abducting the process of abducting

8/2/2019 Abducting the Process of Abducting

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http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~wirth/texte/merell.htm

ABDUCTING THE PROCESS OF ABDUCTING: AN IMPOSSIBLE

DREAM?Floyd Merrell(Purdue University, West Lafayette)REMOVE A LEG FROM THE SEMIOTIC TRIPOD, AND IT COLLAPSES.Unfortunately, the vast majority of scholars during the heyday of logical positivismand since, has essentially ignored abduction. James Harris (1992:60-6l) writes,and justifiably so, that if we adopt Peirce's distinction between abduction andinduction, "then [Nelson Goodman's] new riddle of induction is properly viewed as

a riddle of abduction." In a nutshell, Hume's dilemma was how to explain how whatwe have seen in the past can justify predictions regarding what we will see in thefuture. Goodman's riddle rests on how hypotheses are chosen for confirmation inthe first place: shall we agree that "All emeralds are green" (i.e. "green" they'vealways been and they always will be) or "All emeralds are grue" (i.e. "green" beforea certain time and "blue" thereafter)? Properly separating Goodman from Hume,and roughly we have Peirce's abduction-induction pair."All emeralds are green" and "All emeralds are grue" are potentially equallyconfirmable "by evidence statements describing the same observations" accordingto inhabitants from two different speech communities (Goodman l965:74). All

possibilities are there and waiting, as candidates for future abductive acts on amore or less equal and democratic basis. Once a selection has been made in thehypothetico-deductive arena, and given the temporal, asymmetrical, irreversibleactualization of confirming inductive grasps, the game toward semiotic success hasbeen initiated. The problem is that success, from whatever conceptual framework,can more often than not be made available. This is because abductions are inmany cases deceptively enticing and promising. They are somewhat remotelycomparable to Goodman's "similarities" (1976). Goodman claims that similarities,the same as regularities, are where they happen to be found, and they can befound virtually anywhere and at anytime. Similarities, like generalities, however, areno panacea, no royal road to success. In fact, though they might be "right" from

some particular perspective, they are inevitably "wrong" from man otherperspectives, for they could have always been other than what they are.In this light, Peirce also recognized that:There is no greater nor more frequent mistake in practical logic than to suppose that things whichresemble one another strongly in some respects are any the more likely for that to be alike inothers.... The truth is, that any two things resemble one another just as strongly as any two others, ifrecondite resemblances are admitted. (CP:2.634)


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The ultimate implications of Peirce's notion regarding his philosophy he intriguinglycalls his "objective idealism" are no less radical than Goodman's comparablenotion of similarity regarding his "nominalism." If virtually any and all resemblances,even the most blatant and the most recondite, stand a gaming chance of gainingentrance into the "semiotically real" (of Seconds) from a virtually aleatory

background (of Firstness)--an element of which is present in even the mostdeterministic of worlds, according to Peirce--then there is no iron-clad, infalliblemethod for determining before hand whether "All emeralds are green" or "Allemeralds are grue"--or any other combination of likely candidates--will have theadvantage. Neither possibility is necessarily any more likely or less likely than theother. But abductive intuition (literally, instinct, as Peirce occasionally called it) canat least give the vague promise of making it so. What is certain, following Peirce's"rule of predesignation," is that:When we take all the characters into account, any pair of objects resemble one another in just asmany particulars as any other pair. If we limit ourselves to such characters as have for us anyimportance, interest, or obviousness, then a synthetic conclusion may be drawn, but only on

condition that the specimens by which we judge have been taken at random from the class inregard to which we are to form a judgment, and not selected as belonging to any sub-class. Theinduction only has its full force when the character concerned has been designated beforeexamining the sample. (CP:6.4l3)So an abduction (conjecture, guess, hypothesis) precedes a deduction (formalstatement of a hypothesis), and only then do successive confirmatory acts (theinductive process) follow. A conjecture must be made as to whether emeralds are"green" or "grue" before there can be either a deduction regarding particularempirical grasps and the hypothesis following from them or an inductive process ofconfirmation. Regarding the ensuing confirmatory acts, Peirce gives the followingexample:A chemist notices a surprising phenomenon. Now if he has a high admiration of Mill's Logic,... hemust work on the principle that, under precisely the same circumstances, like phenomena areproduced. Why does he then not note that this phenomenon was produced on such a day of theweek, the planets presenting a certain configuration, his daughter having on a blue dress, he havingdreamed of a white horse the night before, the milkman having been late that morning, and so on?The answer will be that in early days chemists did use to attend to some such circumstances, butthat they have learned better. (CP:5.59l)The "surprising phenomenon" can lead to a conjecture, which then spills into ahypothesis, and confirmatory acts ensue. But if the phenomenon of each and everyconfirmation is to be a truly legitimate repetition, then there must be sameness or

at least resemblance of every aspect of that phenomenon when properlycontextualized, down to the apparently most insignificant details.This becomes an impossibly drawn out task in Peirce's example, it would appear.Obviously, there must be a selection and what Goodman terms a "projection,"which is in its initial stages a matter of abduction, not induction. Assuming "Allemeralds are grue" might have been at some time in the past selected, theneventually, we must suppose it would have come in conflict with our ordinary


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experience and replaced by the "projected" alternative "All emeralds are green." Inother words, the "grue-green" dilemma regarding the "semiotically real" world ofactualized signs is a matter of asymmetry, temporality, and irreversibility. Anunexpected and contradictory event calls for a hypothesis's replacement byanother one, thus testifying to the incompleteness of the conceptual scheme within

which that hypothesis had dwelled.

In the final analysis, the abduction-induction-deduction process does not aid andabet that oversimplified image of pragmatism in terms of "truth" as whateverhappens to work or whatever happens to be in style. Peirce's pragmatism remainsattuned to the future, to the general thrust of the entire community of dialogicsemiotic agents. It is not simply a matter of what surprising turn of events happensto pop up in the here-now (abduction, Firstness), or what has happened in the pastand how it predicts the future (induction, Secondness), but, in addition, how ourconception and hence perception of signs will fare in the future as a consequenceof signs present and signs past (Deduction, Thirdness).We must look into Goodman's riddle further.THE COGITATING MIND CAN OFTEN MAKE IT SOIan Hacking (1993) gives account of Saul Kripke's (1982) correlating Goodmanwith Wittgenstein's skeptical problem. Kripke suggests that "grue" can beaddressed not to induction but most properly to meaning. The question would notbe "Why not predict that grass, which has been grue in the past, will be grue in thefuture?" but rather, the Wittgensteinian question "Who is to say that in the past I didnot mean grue by 'green', so that now I should call the sky, not the grass, 'green'?"(Kripke 1982:58).In other words, in the past I called emeralds "green," but meant "grue," and now Icontinue to call them "green," but I actually mean "bleen" (in English, "blue"). And Inow call the sky "blue," but actually mean "green" (that is, "grue"). Hacking pointsout that while Goodman's problem is outer directed with respect to what thecommunity thinks and says, Kripke's is inner directed and virtually solipsistic: what Ithink and say. In this sense, his question becomes: Why do I call the sky "blue"and grass "green" when actually I mean "green" ("grue") and "blue" ("bleen")respectively? To be accepted by my peers or to impress my students? To saveface? To avoid conflict? To keep on the good side of my superiors? To impress anattractive colleague? To keep a good Rortyan conversation going? Or simply todeceive my associates in my effort to play a good con game? Possibly any of theabove, one would suspect, and there is an indefinite number of other reasons toboot, that is, according to Kripke's inner directed rendition of Goodman.If we take Goodman's original use of his riddle into full account, as does Hacking,then the entire community comes into the picture. As such, the question becomes:Would the majority or perhaps the entirety of the community to which I belong carryon the way I do? If each individual of a particular community were in step to the


