McGregor, S. L. T. (2014). Abductive reasoning in everyday life: Implications for Home

Economics. Kappa Omicron Nu FORUM, 19(1) )

http://www.kon.org/archives/forum/19-1/mcgregor4.html

Introduction

This paper explores the role of abductive thinking and reasoning in the everyday life of

families, and how insights into this inference model might affect home economics philosophy

and practice. As a caveat, although both abductive reasoning and intuition are forms of

“cognitive economy” (Wong, 2006, p. 1), they are not the same thing. Abduction (i.e., best guess

given what is known in the context) is a logical explanation, though an unassured one, for some

very curious or surprising (anomalous) observation (Kolko, 2010; McKeever, 2008; Patokorpi,

2006). The reaction to a surprising anomaly is one factor that distinguishes abduction from

intuition. Second, although intuition is an integral part of everyday life and everyday intelligence

(Cappon, 1993), it is not a form of reasoning as is abduction. Rather, an intuition is a compelling

feeling people have (Pust, 2012), something they know or consider likely, but a feeling arrived at

without an reasoning process (Pierce, 1868).

Third, Pierce, the father of abductive reasoning, asserted that everything we know is

determined by something we previously knew. He claimed, “We have no power of Intuition”

(1868, p. 141). By this he meant that intuitions are not best guesses based on previous

knowledge, as are abductions; rather, intuitions are inner convictions, hunches, gut feelings, a 6th

sense about something without evidence or knowledge (Wong, 2006). Intuitions are “random

flashes or sudden realizations, not a process of inference, much less one based on some given

evidence” (Timothy, 2004). In sharp contrast, abductive reasoning follows from being directly

confronted with evidence or knowledge of something. It is an inference, a faculty of knowledge,

complete in that inference and deduction usually follow (Patokorpi, 2006).

Caveat aside, abductive reasoning matters for home economics because “it is frequently

employed in everyday reasoning” (Douven, 2011, p.4). In fact, “the bulk of human knowledge in

everyday life is based on abductive thinking” (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 79). Sometimes people’s use

of abductive thinking is obvious and explicit and sometimes is it so routine and automatic that it

easily goes unnoticed. In either case, after observing something, people come up with an

interpretation off the situation (a conclusion) that best explains what has been seen. Abductive

thinking is most commonly called Inference to the Best Explanation (Douven, 2011; Pierce,

1878). It is in sharp contrast to the familiar deductive and inductive logic.

People fall back on abductive thinking when there are multiple explanations for a

surprising, strange or confounding event they encounter, but the best they can do is guess at what

is going on. They end up making weak inferences, weak because they cannot be sure they believe

in the truth of their explanation - their guess - yet they have to conclude something so they can

make sense of what they are seeing (Chaudhri, 2012). Patokorpi explained that “the method of

reasoning used by Sherlock Holmes is abduction” (2006, p. 71). Other common examples of

abductive reasoning are lawyers abducing who likely committed a crime and doctors making a

medical diagnosis on an unconscious patient (McKeever, 2008).

A defining characteristic of abductive thinking is that the conclusions drawn do not

follow logically from the assumptions (premises) about the situation (Douven, 2011); they are

just the best explanation at hand. Indeed, abductive thinking has been described as (a) informed

guessing, (b) taking your best shot, (c) best guess leaps, (d) the logic of what might be, and (e)

offering the best explanation, given what is known and the context (Kolko, 2010; McKeever,

2008; Patokorpi, 2006). You think about a confounding situation, draw a conclusion, and “that is

what you come away believing” (Douven, 2011, p. 2). It is the best thing you can come up with

at the time.

To illustrate, “You happen to know that Tim and Harry have recently had a terrible row

that ended their friendship. Now someone tells you that she just saw Tim and Harry jogging

together. The best explanation for this that you can think of is that they made up. You conclude

they are friends again. ...What leads you to this conclusion ... is precisely the fact that Tim and

Harry’s being friends again would, if true, best explain the fact that they have just been seen

jogging together” (Douvet, 2011, pp.1-2). Douvet explained that you are able to infer they are

friends again because abductive logic allows your conclusions to go beyond what is suggested by

the premises.

