such notions may suggest Peirce sliding into psychologism about logic, Peirce’s own texts show that we can give these concepts perfectly non-psychological, natural, and scientific glosses – namely those that integrate their logical, linguistic, cognitive, and semiotic meanings. Thus attempts to characterize abduction as the “heuristics” of the operation of one’s psychology or cognitive architecture would leave the issue of the full nature and reach of abduction wanting.