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tune of the community's band, it would be as if the tacit assumption on the part ofthe community as a collection of individual might be a variation on the above quoteby Wittgenstein:Who is to say that in the past we did not all mean "grue" by "green"--even though

we knew better--and none of us imagined that everybody else actually meant"grue" by "green"?We, as members of the community, could all be speaking out of the wrong side ofour mouth for the sake of maintaining lines of communication intact withoutknowing that everyone else was doing the same. Our dialogue would be reducedto shambles. Nobody would be talking in good faith, but illicitly and for personalreasons. This would be a world in which everybody lies, but lies in basically thesame way, hence the collection of lies becomes a strange form of "truth." It wouldalso play havoc with John Searle's well-intentioned interlocutors, Richard Rorty'sconversation would soon fall into chaos, and any form of a coherent and congenial

community could hardly survive. There would be no method at all for knowingwhether the community is progressing or retrogressing along its arduous pushtoward the goal-line of knowledge. Any smug confidence that what is known isknowledge rather than delusion would be itself more likely than not delusory. Ultimately, the problem with meaning is not in its proof but in its taste. Quite simply,if it goes untasted, virtually anything may be capable of going as a proof, and ifvirtually anything can be a proof, then whatever the taste may prove, it will moreoften than not be little more than superfluous. I allude to the inextricability, in goodsemiotic practices, of either the representamen, object, or interpretant, and ofeither Firstness, Secondness, or Thirdness, from the entire tripod of relations. Thethorn in the side of meaning is that most popular accounts of the "grue-green"dilemma highlight either one or two legs of the tripod at the expense of the other(s).

On the one hand, Goodman's riddle focuses on the "projection" of predicates onthings, thereby bringing about "entrenchment," which is not a matter of "truth" oreven meaning, per se, but of linguistic practice. On the other hand, Kripke'sGoodman raises the question of meaning, if not exactly "truth," in addition toinduction. Goodman evokes an attitude focusing more on actuals (Seconds), howthey are most appropriately to be taken, once seen, and most specifically, howthey should be clothed in linguistic garb (Thirds). Kripke's Goodman takes actualsin his stride as a matter of course; of more focal interest is the range of possibles(Firsts), and how, in their interaction with those actuals, they can in the futurepotentially give rise to alternatives (as Thirds) to the conventions that be. That isone difference between Goodman's "true grue" and Kripke's "Goodman's grue."Another important difference is that of "outer" directedness and "inner"directedness, to which I alluded above. Kripke, following Wittgenstein on rules,remains tied to consideration of thought-signs--in contrast to Goodman's emphasison sign-events.


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Peirce stands out most briskly when placed alongside the Goodman-Kripke pairrests in his nonlogocentric and nonlinguicentric refusal to eschew indexicality, andespecially iconicity, from the entire picture. Peirce stressed long and hard thatthere is an iconic relation between the "semiotic object" that gives rise to anabduction and its attendant hypothesis, on the one hand, and that "semiotic object"

as it is actually perceived, on the other. This relation is that of analogy orresemblance, proper to iconicity. Peirce offers the example of the similaritybetween the image of an ellipse and the data concerning the longitudes andlatitudes of the revolution of Mars about the sun that allowed Kepler to draw up hisabductive inference (CP:2.707). As a result of this abduction, a hypothesis wasformulated, it conformed to the observations, and a new theory saw the light ofday. As a consequence, the statement "The orbit is elliptical"--like "Emeralds aregreen (or grue)"--includes a predicate, or icon, as well as a subject, or index, asintegral parts of the sentence (symbol). This is, of course, most proper to first-orderlogic. But since signs are incessantly in the process of becoming signs and buildingupon other signs, the most complex of them possessing the capacity to function asicons--sign corpora taken as self-contained, self-sufficient wholes--it also applies toa greater or lesser degree, I would suggest, to whatever conglomerate of signsmight be available.With respect to self-contained, self-sufficient wholes as icons, we enter the domainof geometry of the non-Euclidean sort as developed during Peirce's time,especially Riemann geometry.ALL SIGNS THERE ALL AT ONCERiemann geometry made way for the possibility of describing space of any numberof dimensions and with arbitrary warps and woofs. It also revealed the possibility ofmultiply connected spaces by way of what are called in contemporary quantumtheory "wormholes" (or in a manner of putting it, of travel "outside" ordinary space

and time from one place toanother place in theuniverse).Quite significantly, Peircedeveloped a comparablenotion of "wormholes" inhis theory of a "logic ofcontinuity" and his generalcosmology. A tangibleillustration of the conceptis quite simple--and itrather conveniently falls inline with a Peirce "thought-experiment." Stack a fewsheets of paper one on topof the other, and you have


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various two-dimensional universes as the mere possibility for the construction of artworks, geometrical figures, scientific texts, mathematical proofs, philosophicaltreatises, or just meaningless doodling. Add an unlimited number of sheets to thestack and you have what Peirce called the "Book of Assertions." The stack ofsheets making up this book is mere "nothingness," as Peirce puts it (recall the

above allusion to space as "emptiness").

Now, from your own three-dimensional universe, with a paper punch make acircular hole in the first sheet--which Peirce calls the "initial sheet of assertion." Youhave entered the first universe of possible assertions. By sliding and warping yourfirst sheet, it is possible to enter any spot on the second sheet or universe from onesolitary point on your first universe. Punch a hole in the second universe, and youcan enter the third universe at any point from that hole, which could in turn beentered from the hole in your first universe. Further holes--or "cuts" as Peirce callsthem--in this and successive sheets allow you to "pass into worlds which, in theimaginary worlds of the other cuts, are themselves represented to be imaginaryand false, but which may, for all that, be true, and therefore continuous with thesheet of assertion itself, although this is uncertain" (CP:4.512).Peirce invites us to regard the "ordinary blank sheet of assertion" as a film uponwhich there exists the as yet undeveloped photograph of all the possible "events"of the universe. But this is not a literal picture, for when we consider historically therange of "events" which have been asserted to be "true," we must conclude thatthis "book" can be none other than a continuum which must "clearly have moredimensions than a surface or even than a solid; and we will suppose it to beplastic, so that it can be deformed in all sorts of ways without the continuity andconnection of parts being ever ruptured" (CP:4.512). The initial blank "sheet ofassertion" of this "book" is itself a continuum that contains an infinity of possibilities.Peirce goes on to suggest that "cuts" in the "sheet of assertion" are statementsrelating to "events" in the world. These "cuts" are like a photographic plate that issubject to a scene "out there," which we desire to record. Moreover, since thesheet is plastic, it can be deformed in any way we like so as to yield more or lessthe world we wanted in the first place. In this manner, an infinity of worlds cancome into our "semiotic reality" according to our collaboration within the flow ofsemiosis, and depending upon our desires, inclinations, preconceptions, andprejudices--that is, depending upon our "horizon," so to speak.