Gibbs (in press) placed abductive thinking in a larger context, drawing on its

psychological aspect (see Patokorpi, 2006). Gibbs explained that people go about their everyday

life until such a time when they become aware of a discontinuity in the harmony of their way of

being. This harmony is disrupted or ruptured by an observation that what they see does not match

the reality of what they have come to know (per above example, seeing Tim and Harry together

after a huge breakdown in friendship). Worse, people cannot find adequate meaning to resolve

the discontinuity that disturbed their previous tranquillity. In these surprising, strange or

inexplicable situations, people can resort to abductive thinking, whereby they seek to find the

best way of understanding or reframing their reality in order to regain balance and harmony (i.e.,

Tim and Harry must be friends again, despite everything to the contrary).

In addition to bringing some semblance of reality back into balance, abductive reasoning

can also lead to giant leaps in thinking, to breakthrough ideas. Abductive thinking involves leaps

of imagination and visualization that scarcely seem warranted by the mere observations

promoting the abduction, with Einstein’s thought experiments about space and time cited as a

powerful example (McKeever, 2008). “This form of reasoning [also] conveys the manner in

which people reason when making discoveries in the sense of coming up with new ideas....

[Their conclusion] might open up a new perspective into things even when there is nothing out of

the ordinary about [the facts or observations]” (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 73). In the previous example,

it was not ordinary to see two people jogging together when their friendship was over. The

following quote from Wolf (2004) illustrates an instance of a breakthrough idea.

Here is an example of an abductive argument given by Aristotle: ‘The world must

be spherical in shape. For the night sky looks different in the northern and

southern regions, and this would be so if the earth were spherical.’ - Aristotle,

Physics. To put this argument in standard form, we might interpret it as follows:

(1) The night sky looks different in the northern and southern regions. (2) The best

explanation for this fact is that the earth is round. (3) Therefore (probably) the

earth is spherical in shape. ...Aristotle never explicitly says that the ‘spherical

earth’ hypothesis is the best explanation for his observations. ... Of course we

know that the conclusion is true. But looking back, we might regard Aristotle’s

inference as a shrewd and daring guess. (Wolf, 2004, p. 3)

Absence of Abductive Reasoning in Home Economics

This section addresses the absence of abductive reasoning in home economics and why

this lacuna matters. “Abductive reasoning typically begins with an incomplete set of observations

and proceeds to the likeliest possible explanation for the set [of observations]. Abductive

reasoning yields the kind of daily decision making that does its best with the information at hand,

which is often incomplete. ... Abductive reasoning is characterized by lack of completeness,

either in evidence, or in explanation, or both. ...[People] make their best guesses based on what

they know” (McKeever, 2008, p. 2, emphasis added).

Not surprisingly, given its importance in daily decision making, abduction is a central

element of everyday thought (Douven, 2011; Patokorpi, 2006). Indeed, home economics has had

an abiding concern for everyday life (McGregor, 2012; Tuomi-Gröhn, 2008) but not for

abductive thinking. To the contrary, it has long valued deductive reasoning, evident in its

embracement of the scientific, empirical, technical approach to practice, values reasoning and

critical thinking. Those within the field who are drawn to other ways of knowing and thinking,

including interpretive and critical science approaches, will also be familiar with inductive

reasoning.

To explain, deductive logic is causal and linear in nature and is used for scientific,

technical reasoning while inductive logic can either (a) help discern how people are making sense

of their world (interpretive) or (b) persuade or lead people to new insights, emancipation and

liberation by revealing power relationships (critical). The home economics profession has not

explicitly engaged with abductive reasoning in its body of knowledge, despite its focus on the

daily life of individuals and families, and one would think the day-to-day reasoning process,

much aligned with abductive thinking - best guesses.

This paper begins to address this lacuna in our philosophical foundation. It follows that

an exploration of abductive reasoning will help home economists better understand everyday life

as well as give us some valuable hints for practice, especially our philosophy of practice. The

balance of the paper focuses on expounding upon the idea of abductive reasoning with examples

of abductive thinking, couched within family life, shared towards the end of the paper.

Conceptual Clarification

Deductive, inductive and abductive reasoning are the three main forms of logic used by

humans, as set out by Aristotle (Pierce, 1878). For the sake of conceptual clarity, deduce is Latin

deducere, to lead down. It refers to drawing a conclusion from something already known. Induce

is Latin inducere, to lead into by persuasion or influence. Abduce is Latin abducere, to lead

away, to draw or take away from (Harper, 2014) (see Figure 1).

