Bibliography

Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The First Rule of Logic

… The only end of science, as such, is to learn the lesson that the universe has to teach it. In Induction it simply surrenders itself to the force of facts. But it finds, at once – I am partially inverting the historical order, in order to state the process in its logical order – it finds I say that this is not enough. It is driven in desperation to call upon its inward sympathy with nature, its instinct for aid, just as we find Galileo at the dawn of modern science making his appeal to il lume naturale. But in so far as it does this, the solid ground of fact fails it. It feels from that moment that its position is only provisional. It must then find confirmations or else shift its footing. Even if it does find confirmations, they are only partial. It still is not standing upon the bedrock of fact. It is walking upon a bog, and can only say, this ground seems to hold for the present.

As for retroduction, it is itself an experiment. A retroductive research is an experimental research; and when we look upon Induction and Deduction from the point of view of Experiment and Observation, we are merely tracing in those types of reasoning their affinity to Retroduction. [—] To return to Retroduction, then, it begins with Colligation. Something corresponding to Iteration may or may not take place. And then comes an Observation. Not, however, an External observation of the objects as in Induction, nor yet an observation made upon the parts of a Diagram, as in Deduction; but for all that just as truly an observation. [—] The act of observation is the deliberate yielding of ourselves to that force majeure, - an early surrender at discretion, due to our foreseeing that we must, whatever we do be borne down by that power, at last. Now the surrender which we make in Retroduction, is a surrender to the Insistence of an Idea. The hypothesis, as the Frenchman says, c’est plus fort que moi. It is irresistible; it is imperative. We must throw open our gates and admit it at any rate for the time being.