Hence, Peirce suggests, the original photograph we might happen to take is, moreappropriately, a map in which all points of a surface correspond to points on thenext surface, and so on successively, and the continuity is preserved unbroken.Each point, each "cut," corresponds to the initial "sheet of assertion" where the"real" state of things (that is, perceived and conceived to be "real" at a given timeand place) is represented. All successive sheets, then, represent an infinite set ofpotential "events" many or most of which can, at another time and place, become"real." And, in light of speculations by contemporary physicists themselves, the"wormholes" alluded to above are capable--like Peirce's "cuts"--of connecting onepoint in the three-dimensional universe within which we live and breathe with


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another point light years away, and all in virtual instantaneity. This is theoreticalspeculation, of course, worthy of Alice in Wonderland for whom the "wormhole"was the looking glass as a passage from one universe to another. Yet it is seriousbusiness for physicists, and, therefore, I would expect, it should not simply betaken with a grain of salt.Riemann brought about an evaporation of the spell cast by Euclidean geometryover 2,000 years ago. By the same token, Peirces concept of the sign, if takenstraight as pure spirits and without a chaser, is capable of dissolving the smoothlycontoured ice of Cartesian vintage floating around in the drink and trying to passitself off as finely honed, sharply cornered, and beautifully hexagonaled crystals ofH2O. The universe of signs is actually as non-Cartesian (and non-Saussurean andnon-Boolean to boot) as Riemann geometry is non-Euclidean. Indeed, it can besaid that between approximately the years 1890 and 1910 Peirce realized thegolden age of his intellectual output, and that literature, the arts, and the sciencesrealized the golden age of Riemann curved space: four-dimensional geometry.Riemann--and other geometries--entered avant gardecircles in art, literature, andphilosophy early in the present century, and it was appropriated by physicists, mostnotably Einstein with his Special Theory of Relativity of 1905.Now, comes the question: "What has all this to do with abduction, that, after all, ispresumably the focus of this paper?" Yes, I'm trying to get there, eventually. Butfirst let us consider a bizarre twist within non-Euclidean space.A CROSS-EYED LOOK AT SPACEH. A. C. Dobbs (1972) writes on the structure of the phenomenological "sensiblepresent," that includes an imaginary or timeless conception of mathematical timeand real, sensed time. He first alludes to experiments demonstrating that when thetime between successive items of experience falls below a certain minimum level--about fifty milliseconds--it becomes impossible, given the torpidity of our perceptualfaculties, to place them in simple linear order. He then proposes, in addition to thethree dimensions of space, a spacelike temporal dimension, imaginary time,following Arthur Eddington's (1946) suggestion for relativity theory. This imaginarytime is so called after imaginary numbers. It is static or mathematical. Then a fifthdimension becomes necessary, a dynamic time accounting for the real time ofeveryday life and of intuition. Imaginary time is not directed; it is merely a line inEuclidean space, a reversible order without any indication of a moving now: it is astatic series of simultaneities, while real time is a directed, irreversible line with anarrow (see CP:6.111, 6:127-30).These time dimensions are most adequately conceptualized when related tonumbers. The rational numbers are the whole integers. Irrational numbers areexpressed in terms of infinite decimal expansions--such as 2. Imaginarynumbers, such as -1, are those undecidables--amphibians between being andnonbeing, as Leibniz put it--that were stashed away in the closet for centuriesbecause mathematicians were not sure what to do with them. Real numbers have


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no imaginary parts and comprise the rational and irrational numbers. And complexnumbers are of the form a + b -1, where a and b--called the modulus--consist ofreal numbers. Corresponding to these number categories, imaginary time--thefourth dimension--can be combined with real time to yield a complex time variable--the fifth dimension--whose order is partial rather than reversibly or irreversibly

linear.

Imaginary time is "dead" time, much like the time in the storage system of acomputer. But it contains "expectations," all of them simultaneously held in memoryor a storage bank, to be retrieved at a propitious moment--like a computer printout.It is the equivalent of "superposition" much in the order of the "superposed"possibilities of your seeing a Necker cube as either one of its manifestations or theother one. The two possibilities are there, in static "dead" or imaginary time. In realor psychological time, about fifty milliseconds, you actualize one of the twopossibilities and thereby perceive and conceive it as a cube of such-and-such anature. The possibilities were there, in a sort of trembling or twinkling pulsation ofreadiness--comparable to the optically illusory moir effect of op art. In fact, Dobbsuses the Necker cube to illustrate his hypothesis that transformation, in the mind,from one of the possible cubes to the other one and back again, is possible onlywithin a fourth, static dimension (i.e. of the nature of Firstness). When combiningthis imaginary time dimension with the real time dimension to produce a complextime variable of partial order, near-simultaneity of distinct--complementary--events,such as the flip-flops of the Necker cube, can be perceived and conceived. In other words, the symmetrical, reversible, intransitive, nonlinear domain (storagebank), when combined with the symmetrical, irreversible, transitive, linear domain(printout), yields a dynamic, dyadic, pulsational this-that which is neitherappropriately symmetrical nor asymmetrical, neither reversible nor irreversible,neither intransitive nor transitive, neither nonlinear nor linear (i.e. of the nature ofThirdness). This both-and, neither-nor, or either-or, depending on the vantagepoint, could well constitute the roots of time, and of consciousness and selfconsciousness (Kauffman 1986, Matte Blanco 1975, Varela 1979). It is, so tospeak, Mbius-strip vacillation between "inside" and "outside," continuity and

discontinuity, identity and difference.It was the geometer August FerdinandMbius who suggested in the nineteenthcentury that continuous transformationsbetween incongruous three-dimensionalcounterparts--the Necker cube orMbius-strip--are mathematicallyimpossible within the three-dimensionalmanifold. Such transformations requirerotation of the entire plane, not merely aline with the plane, which calls for anextra dimension. For example, along aline, no rotation can occur. Within a plane


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(2-d), rotation can occur about a point in mathematical time (2-d + 1-t), and, withinthat plane, successive increments along the rotation can be experienced in real,psychological, or personal time (2-d + 1-t + time). Within a cube, rotation can occurabout a line in mathematical time, requiring a fourth dimension (3-d + 1-t). Then, afifth dimension is needed in order to account for real or experienced time (3-d + 1-t

+ time).

