Quotes · Quote card
Quotation from Illustrations of the Logic of Science by Charles Sanders Peirce
“Hypothesis is where we find some very curious circumstance, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition.”
Illustrations of the Logic of Science, Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis, I (Chance, Love, and Logic (1923), Project Gutenberg text)
Peirce's definition of the form of inference he later called abduction.
Citation: "Hypothesis is where we find some very curious circumstance, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition." — Charles Sanders Peirce, Illustrations of the Logic of Science, Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis, I (Chance, Love, and Logic (1923), Project Gutenberg text). (id peirce-illustrations-of-the-logic-of-science-q7)
Portrait: Charles Sanders Peirce, Napoleon Sarony, Public domain.
