[Inquiry] Re: Extension x Comprehension = Information

[Jon Awbrey]

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ECI.  Note 37

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| Thus the three grounds of inference are proved.
| All have been made certain.  But the manner in
| which they have attained to certainty indicates
| a very different general strength of the three
| kinds of inference.
|
| The hypothetic argument became certain only by speaking of
| that which has no sense except when this principle is true.
|
| The inductive argument became certain only by taking into
| account all that could possibly be known.
|
| The deductive argument alone was strictly demonstrative.
|
| Thus we have in order of strength Deduction, Induction, Hypothesis.
| Deduction, in fact, is the only demonstration;  yet no one thinks of
| questioning a good induction, while hypothesis is proverbially dangerous.
| 'Hypotheses non fingo', said Newton, striving to place his theory on a basis
| of strict induction.  Yet it is hypotheses with which we must start;  the baby
| when he lies turning his fingers before his eyes is making a hypothesis as to
| the connection of what he sees and what he feels.  Hypotheses give us our facts.
| Induction extends our knowledge.  Deduction makes it distinct.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 283.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "On the Logic of Science",
| Harvard University Lectures of 1865, pages 161-302 in:
|
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce:  A Chronological Edition',
|'Volume 1, 1857-1866', Peirce Edition Project,
| Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

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