As an example of Mbius's observation, a characteristic of complex numbers--thecomgination of imaginary and real numbers--is that they have no simple linearorder, nor is there any meaning in saying of a complex number that it is eitherpositive or negative, or that it is larger or smaller than any other complex number.They are all there all at once (superposed), and as such, if no value has (yet) beenassigned to them, they are ipso facto valueless. Complex numbers oscillate,vibrate, undulate, in a static wave pattern. They dwell in an enchantedmathematical realm. Their dancing back and forth as points along a real line or in aphase-space on a two-dimensional plane can produce a dynamic wave form as ahypercircle or hypersphere (a circle requiring a third dimension or a sphererequiring a fourth dimension for their becoming).Louis Kauffman and Francisco Varela (1980) demonstrate how this standingpattern can be the resulf of the complex numbers viewed in terms of a wave formby the oscillation of a + b -1 between a + b and a - b represented on theCartesian plane (Figure 2). Technically speaking, oscillation is displayed as thecircular orbiting of a point determined by a variable radius--itself determined by b--and by associating the orbit of each point, a, along the horizontal axis with a unitcircle in the complex plane.In this manner, each orbit corresponds to two complex numbers, a b -1, where+1 and -1 are mathematically "degenerate" circles and -1 is the large unit(generated) circle. This geometrical display of the complex numbers expands thereal number line (horizontal axis) not to the entire plane but to an oscilational to-and-fro line with an infinity of dancing, synchronized circular orbits associated witheach point on the line. What we have here is the one-dimensional representation ofthe real numbers, with the plane representing the complex numbers--the planebeing necessary for the rotation of a real number (point, degenerate circle) todescribe the authentic circles. The excluded-middle principle does not apply, so thescheme is general in the most general sense, and since all values and theiropposites exist in a superposed state, the noncontradiction principle is inoperative,rendering the scheme at the same time vague. In short, Kauffman and Varela'sequation depicts the ultimate in Peirce's sign generativity as well as the ultimate indegeneracy.

Moreover, the whole conglomerate, slapped onto a two-dimensional flatland, issuch that, from our 90-degree orthogonal perspective outside the plane, we cansee the circles in the here-now all at once. Our 90-degree orthogonal grasp wouldbe as inaccessible to strictly linear mnemonic thinking--such as a computerprintout--as it would be to a flatlander dwelling within the flat surface. Linear


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thinking could do no more than follow the generation of circles along the line, oneafter another. Such a linear computing system is probably no morephenomenologically concrete than a real number series, and the direction of itsarrow would reflect not real time as we experience it but linear ordering of the mostrudimentary sort. In contrast, our nonlinear, 90-degree orthogonal view of the

hypercircle figure knows no definite serial order, for we are capable of seeing thetwo-dimensional scheme in one perceptual gulp. It is like viewing the juxtaposedgrid of an op art object displaying its moir scintillation; we see it as if insimultaneity and nonlinearly.And, we must remember, a fourth dimension is necessary for rotation about thetwo-dimensional plane of the hypercircle figure to generate a hypersphere, whichstretches our capacity for imaginary constructs beyond the limit. Thus, lest webecome unduly smug over our phenomenal cerebral powers, we must remindourselves that, within our own three dimensions of space and one dimension ofreal time (imaginary or mathematical time lies outside the linear becoming of ourconsciousness), we are able to reach no more than minuscule lumps from thewhole of things, much like the hapless flatlander linearly assimilating, withexcruciating torpidity from our point of view, the hypercircle pattern. We are, afterall is said and done, helplessly constrained regarding our own world. Thought ischiefly sequential, successive, and one-dimensional, while our world presents itselfas a multidimensional, nonsuccessive and nonlinear pattern of indescribablerichness and variety, and the mind's every effort to grasp this world is like trying toappreciate a beautiful landscape by looking through a narrow slit in a fence. Froma perspective beyond our own three dimensions of space and one of time, wewould be only slightly more sophisticated than a pocket calculator programmed tospit out linear mathematical expensions. An imaginary demon from that "higher"perspective would look upon us much as we imagine the pathetic world of theflatlander.And now, comes the complaint: "We're still in netherland! Why don't you get to thepoint." Yes, I know. It would appear that I'm now lost in space. Let me try to getback home with another tangential move.HOW DO NEW IDEAS EMERGE?For Karl Popper (1959) and most positivists, novel ideas are the product ofirrational flights of fancy, purely random happenings. There is no absoluteguarantee, Popper writes, that one idea popping into one's head has any betterchange than any other idea of leading to truth. Knowledge is the result of blindguesses--Popper's Darwinian theory of "evolutionary epistemology."Peirce, in contrast, believed that feeling has its own "reasoning," though it is well-nigh inaccessible to the mind's reasoning. Fitting abduction into his generalpragmatist philosophy, he once suggested that it is the instinctive capacity of thesufficiently prepared mind for informed guesses, for the mind has "a natural bent inaccordance with nature" (CP:6.478). As a consequence, the "elements of every


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concept enter into logical thought [imaginary time] at the gate of perception [realtime] and make their exit at the gate of purposive action; and whatever cannotshow its passports at both those two gates is to be arrested as unauthorized byreason" (CP:5.212). This "gate" of perception" can result from the outward clash ofsigns in the "real" world, but more likely it is the product of inwardly generated

thought-signs. Perception in either case, is of the mode of Secondness.

Since there is no wide-eyed, innocent perception, all percepts are accompanied byperceptual judgements. And since all seeing is at bottom level interpreting, there isno hard and fast line of demarcation between perception and knowledge(CP:5.184). There is, however, a distinction between abductive judgments andperceptual judgments: the former are usually subject to some degree of control,though they can also shade into the latter, which are by and large uncontrollable.What we seem to have here is a sort of tense logic (of consciousness and control,real time) and a nontense logic (of instinct, imaginary time), to which I alluded inthe previous section.The reader who cavalierly takes Peirce's instinct (nontense logic) to be outmodedbiological thinking has not read him closely, I would suggest. Instinct entailsembedded tendencies as well as inborn propensities and proclivities. Tlthoughquite obviously it cannot be specified--and Peirce, as far as I am aware, neverdenied this--it serves as a tool offering a conceptual grasp of an exceedinglycomplex phenomena, to wit, a nonconscious linkage of the qualitative Firstness ofsign, object, and interpretant by resemblance, which allows the sign to suggest ahypothesis (abduction) to its interpreter-interpretant. Such a suggestion is primafacie beyond control, as are all instincts, though after the fact of its emergence, asSecondness and Thirdness, it can be subjected to increasing control. Thus anonconscious linkage by Firstness can enable the interpreter-interpretant tointerpret the sign in conjunction with the character of its object, such interpretationproviding for the possibility of an alteration of feeling, action, and thought throughself-control.On the other hand, embedded signs that have become instinctive or quasi-instinctive lie in the mind all at once in readiness to emerge at the propitiousmoment--ensemble rather than history. Speaking of this "presence" of mind, Peirce(CP:1.310) observes that:all that is immediately present to a man is what is in his mind in the present instant. His whole life isin the present. But when he asks what is the content of the present instant, his question always

comes too late. The present has gone by, and what remains of it is greatly metamorphosed....Indeed, although a feeling is immediate consciousness, that is, is whatever of consciousness theremay be that is immediately present, yet there is no consciousness in it because it is instantaneous.For ... feeling is nothing but a quality, and a quality is not conscious: it is a mere possibility.I must point out , however, that Peirce's concepts of the "immediate present" and"immediate consciousness" by no means suffer from the "myth of presence" or"logocentrism" (Merrell 1995). It is ensemble, granted. But the ensemble, havingbeen thrown into real time, is never immediately available to the human agent. On


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the contrary, there can be no more than a display of bits and pieces of theensemble through a traveling time-slit in the "now" of things, beginning with feelingand culminating in knowing.Feeling, or the sign of Firstness, issues forth as a stream or not at all, though this

stream may be vague. Although immediate, its specification can be made possibleonly after the fact and by way of mediating Thirdness. For example, an abductionemerging as feeling is at that point acritical, undoubting, and exceedingly vague,though on the spur of that particular moment it may seem to be a paragon of clarity(CP:5.446). And it might bring with it, as Secondness enters the scene, the shockof surprise, for it is entirely different from what was expected; it contradicts habit.Then and only then can an abduction emerge (within imaginary time), which cansubsequently be put to the inductive test in everyday life situations (real time). Thisapplies, I would suggest, to abductive acts from the most insignificant to majoroverhauls in the ways of societies or organisms, and of human knowledge.