In a deductive argument, “the premises are intended to provide such strong support for

the conclusion that, if the premises are true, then it would be impossible for the conclusion to be

false.... [T]he truth of the conclusion is thought to be completely guaranteed.” Conversely, in an

inductive argument, “the premises are intended only to be so strong that, if they were true, then it

would be unlikely that the conclusion is false. ...[T[he premises provide good enough reasons to

believe the conclusion is true” (IEP Staff, n.d., p.1, emphasis added). In an abductive argument,

people “draw a [best guess] conclusion from an array of seemingly disparate and unconnected

facts and observations” (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 71).

In more detail, a deductive argument claims that if its premises are true, its conclusion

must be true. An inductive argument claims that if its premises are true, its conclusion is

probably true. The conclusion of an abductive argument is merely the best explanation we know

of. It is not as secure as the conclusion of a sound deductive argument. It is not necessarily even

probable, as is the conclusion of a strong inductive argument; but it is the best people can do

given their ability to take away from (abduce) the facts and observations at hand (Muehlhauser,

2009).

There are two enduring, textbook illustrations of abductive thinking and logic, the wet

lawn and the bag of beans, each based on a known rule. First, it is a known rule that if it rains the

grass is wet; so, to explain the fact that the grass is wet, one infers (guesses) that it has rained

(knowing there are many other reasons grass can be wet, e.g., sprinklers, floods). Second, it is a

known rule that all of the beans in the bag are white; so, to explain the fact that the beans are

white, one infers (guesses) that the beans are from this bag, knowing the beans could have come

from somewhere else (Patokorpi, 2006).

Psychological and Logical Aspects of Abduction

As noted earlier, abduction “has both a psychological (synthetic) and logical (analytic)

dimension closely intertwined” (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 73). Gell (1998) drew on Pierce’s (1878)

concept of synthetic inference (as opposed to analytic inference) to explain that when people face

very strange, confounding circumstances, they assume that things can be explained by some rule,

thereby enabling them to suppose that that rule explains what is going on (i.e., they abduce).

Citing Roesler, Patokorpi (2006) shared the following example. Someone was surprised when

she observed a round, orange-coloured and porous object. She reasoned that if this object was an

orange (a known rule to her), it would make sense to her and thus cease to be surprising. Ergo,

she abduced (took away) from her observations that the object was an orange (a plausible

explanation given the facts at hand).

Using synthetic inference, this person reduced the psychological angst created by finding

something that did not match what they had known before (i.e., the previous example of the

joggers who were thought to be no longer friends). In these instances, people can have degrees of

trust in the manner used to infer their conclusion, knowing that their belief “tends to fix itself

under the influence of inquiry” (Pierce, 1878, p. 719). In some instances, “abduction does require

backing up by deduction... and induction... to make [sure] the guesses are not just plausible but

accurate as well” (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 71). Many abductions are rejected or heavily modified by

subsequent abductions. It is likely that you would want to follow up to see if Tim and Harry had

indeed made up, or if they just happened to be seen on the same jogging path at the same time.

It’s Human Nature to Abduce

Not surprisingly then, abductive thinking is more intuitive than deduction or induction

(Gell,1998). Intuitive means instinctual, having a natural tendency for something. Charles

Sanders Pierce (1878), the first to write about abductive logic (see also Hartshorne and Weiss,

1960) concurred, explaining that people are able to successfully guess (use abductive reasoning)

because human’s minds have a natural affinity for doing so. It is not blind luck; rather, abductive

thinking is guided by lumen naturale, a term from Mediaeval times meaning humans are quite

capable of reasoning without divine revelation. Pierce (1908) further believed that the success of

people’s guesses far exceeds that of random luck because humans have a natural instinct to

successfully guess (abduce) when not hampered by the formal laws of deductive and inductive

logic.

“Abduction guesses a new or outside idea so as to account in a plausible, instinctive,

economical way for a surprising or very complicated phenomenon” (Wikipedia Encyclopedia,

2014, p. 5, emphasis added). Not only must the guess be the most sufficient and plausible

explanation, it must also be the most economical explanation for what is going on. Simplification

and economy both call for that leap of abduction. As well, the abductive process uses pragmatic

logic; insecure guesses (weak inferences) must at least be conceivable, capable of being

imagined, of being possible.

The abductive process can also be very creative, intuitive, even revolutionary (McKeever,

2008). Its logic is a powerful path for the creation of new knowledge and insights. “The

abductive insight comes to us like a flash. It is an act of insight, although extremely fallible

insight. It is true that the different elements of the [insight] were in our minds before; but it is the

idea of putting together what we had never before dreamed of putting together which flashes the

new suggestion before our contemplation” (Pierce Edition Project, 1988, p. 227, emphasis

added).

