“Scientific research faces up with an open and unknown world”Within the work of C. S. Peirce, the most fundamental and contentious form of inference is that of abduction. According to Peirce, abduction is the only type of inference from which new ideas are created (CP 5.171, 1903). He wrote, “every single item of scientific theory which stands established today has been due to Abduction” (CP 5.172, 1903). Similarly, “All that makes knowledge applicable comes to us viâ abduction. […] Not the (...) smallest advance can be made in knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at every step” (HP 2:899–900, 1901). It is little wonder that so much attention has been paid to this particular type of.. (shrink)