In order diagrammatically and spatially toillustrate the abductive process, allow me tobegin at the most fundamental level.Consider the flip of a flattened Mbius stripin imaginary time as depicted in Figure 3 asa model of Henri Poincars discovery of theFuchsian functions in mathematics.Poincar's (1914) lively account has himworking on the problem for fifteen dayswithout success. One evening, after drinkingblack coffee, he spent a sleepless nightexperiencing jumbles of ideas colliding untilthey interlocked convincing him that thetentative hypothesis he had constructed was

incorrect. He then went on vacation, and, one day while boarding a bus, hesuddenly realized that the Fuschian functions were identical to a set of functionsthat already existed in mathematics, the transformations of non-Euclideangeometry, which he could then use to solve his problem. Poincar claims that the incidents of travel put his mathematical work in cerebrallimbo, where it gestated and gelled on its own, to surface at an unexpectedmoment. This is the nonlinear 90 orthogonal flips, the moment of abduction. Hisnext, somewhat arduous task was that of patiently and in a more or less linear,continuous operation, taking up pen and ink and setting his discovery down onpaper. This is the temporal, linear process. In other words, Poincar's discovery ispatterned by flips of the Mbius strip, thus bringing a disarray of signs into a morebenigh collection--order from chaos. Then, by smooth transitions--360 rotation onthe plane of Figure 3--the signs could be manipulated to obtain the desired, andorderly, results. Similar experiences are legion: Kekul's discovery of the benzenering experienced as intertwined snakes after a corree-drinking marathon;Coleridge's dream of Kubla Khan and his palace which, upon awakening from a


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drug-induced slumber, so we are told, he wrote as if the composition were all thereand awaiting its realization on the page; Mozart's melodies coming to him in theirentirety in one massive clash. In each case, the flips within the ensemble ofpossible abductive signs occurred at the level of Firstness, where myriad thought-signs and sign-events are possible but none actualized. Smooth rotations on the

plane are a continuous generation of signs in the sphere of Secondness andThirdness.And so we're getting there, that is, to abduction, slowly. THE WAY OF ALL FLESHSemiosis begins with what Peirce called the qualisign, iconicity at its barest. If inthe beginning was the word, that word, as a solitary evocation, was not yet alegitimate symbol: it needed interrelationships with other symbols and other signsbefore it could take on the status of a full-blown symbolic sign. Neither was it an

index before its properly coming into relation with some "semiotic object" or other.

In view of the previous section, initially a sign is a sign of and by abductiveinference: it often comes as the result of a surprise, for its signness emerges whereand when there was as yet no indication of signhood for some semiotic agent insome respect or capacity. At this rudimentary stage it is the ultimate in autonomy,self-containment, self-reflexivity, harmony, coherence. In other words, the sign is amere sensation (First), then it is acknowledged as something other "out there" or"in here" (Second), and finally a surprise is registered (as a Third) because itappears that there is something rather than nothing and that this something is notwhat it would ordinarily be. Smugly confident of its ability to stand on its own (asqualisign, of Firstness), since it knows of no otherness (as sinsign, of Secondness),an initial sign--which is not yet a fully developed sign (as legisign, of Thirdness)--begins by re-iterating itself, and in this act it can then relate in good semiosicfashion to some other.But all this most likely remains aggravatingly obscure. Consider, then, an example.In line with abductive activity, suppose at a particular juncture in your life thesurprising event A occurs. Then you notice that if A, then there is the possibility ofB. And as a consequence you draw up the tenderly fallible conjecture (abduction):if A, then there are prima facie grounds for assuming that B. In case B is related toA by mere resemblance, you have no more than a vague sense of iconicity. If therelation is from A to B in terms of some space-time connection, indexicality entersyour semiosic activity, and you can now begin the route to cumulative inductivepractices. And if B enjoys a place in the conventions of some community ofsemiotic agents, then in all likelihood you will be able to relate it deductively to A byway of symbolicity (natural language), whether in "inner" or some form of "outer"dialogic exchange (CP:5.189).Of course the mind would ordinarily prefer to avoid surprises, except perhaps inplay. The game of life is serious business, and, according to Peirce, it entails


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incessant acts of abduction, induction, and deduction. Without them, there wouldbe no life at all, which is, precisely, the unfolding of possibilities actualized andcongealed into habits that constantly push the process along. During the course ofevents, vague possibilities (as Firsts) eventually take on breadth to becomegeneralities (as Thirds). In other words, juxtaposed and often inconsistent signs are

selected, actualized (into Seconds), and brought into relation with other signs toengender perpetually incomplete modes of mind and of action. This process, Imust emphasize, begins with abduction, the only "creative act of mind" (CP:2.624),the "operation which introduces any new idea," for induction "does nothing butdetermine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences ofpure hypothesis" (CP:5.l7l). An abductive insight is the mere suggestion oflearnability, which, when invested with a hypothesis, is tested for its accountability.If things go according to the best of expectations, then the mind is on its waytoward knowing something it knew not.In sum, then, with respect to the three forms of inference, (1) abduction is theprocess whereby sensations become welded together ultimately to form a generalidea, (2) induction entails habit formation whereby sensations as they are related tosimilar events (reaction on the part of some other) are combined into a generalidea, and (3) deduction is the process by which a habit, as the result of abductiveand inductive processes, becomes part of everyday conduct (CP:6.l44-46). It hasbecome quite apparent that these processes tend to gravitate from vagueness togenerality.Incorporating mind and body into the equation, in deduction the mind followshabits, usually according to pathways of least resistance and by virtue of which ageneral "idea" suggests some action. But this "idea" (Thirdness) is not strictlymental, disembodied, abstract, and autonomous of the world: it emerges as theresult of a process given a particular direction by some sensation (Firstness), andthe sensation was followed by some reaction (Secondness) from some other,whether of the physical world, the community, or the self's own "inner" other. Themove from sensation to reaction to idea to action is not marked by ruptures, butrather, it is continuous. Corporeal capacities and tendencies merge into incorporealcapacities and tendencies, and vice versa, as one undivided whole. Along theselines, Peirce writes in his usual intriguing but obscure manner, with uncannyallusions and bizarre associations, that the way "the hind legs of a frog, separatedfrom the rest of the body, reason," is "when you pinch them. It is the lowest form ofpsychical manifestation" (CP:6.l44).

There is no "I think, therefore I am" here, but merely the mind of some rather vague"I think" flowing along in concert with--though at times dragged along by--the body,and the self of "I am" in incessant dialogue--whether amiable or agonistic--with itsother self, its social other, and its physically "real" other. There is no "I respond tostimuli, therefore I think I think," but mind orchestrating--though often unwittinglyplaying second fiddle to--the body's comings and goings. In this manner, speakingof "mind" and "idea" in the same breath as the impulsive jerks of severed frog'slegs is not epistemological heresy. What the frog legs do is fundamentally what we


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do, the difference being that for the frog, the body, whether whole or dismembered,can hardly be budged from center stage, while our mind often deludes itself intothinking it has taken over the leading role and the body is merely along for the ride.However, the mind is not as paramount as we would like to think.

