Retroduction

That kind of reasoning by which we are more or less inclined to believe in a theory because it explains facts that without the theory would be very surprising is what I...

Robin Catalogue:
756. Retroduction (Retr)
A. MS., n.p., late, pp. 1-9, 1-5.
The three kinds or stages of inquiry illustrated.

Retroduction is the passage of the mind from something observed or attentively considered to the representation of a state of things that may explain it....

Retroductive reasoning is the only one of the three which produces any new idea. It originates a theory.

…Retroduction, or that process whereby from a surprising array of facts we are led to a conjectural theory to account for them. Many logicians refuse to...

Robin Catalogue:
A. MS., n.p., n.d., 1 folded sheet; plus 5 other folded sheets which, although lacking a title or mark, seem to be connected with the first.
The argument stated...

There are three stages of inquiry, demanding as many different kinds of reasoning governed by different principles. They are,

1, Retroduction, forming an...

Robin Catalogue:
A. MS., n.p., October 3-13, 1909, pp. 9-36, 27-30, 28-29, 31-36.
Tendency to guess right (but not necessarily on the first guess). Pure logic supports the...

I am unable yet quite to prove that the three kinds of reasoning I mean are the only kinds of sound reasoning; though I can show reason to think that it can be proved, and ...

Skipping a great deal, I now take up the third great class of Reasonings, which I call Retroductions. [—] By the third class of reasonings one only infers that a certain...

I consider Retroduction (a poor name) to be the most important kind of reasoning, notwithstanding its very unreliable nature, because it is the only kind of reasoning that opens up new ground...

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 incomprehensible...

From the Robin Catalogue:
A. MS., n.p., 2 pp. of one of the alternative sections are dated April 5 and 7, 1911, pp. 1-18, with several alternative sections.
The contempt for...

… Another question to be noted for later consideration is whether this first step in inquiry can conclude, if it can be called “concluding,” otherwise than in the interrogative mood, if...

Retroduction and Induction face opposite ways. The function of retroduction is not unlike those fortuitous variations in reproduction which played so important a rôle in Darwin’s original...

Reasoning is of three kinds. The first is necessary, but it only professes to give us information concerning the matter of our own hypotheses and distinctly declares that, if we want to know...

… the second figure reads:

Anything of the nature of M would have the character {p}, taken haphazard,
S has the character {p};
.·. Provisionally, we may suppose S to be of the...