Abstract

It may seem obvious that, before we can begin to verify a hypothesis, we must somehow “acquire” one. Yet, until Peirce began working on his theory of abduction, little thought had been given to the issue of hypothesis acquisition and its everyday equivalent goal acquisition. Even today, most people seem satisfied with the idea that goals and hypotheses arise “somehow,” and that the primary purpose of scientific inquiry is to verify a hypothesis; and, of ordinary life, to achieve goals. The idea of a normative method by which hypotheses should be formed belongs to Peirce. Here we will be loosely applying the mental construct of John Dewey’s “means-end continuum” as a heuristic device for explaining the differing ways in which hypotheses can be constructed‹and the way in which, according to Peirce, they “should be” constructed. Dewey’s means-end continuum enables demonstration of the differences between goal-directed and means-directed hypothesis construction. The following discussion will be addressing the aspect of goal-acquisition habits in everyday life, and of hypothesis construction in formal logic in terms of the ways in which these relate to means-directed and goal-directed processes.