Though Peirce's abduction-induction-deduction triad does not enjoy the central rolein this inquiry, I bring it up in order briefly to illustrate the importance of all forms ofFirstness to the flux of semiosis. All concepts, as generalities, are invariableincomplete and hence subject to further amendments or deletions, or they maysimply be discarded if proved inadequate. This nature of concepts and so-calledconceptual schemes can by no stretch of the imagination be divorced fromvagueness, which liberally allows for polysemy, plurivocity, through metaphors andother rhetorical tropes. While by their very nature they embody inconsistency,these tropes are not therefore rendered meaningless, nonsensical, or "false." Theyare not mere place settings or hors d'oeuvres, but part of the main course. In thissense, iconicity lies embedded at the heart of things. If we can talk of meaning atall, it is due to this centrality of iconicity, composed of images, schemes (Peirce'sdiagrams), and metaphors. This centrality is germane to the ways of corporealsensing and feeling as precursors to thoughts, concepts, and habits of mind andaction. Linguistic or propositional knowing is possible solely as an outgrowth ofnonlinguistic or nonpropositional processes. In other words, in light of previousarguments, symbolicity depends upon iconicity and indexicality for its verysustenance, Thirdness is made possible by the prior development of Firstness andSecondness, and legisigns owe their very existence to qualisigns and sinsigns.Ultimately, qualisigns and icons themselves depend for their existence onimagination. From imagination, sense is made of experience, which renders signslearnable in the first place. Imagination affords the tools for making semiotic worldsand giving account of them, and it gives rise to the ways of reasoning toward whichknowledge of signs may be forthcoming. In fact, styles of reasoning themselvesdepend upon imagination, Firstness, which, as I shall argue in greater detail in thefinal chapter, is categorically ignored by "objectivist" philosophy. If meaning there be, then, it emerges from Firstness and encompasses the likes ofunicorn images, unicorn schemes, and unicorn thought-signs, just as much asgrue/green emeralds as images, schemes, and concepts. "Grue" and "green" aspredicates all constantly collude, collide, collaborate, and conspire to bring aboutengenderment of meaning on the part of their respective semiotic agents andaccording to whatever contexts and conditions happen to emerge at a particularspace-time juncture. Meaning consists in the relations emerging during signengenderment and interpretation. It is not found in the relations between words andtheir referents, but first and foremost in relations of iconicity and indexicality, infeeling "in here" and sign-events either "in here" or "out there" before there are anythought-signs.We would like to think we are rational animals, capable willfully of generating thethought-signs that most effectively give our lives order and purpose. But before weare rational animals, we are rational animals. Our styles of reasoning are embodied


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in our cultural patterns and propensities, our embedded habits and tacit everydayactivities. Consequently, these styles of reasoning enable us to fabricate ourworlds according to pathways of least resistance (the demands of Secondness),culturally inculcated imperatives (the necessities of Thirdness), and privateidiosyncrasies, whims, and wishes (the desires of Firstness). The concrete

"reasoning" of heart, soul, stomach, and even--and perhaps most emphatically--groin cannot be divorced from the abstract "reasoning" of mind. Feeling andsensing, and contact with hard core physical "reality" cannot but play a necessarypart in the ethereal confines of intellection. Body and mind, subject and object,individual and community, nature and culture, are inextricably mixed. But I really must be more specific. So...TO THE MEAT OF THE ISSUEAlthough the empiricist side of Peirce winces at the mention of innate ideas,

according to his postulate of a continuity between nature and mind and betweenmind and body, he makes no categorical break between the well-reasoned andlogical formulation of a concept and that feel, familiar to us all, for what is correct:abduction thus takes its rightful place beside induction and deduction. If there areno innate ideas, at least there is, Peirce argues, an innate tendency for the mind tohit upon the correct answer in the face of a bewildering array of possible answers.And if innate ideas there must be, an idea's innateness most certainly "admits ofdegree, for it consists of the tendency of the idea to present itself to the mind"(CP:6.416).When the mind faces a problem, it begins searching for an answer, irnoring largelyirrelevant date and homing in on more probable avenues, looking where it senses,feels, or intuits a solution must lie in wait. The process occurs at conscious andnonconscious levels, as sreports from those who have had great insights testify.For example,Poincar (1952:39) writes of "the subliminal self" that is "in no wayinferior to the conscious self; it is not purely automatic; it is capable of discernment;it has tact, delicacy; it knows how to choose, to divine." Poincar's observationechoes Peirce's notion, interspersed throughout his texts, that it is quitereasonable--though unfalsifiable--to assume the mind has a "natural light or light ofnature, or instinctive insight, or genius" that allows it to arrive at hte correct answer.This is to be expected, for, Peirce tells us, the three categories of thought and thevery existence of thought itself depend upon the fact that "human thoughtnecessarily partakes of whatever character is diffused through the whole universe,and that its natural modes have some tendency to be the modes of action of theuniverse" (CP:1.351) Why should the mind not as much a part of nature asanything else? If it is, then there is no reason to believe that it must be reduced tocompissible trial-and-error guesses when striving to comprehend nature.Of the three kinds of reasoning, corresponding to deduction, induction, andabduction, the first is necessary, "but it only professes to give us informationconcerning the matter of our own hypotheses and distinctly declares that, if we


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want to know anything else, we must go elsewhere." The second depends uponprobabilities, which can give no guarantees but, "like an insurance company, anendless multitude of insignificant risks." And the third is that "which lit the foot-stepsof Galileo.... It is really an appeal to instinct. Thus reason, for all the frills itcustomarily wards, in vital crises, comes down upon its marror-bones to beg the

succor of instinct" (CP:1.630). From the rational mind to the instinctive mind,thought occurs by one style of reason or another along the continuum fromconsciousness to nonconsciousness, from explicitness to implicitness, and fromknowing that to knowing how. In a manner of speaking, the rational mind isimmature, while the instinctive mind is mature (Rochberg-Halton 1986:10-11).The abductive inferences of the instinctive mind, of concrete reasonableness, are"acritically indubitable," though "invariably vague," since at the outset they areusually plagued with inconsistencies, and they are radically fallible as long as theyare not given deductive scaffolding and put to the inductive test (CP:5.441-66). Onthe other hand, the rational mind is capable of progressing toward ever greatergenerality, but in spite of its Faustian, modernist desires for control and absoluteknowledge, and given its finitude, the critical inferences that it generates aredesting to remain incomplete.Unfortunately, the modern tendency to consider Cartesian introspection, rationalargumentation, logical proof, and direct, objective, empirical "facts" as the finalarbiters of knowledge ignores "sentiment," a feel for what is right, and concretereasonableness, which are the source of all new knowledge by way of abduction(CP:1.615, 5.433). Suppression of (instinctive, habituated, sedimented,entrenched) knowing how by favoring (rational, propositional-computational)knowing that cannot but terminate in Whitehead's (1925) "fallacy of misplacedconcreteness." It may well be that knowing how, by (1) the instinctive mind, andespecially by (2) the sinking into nonconsciousness of explicit propositional andcomputational practices to become second nature, is a greater achievement ofhumankind than the conscious, intentional workings of the rational mind. Regarding(2), the capacity to view a Necker cube and other two-dimensional objects asthree-dimensional, to encapsulate three-dimensional phenomena on a canvas withcubist techniques, to conceive of the earth as round and traveling around the sun,to take -1 for granted in description of "real-world" happenings, to accept infinityand the continuum as an intuitive matter of fact, are by no means negligibleaccomplishments when considering human culture at large.But I really must get on to yet a more concrete exemplification of abduction. THE MAXIM'S ROLE IN ABDUCTION, AND OTHER UNCERTAINTIESDeduction occurs as if within some atemporal setting. It is knowing what could bethe case, if certain conditions were to inhere. Induction is the accumulation, withintime, of knowing what is, according to the particular preconceptions,predispositions and proclivities, and whims and wishes, of the sign maker and


