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From: scotp@csc2.essex.ac.uk (Scott P D)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Abductive Reasoning
Message-ID: <5100@servax0.essex.ac.uk>
Date: 5 May 91 09:59:27 GMT
References: <1991May3.181328.16368@cs.ubc.ca>
Sender: news@servax0.essex.ac.uk
Reply-To: scotp@essex.ac.uk (Scott P D)
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK
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In article <1991May3.181328.16368@cs.ubc.ca> kean@cs.ubc.ca (Alex Kean) writes:
>After working on so call "abductive reasoning" for a while, I am
>beginning to wonder about the meaning of the term "abductive
>reasoning"  and its historical reason for such name.  
>
[ Stuff on common meanings of 'abduct' and 'adduce' omitted.]
>
>I realized the word "abduction" was coined by Charles Sanders Peirce 
>(1839-1914) but I am unable to understand his choice of using the term.
>Any thought out there ?


While I don't actually know why Peirce chose this term, I can offer a
plausible guess:

The term 'deduction' derives from 'ducere' (lead) prefixed by 'de'
which, in this case, means 'from'.  I guess that Peirce wanted another
term to denote a different way in which one proposition may follow from
another.  So he looked round for another prefix that could mean 'from'.
He found 'ab' -- hence 'abduction'.  

You will note that this explanation is itself derived through abductive
reasoning!



Paul Scott, Dept Computer Science, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.