IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jqecon/v21y2023i1d10.1007_s40953-022-00332-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Abductive Inference and C. S. Peirce: 150 Years Later

Author

Listed:
  • Subhadeep Mukhopadhyay

    (​United Analytics and Computational Intelligence, Inc.)

Abstract

This paper is about two things: (i) Charles Sanders Peirce (1837–1914)—an iconoclastic philosopher and polymath who is among the greatest of American minds. (ii) Abductive inference—a term coined by C. S. Peirce, which he defined as “the process of forming explanatory hypotheses. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea.” 1. Abductive inference and quantitative economics. Abductive inference plays a fundamental role in empirical scientific research as a tool for discovery and data analysis. Heckman and Singer (2017) strongly advocated “Economists should abduct.” Arnold Zellner (2007) stressed that “much greater emphasis on reductive [abductive] inference in teaching econometrics, statistics, and economics would be desirable.” But currently, there are no established theory or practical tools that can allow an empirical analyst to abduct. This paper attempts to fill this gap by introducing new principles and concrete procedures to the Economics and Statistics community. I termed the proposed approach as Abductive Inference Machine (AIM). 2. The historical Peirce’s experiment. In 1872, Peirce conducted a series of experiments to determine the distribution of response times to an auditory stimulus, which is widely regarded as one of the most significant statistical investigations in the history of nineteenth-century American mathematical research (Stigler in Ann Stat 239–265, 1978). On the 150th anniversary of this historical experiment, we look back at the Peircean-style abductive inference through a modern statistical lens. Using Peirce’s data, it is shown how empirical analysts can abduct in a systematic and automated manner using AIM.

Suggested Citation

  • Subhadeep Mukhopadhyay, 2023. "Abductive Inference and C. S. Peirce: 150 Years Later," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 21(1), pages 123-149, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jqecon:v:21:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s40953-022-00332-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s40953-022-00332-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40953-022-00332-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40953-022-00332-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buansing, T.S. Tuang & Golan, Amos & Ullah, Aman, 2020. "An information-theoretic approach for forecasting interval-valued SP500 daily returns," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 800-813.
    2. Lee Tae-Hwy & Mao Millie Yi & Ullah Aman, 2021. "Maximum Entropy Analysis of Consumption-based Capital Asset Pricing Model and Volatility," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-19, January.
    3. George Box, 2001. "Statistics for discovery," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(3-4), pages 285-299.
    4. Subhadeep Mukhopadhyay & Emanuel Parzen, 2020. "Nonparametric universal copula modeling," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(1), pages 77-94, January.
    5. Subhadeep & Mukhopadhyay, 2021. "A Maximum Entropy Copula Model for Mixed Data: Representation, Estimation, and Applications," Papers 2108.09438, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    6. Subhadeep Mukhopadhyay, 2022. "A maximum entropy copula model for mixed data: representation, estimation and applications," Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 1036-1062, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Subhadeep Mukhopadhyay, 2023. "Modelplasticity and abductive decision making," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 46(1), pages 255-276, June.
    2. Subhadeep & Mukhopadhyay, 2022. "Modelplasticity and Abductive Decision Making," Papers 2203.03040, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    3. Deep Mukhopadhyay, 2021. "Abductive Inference and C. S. Peirce: 150 Years Later," Papers 2111.08054, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    4. Subhadeep & Mukhopadhyay, 2021. "A Maximum Entropy Copula Model for Mixed Data: Representation, Estimation, and Applications," Papers 2108.09438, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    5. Zhu, Bangzhu & Wan, Chunzhuo & Wang, Ping, 2022. "Interval forecasting of carbon price: A novel multiscale ensemble forecasting approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    6. Sun, Yuying & Zhang, Xinyu & Wan, Alan T.K. & Wang, Shouyang, 2022. "Model averaging for interval-valued data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 301(2), pages 772-784.
    7. Piao Wang & Shahid Hussain Gurmani & Zhifu Tao & Jinpei Liu & Huayou Chen, 2024. "Interval time series forecasting: A systematic literature review," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 249-285, March.
    8. Sharma Mithun & Sharma Shilpi, 2021. "Critical Evaluation into the practical utility of the Design of Experiments," Engineering Management in Production and Services, Sciendo, vol. 13(3), pages 50-65, September.
    9. Mukhopadhyay, Subhadeep & Wang, Kaijun, 2023. "On The Problem of Relevance in Statistical Inference," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 93-109.
    10. Michael William Ashby & Oliver Bruce Linton, 2024. "Do Consumption-Based Asset Pricing Models Explain the Dynamics of Stock Market Returns?," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-42, February.
    11. Wang, Piao & Tao, Zhifu & Liu, Jinpei & Chen, Huayou, 2023. "Improving the forecasting accuracy of interval-valued carbon price from a novel multi-scale framework with outliers detection: An improved interval-valued time series analysis mode," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jqecon:v:21:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s40953-022-00332-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.