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taker. Abduction is the timeless flash of knowing that which might possibly be, withno guarantees that this is so.Abduction, along with induction and deduction, comes into play when Peirce's"pragmatic maxim" is put to use. And, I would respectfully suggest, the maxim

plays a role in as facets of semiosis, whether we are speaking of science,technology, the arts and humanities, or the coming and going of everyday life. Inone of Peirce's rendition, which is the most commonly cited, we have the following:Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of ourconception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of theobject. (CP:5.402).Notice how a combination of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness is implied inthe maxim. We are asked to consider (Thirdness) the practical bearings of theeffects (Secondness) that whatever is under consideration might conceivably have(Firstness). We have what we conceive would be or could be or should result if the

perceived world were of such-and-such a nature, according to what we imaginemight possibly be the case. But since what emerges out of our imaginative facultiesis not only unpredictable but virtually without definite limits, the nature of what wewould expect to ensue according to the myriad ways our world could be perceivedand conceived would be equally unlimited, given all possible times and places,here and there and in the past, present, and future. The maxim, in this regard,plays on our imagining would might possible be the case in one of an unlimitednumber of contexts. So there can be no closure, since tomorrow might usher insome unforeseen possibilities of imagination that might end in new probabilities (ofThirdness) of actualization in the world (of Secondness).Abduction is a way of knowing what might be possible, and once knowing (andmeaning) in the active sense enters the scene, then there is attention towardentrenchment and habituation of that knowing. But since abduction is an ongoingprocess and never entirely absent, then whatever codes or rules or modes ofaction are developed within a particular society, the possibility always exist forthose codes, rules, or modes of action to be subverted in one form or another,indeed, in virtually an infinity of ways. Therefore it behooves us to lend an ear toWittgenstein, regarding rules, who offers the folowing notorious opinion on rulefollowing that has recently been the target of many heated debates: This was our paradox: no course of action could be determined by the rule, because every course

of action can be made out to accord with the rule. (Wittgenstein 1953:201).

Now, much controversial ink has been shed over the pros and cons, the virtuesand vicissitudes, of Wittgenstein's so-called paradox--that not a small number ofobservers consider not a paradox but a dilemma over which we really need notlose any sleep. By no means do I wish to enter into this debate. Rather, therelevance of Wittgenstein's problem in regard to this inquiry bears on its implicationof infinity.


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How does infinity enter into the equation? It doesn't really enter, for it was there allalong, that is, in the beginning, with Peirce's notion of continuity, the book ofassertions, the indeterminable range of possibilities within Firstness. Or better put,from what Peirce calls the "nothingness" (the unbroken, faceless, emptinesscontinuum) prior to the becoming of anything at all there appears a "point," and

from the solitary "point" an infinity of "points" can be engendered to compose a"line," from an infinity of "lines" a "plane" begins its becoming, from an infinity of"planes" a "cube" begins emerging, and from an infinity of "cubes" a "hypercube"begins the process of its becoming. This process is sensed in Peirce's marring ofthe continuum. A line, as metaphorical of this continuum, he writes, "contains nopoints until the continuity is broken by marking the points. In accordance with this itseems necessary to say that a continuum, where it is continuous and unbroken,contains no definite parts; that its parts are created in the act of defining them andthe precise definition of them breaks the continuity" (CP:6.168). This primordialcontinuum, "is a collection of so vast a multitude that in the whole universe ofpossibility there is not room for them to retain their distinct identities; but theybecome welded into one another.Thus, the continuum is all that is possible, in what ever dimension it be continuous"(NEM:4.343). Where is the point to be placed that disrupts the continuum? Peirceoffers the answer. There is "a possible, or potential, point-place wherever a pointmight be placed; but that which only may be is necessarily thereby indefinite, andas such, and in so far, and in thos respects, as it is such, it is not subject to theprinciple of contradiction" (CP:6.182). It is not subject to the principle ofcontradiction? Now how can this be? If in a zone subject to our contemplation thereis green and not-green (or perhaps grue), then there must be an imaginary dividingline between what is and what is not. So, "what is the color of the dividing line; is itgreen or not? I should say that it is both green and not. 'But that violates theprinciple of contradiction, without which there can be no sense in anything.' Not atall; the principle of contradiction doesn't apply to possibilities. Possibly I shall votefor Roosevelt; possibly not. Geometrical limits are mere possibilities" (NEM:2.531).In an alternative to this "thought experiment," Peirce asks us to imagine he draws achalk line on a blackboard. Then he writes that "the only line [that] is there is theline which forms the limit between the black surface and the white surface.... Theboundary between the black and white is neither black, nor white, nor neither, norboth. It is the pairedness of the two. It is for the white the active Secondness of theblack; for the black the active Secondness of the white" (CP:6.203). In the firstcase we have a rape of the principle of contradiction; in the second case we have arape of the excluded-middle principle. Where is the logic in all this? Is there noorder in Peirce's concept of the continuum?BODYMIND HAS ITS WAYS OF WHICH MIND ALONE IS IGNORANT In Figure 1 we had a graphic image of the becoming of the beingness of space andthe beingness of its becoming. Notice that, with the exception of the bare point, allinvolve continua. This is significant. In the process from one continuum to the nextwe have an infinity of possibilities from which some undefined and undefinable