Sensemaking and Following Clues

Taking an interesting stance, Kolko (2010) proposed that people use abductive reasoning

to make sense of their complex life (see also Patokorpi, 2006). Sensemaking involves an internal,

personal process whereby people try to understand connections between people, places and

events. When sensemaking, “it is less important to be ‘accurate’ and more important to give

some abstract and tangible form to the ideas, thoughts and reflections [emergent from the

connections]” (Kolko, 2010, p. 18, emphasis added). Abductive thinking lets people propose C

as a best guess as to why B is occurring, even though C was not part of their original observations

of the phenomenon. People are better able to make sense of the strange and confounding things

they encounter if they can resort to outside the box, creative insights enabling them to make an

informed guess about what is going on.

Along a similar line of thinking about informed guessing, Patokorpi (2006) proposed that

abductive thinking “is essentially a matter of finding and following clues. However, ... a clue

alone is not enough. A clue merely leads the reasoner to something that he or she already knows.

Abduction, in contrast to the mere following of clues, aims at eliciting new knowledge” (p. 80).

Much like Kolko’s (2010) notion of sensemaking, by actively paying attention to signs and clues

that are open for all to see, abductive thinkers give meaning to these things, producing new

knowledge. Knowledge based on abduction can be communicated to others because it is based on

visible signs and clues. It is the power of guessing that reveals the knowledge. Furthermore,

people differ in their ability to detect clues and to abduce (take away) new insights or

conclusions. And, people differ in their previous knowledge of the world, in their experiences

and their logical acumen. These personal differences explain why people exposed to the same

strange and confounding circumstances may indeed come up with different conclusions (guesses

about what is going on) (Ginzburg as cited in Patokorpi, 2006).

Forms of Abductive Reasoning Applied to Families

To aid in employing this logic in practice, it is helpful to know that there are four forms

of abductive inference: selective, creative, non-sentential, and manipulative (see Figure 2)

(Magnani, 1998; Magnani, Piazza, & Dossena, 2002; see also Patokorpi, 2006). Some examples

of abductive thinking, couched within family life, are now shared.

First, when using selective abduction, people select the rule that is already in their mind.

To illustrate, if the daughter in a family comes into the kitchen and sees a tuna fish sandwich

beside an open can of tuna, and her mother standing there, she can guess the tuna came from the

open can and that her Mom made the sandwich. Eco (1983) called this quasi-automatic selective

abduction; the daughter selected a rule that was already “a part of the furniture” of her reasoning

mind (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 78); her Mom has made tuna sandwiches for her before.

Second, what if the Mom was surprised and shocked to see her daughter emerge from her

bedroom wearing an outrageous outfit, that is totally out of character? In this case, the Mom may

not have a rule in her head for this strange situation in her family life, so she has to create a new

one to explain what is going on in her daughter’s head, called creative abduction. This form of

abduction involves the creation of new causal relations, radical new connections to explain

something, likely involving dropping closely-held assumptions (note that Magnani et al. (2002)

likened creative abduction to doctors abducing a new disease from a set of surprising symptoms,

with HIV AIDS as the example).

Third, it is a given that abductive reasoning relies on observations as well as facts. These

observations involve all five senses, which provide clues that can be used when explaining what

is going on. Rather than expressing their reasoning using sentences (verbal expressions), some

people draw on mental images or pictures (called non-sentential abduction because they are not

verbally representing their thought processes in sentences). So, in this family scenario with the

wayward teenager, the Mom may find a broken chair in the living room. When trying to make an

informed or educated guess about what happened to the chair, she now pictures in her mind the

wild party that her daughter must have held. She knows full well that it could be broken for other

reasons, but the daughter’s previous shocking behaviour leads to the Mom’s best guess as to

what went on and the mental image of a wild party came to mind.

The final form of abductive thinking is manipulative reasoning. Mathematics teachers

will be familiar with using manipulatives to help students learn geometry. Students hold and

manipulate actual objects in their hands, using the tacit knowledge forming in their heads to

abduce (take away) geometrical principles (Magnani et al., 2002). Back to our family example.

Perhaps the Mom could deal with her daughter’s never-before-expressed fashion sense (likely a

means for expressing her emergent identity), by taking her daughter shopping so she can try on

different clothes and styles, and explain why she likes or dislikes each one. The Mom would be

taking an educated guess that this form of manipulative abduction might help her daughter

express why she is dressing the way she is now and maybe this can lead to a conversation about

the larger issue of teen identity.

