A Consideration of Abduction as a Method of Inference for Scientific Inquiry

Abstract

The development of creativity is important in science education, and a deficiency of it is an urgent problem. As a means to solve this problem, we investigated the scientific process of inquiry. There have of course been various research studies on the process of inquiry, but here we tried to consider various methods of inference, in particular that of abduction based on the theory of Peirce. (Charles Sanders Peirce 1839-1914) Abduction differs from Induction and Deduction. Abduction is related to the adoption of the hypothesis and is the most important part of inquiry. In this study, we examined abduction, induction, and deduction. We demonstrate the concept of abduction clearly by examining these other methods of inference. Then we examine one case in which abduction was used in the scientific process of inquiry.