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number of particulars can begin their becoming. I write "undefined" and"undefinable," since there is no way before the fact of the beginning of becomingone could have been aware of what would have been becoming.This is to say that from the range of possibilities Peirce on the one hand might

have voted for Roosevelt and on the other hand he might not have voted for him.Suppose Peirce voted for Roosevelt. Well and good. A vote has been cast,Secondness saw fit to lay claim to a particular event, and that's that. Before thevote was cast, the range of possibilities was like the dividing line between greenand not-green: it was both the one and the other, as possibility. The principle ofcontradiction simply does not apply. Peirce enjoyed the possibility of voting andnot-voting for Teddy but voting for his competitor in the political arena. However,suppose that Peirce decided not to vote for Roosevelt, and to sustain voting for hiscompetitor. In this case he neither voted for the one nor the other, hence theexcluded-middle principle loses its force. Secondness emerged, an eventtranspired, and Thirdness, consisting of Peirce's opinion regarding the sorry stateof all candidates, an interpretant, mediated between the event and the range ofpossibilities. As the possibilities of Firstness there is a both-and affair, and withrespect to the mediation of Thirdness there is always a certain probability of aneither-nor affair. Now, a question concerning the relevance of all this to the idea ofabduction has certainly forced itself into the mind of any and all readers. So, let's return to Wittgenstein's problem. No particular course of action can beabsolutely determined by a rule implies that before any course of action(Secondness) is made, there is the indefinite range of possibilities (Firstness).Since there is no absolutely determining which of those possibilities is destined toemerge at a given juncture, there exists the possibility that either of a pair ofcontradictory courses of action might ensue. This would appear to conflict with theprinciple of contradiction, that is, in terms of possibilities as we have seen fromPeirce. Assuming a particular course of action begins the becoming of itsemergence into the light of day, at that point interpretation (Thirdness) of thatcourse of action exists as no more than possibility, which is to say that betweenany two possible interpretations, some of them conflicting, a third one may emerge.This plays havoc with the excluded-middle principle in view of Peirce's words. If weplace the Firstness of possibilities, the Secondness of action, and the Thirdness ofinterpretation within the process of abduction, the question becomes: When one issurprised by an unexpected turn of events, how can one know how properly toproceed or if one is following the proper rule? In order perhaps to come to gripswith this problem, let's briefly return to the maxim, not as it is ordinarily taken byPeirce scholars but as it might be taken in light of Wittgenstein's problem.A surprise catches us off guard, for example, when making a turn on a countryroad we hit a patch of gravel and our car begins swerving. We reactspontaneously, turning the wheels in the direction of the swerve. That's proper rulefollowing. However, we hardly had time to "consider the effects, that mightconceivably have practical bearings," we conceived "the object of our conception tohave." We just did what we did, without botherint to think about it. Yet the body


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thought, the bodymind, the bodymind as sign, bodymindsign. We did what we didbecause our obeying that particular rule of the road had become entrenched,habituated, sedimented, tacit. As Wittgenstein (1953:202) points our, "to think oneis obeying a rule is not to obey a rule." We obey the rule virtually in automatonfashion. A dilemma arose, we tacitly grasped the rule and followed it, and the

desired effects were forthcoming. It is as if "our conception of these effects" werethe "whole of our conception" of the situation at hand.However, the "course of action" could have been quite otherwise. Suddenlyconfused by the unwanted turn of events, we might have very tentatively turned thewheel in the direction of the car's spin, we might have turned the wheel away fromit's spin, we might have slammed on the brakes, we might have shoved our foot onthe accelerator pedal, we might have let go of the wheel and emitted a scream ofanguish, we might have frozen, or whatever. There is no absolutely determinateway we could have foreseen our "course of action" and hence our possible failureto comply with the rule, in which case the bodymindsign might have deviatedslightly to radically from the rule. There's no knowing for sure. That is whatWittgenstein had in mind when he wrote that we must obey a rule blindly, thoughthere is no knowing when we unwittingly might deviate from the rule. Now I don'twish to contest the interpretations of Peirce's maxim that "consider" only theconsciously, intentially, and cognitively derived "effects, that might conceivably..."when a problem situation confronts us. I am taking the maxim into everydaypractices, where we have the possibility (Firstness) of indefinite responses to aproblem, where by our action (Secondness) we obey or do not obey rules, andwhere we interpret (Thirdness) the rules implicitly, within particular contexts, andwithout having consciously, intentionally, and cognitively to think about them. Inthis light, a surprise overtakes bodymindsign, it acts as it will act, and success orfailure is the outcome. The process of signs becoming signs, from Firstness toSecondness to Thirdness, takes places just as surely as if we had contemplated aproblem, intellectualized a course of action according to some rule, and carried ouraction to its logical end finally to interpret our results.MAXIMIZING WITTGENSTEIN AND DEREGULATING THE MAXIMNow, let us do something radical. Let us combine the maxim and Wittgenstein'sparadox thusly:This is the problem: no single practical bearing could be determinately interrelated,one-to-one, with a particular effect that our conception (imagination) of the object inquestion might have, because, given the whole of our conception (imagination) ofall the possible effects that might be interrelated with that particular practicalbearing, a host of alternate practical bearings could always be made out tointerrelate with an indeterminate range of the effects, all those practical bearingsand effects serving to make up the whole of our conception (imagination) of theobject.


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What do we have here? We have the implication that no single "practical bearing"is linearly connected (via Secondness) to a "particular effect" with respect to ourimagination (Firstness) or conception (Thirdness). We take in the notion that thewhole of our conception and imagination of the possible "practical bearings" andtheir "possible effects" is destined to incompleteness, either that or inconsistency,

since there will remain an unlimited and indeterminable range of "practicalbearings" and "effects" that our finite, fallible minds did not or were incapable ofentertaining. We become aware of our limitations, our shortcomings, with therealization that the whole of our conception and imagination is a mere drop in thebucket with respect to everything possible.Above all, we slightly lift the veil to take a peek at abduction emerging, coming tothe fore, evincing its paramount importance in the creative process of ourconceiving and imagining. The implications present in the Wittgenstein-Peircecombination are a nonlinear range of possibilities rather than linear cause-and-effect sequences, unlimited interrelated, interdependent, interactivity between allpossibilities and the "practical bearings" that will likely result from the "effects"produced by signs once they have become actualized. Moreover, communitybased conventional rules of thought and action may always vary, from time to timeand from place to place. There is no predicting what the future will bring. This, I would submit, follows Ilya Prigogine's (1980, Prigogine and Stengers 1983)science of complexity, of order emerging from disorder, and of the unfathomabilityof it all. A butterfly flaps its wings hear an orchid in the Amazon basin, a slightperturbation is created in the air, the perturbation nonlinearly grows in intensity,and continues to grow. Finally, a hurricane occurs in the Caribben, and thousandsof people are left homeless. All because of a humble butterfly. But of course thebutterfly was not at fault. The natural train of indeterminably complex events justtook their course. No physical law has been broken. Quite simply, the customary"rule" of conduct butterflies naturally tend to follow brought about dire effects. Thepresident of the United States has a blemish on his nose and check it out at thehospital, and the DOW average takes a turn downward. A boisterous lad gets hit inthe back of the head with a cup while watching a soccer match. A fight ensues, andeventually the entire stadium turns into a riot. In each case, unwritten "rules" ofproper procedures vary, and unpredictable, though in principle deterministic,effects come about.In the final analysis, what about abduction? After all, that is what this essay ispresumably about. An abduction appears as if out of the clear blue sky, as if wegrasped it from some timeless orthogonal view within some virtually unfathomableother dimension, as depicted in Figures 2 and 3, as if we were somehow mentallyand bodily to exercise an enigmatic and paradoxical flip of the Mbius strip, as ifwe were somehow somewhere and somewhen else. Indeed, it would appear, afterall the above has been said and done, that abduction, and along with it inductionand deduction, are the way of all signs, of bodymindsigns, of their daily comingsand goings. I believe if we follow the spirit of Peirce's struggle against thebody/mind and all other dualisms, we cannot but conclude that signs of cogitation,


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intellection, willful mental conception, are exceelingly paltry in comparison to theentire range of signs bodymind makes and takes during the course of a day'shectic gush of semiotic activity. That is the bane and the boon of human existence,depending upon the perspective.

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abducting the process of abducting

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