Some Implications for Home Economics

Not perfect examples for sure, but they serve to illustrate how pervasive abductive

reasoning seems to be within family life and why it merits further consideration by the home

economics profession. “Abductive educated guessing” is the mainstay of everyday thought

processes (Patokorpi, 2006, p. 79, emphasis added). Educated guessing “simplifies the

complexity of daily reality, making it intelligible to us” (p. 73). It helps people make sense of a

very convoluted, complex world. People’s knowledge of the world is provisional, meaning it can

change in the future. Being able to cope with surprising, pressing situations, which are not

immediately conducive to deductive, even inductive logic, necessitates another form of thinking,

abductive thinking.

“Abductive reasoning yields the kind of daily decision-making that does its best with the

information at hand, which often is incomplete” (McKeever, 2008, p. 2). Some home

economists may have to overcome their resistance to “solutions that are presented as magical

insights rather than as the results of thoughtful, well articulated processes” (Clakre, 2013). We

may have to trust individuals and families as they take their best stab at compelling issues (e.g.,

family, personal, social, economic, political, environmental, faith, cultural). Abductive thinking

is a form of decision making on the run, doing the best they can with what they have at hand,

given the circumstances and what they know.

The pragmatic logic behind abductive thinking holds promise for respecting that families

are making do on a daily basis. With imperfect information, families respond to clues (maybe

miss clues that others can see) and try to figure out what is going on and then what to do.

Knowing that home economists are familiar with deductive and inductive logic, which are

predicated on hypotheses, we can now suggest that hypothesis takes on a whole new meaning.

“Hypothetically, this is what might be going on,” and that is sometimes all they have - a best

guess. In some cases, their best guesses actually lead to powerful new insights, in addition to

simply solving an immediate problem (like the Mom abducing that her daughter is experiencing

hormonal changes as she becomes a woman, rather than deducing she is somehow now on the

wrong track in life). Sudden flashes of insights that emerge from abductive thinking shape

everyday life (Patokorpi, 2006).

This form of logic and inference is a legitimate aspect of daily family life and warrants

further profession-wide dialogue. For this reason alone, home economists should pay more

attention to abductive reasoning. After all, humans have a natural instinct to successfully guess

(abduce) what is going on in their lives. This natural inclination behoves home economists to

engage with abductive reasoning so we can respect and support the role that educated guesses

might play as individuals and families deal with the trials and tribulations of daily life.

For instance, we need to explore how pervasive abductive reasoning is in the daily life of

individuals and families. Does this form of inference serve them well or just lead to, what Clakre

(2013) called, magical insights, seemingly not warranted by what has been observed? Are

educated or best guesses alright in some instances? Douven (2011) echoed this concern, noting

that “[e]ven if it is true that we routinely rely on abductive reasoning [in everyday life], it may

still be asked whether this practice is rational” (p. 11). And, we are reminded that home

economists have long lobbied for families to engage in critical thinking, values reasoning and

practical perennial problem solving, all predicated on deductive and inductive logic, not

abductive logic. Is it logical for us to give credence to the idea that individuals and families

spend a lot of time just making best guesses? Is their well-being and quality of life somehow

compromised by this form of inference?

Other queries come to mind. What are the implications to practice given that people differ

on their abductive acumen? Different families will take away different things from similar

circumstances. Also, how big a role does abductive reasoning play when individuals and families

engage in sensemaking, finding meaning in their daily life - making sense of it with imperfect

information? How should we (if at all) help families find and follow clues (and which ones) that

can lead to new knowledge and insights about their lived experiences? What is the best

combination of selective, creative, non-sentential, and manipulative abductions for a given

family or even for families in general? Given that “there is widespread agreement that people

frequently rely on abductive reasoning,” this paper invited home economists to engage with the

idea (Douven, 2011, p. 11).

On a closing note, home economics professionals have the opportunity to trust their own

instinctual, educated guesses about what is best for individuals and families, given what is known

at the time. Using these natural instincts, these educated guesses, home economists can make

conceptual leaps that may lead to revised and forward-looking practice. We should not

underestimate the intuitive power of quantum leaps in thinking that scarcely seem warranted by

the mere observations we are making. These sudden flashes in insights could become the

mainstay of our practice. Given the apparent prevalence of abductive thinking in families and its

potential benefits for the profession, we should rethink how our curricula, research, pedagogy,

practice, and philosophy might have to change to reflect the idea of abductive reasoning.

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