Modus Dolens

JA: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/05/10/modus-dolens/
KM: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8724

Kirsti,

That post is categorized and tagged "Humor", though
there is a rather serious, even sardonic point to it.
But I see from your remarks that you more or less got
the drift of it.

"Modus Dolens" was concocted as a pidgin Latin pun
on "Modus Tolens" by way of suggesting "Way of Pain".

Regards,

Jon

KM: Thank you, Jon, for providing the link. -
     This is such an interesting theme that
     I took some time to take a glance on
     your earlier contributions. -
     Very rewarding it was!

KM: Your post titled Modus Dolens (on May 10, 2012) was most interesting,
     hit on a topic I have been working on for quite a while. Also, I lead
     me to read Aristotle's Rhetoric, as well as  to compare in detail some
     parts of the translation in Loeb Classical Library (by J.H. Freese) &
     the recent translation to Finnish (with excellent notes) & even the
     Greek text (though my abilities in Greek are in a pitiful state). -
     Most rewarding.

KM: But leaving those insights for the future, I'll take up your
     quite short post I mention above. You wrote on Modus Dolens:

 > JA: A yet innominate mode of inference has become so frequent in certain
 >     quarters that the time has come to fashion a suitable name for it.
 >     The scheme of thought in question goes a bit like this:
 >
 > If A, then B.
 >
 > Not B.
 >

> ──────────────────

 >
 > But A simply has to be ❢❢❢
 >
 > I know some scholars will insist that it ought to be called “modus dolendo dolens”
 > or something like that, but let’s not be pedantic.


KM: I do not know which quarters and which scholars you are referring to. -
     What I'm intrigued is why you say this is "a yet innominate mode of inference"?

KM: To my mind it is a special type of abductive inference (or, using Aristotle's term,
     a special kind of enthymeme).

KM: Why do you name it Modus Dolens? - I'm convinced you have good reasons for that name. -
     Please, do tell me!

KM: Method of exasperation??? - The exclamation marks, as well as the Latin word,
     bring to my mind how Peirce mocked Hegel's Logik about the notion of logical
     necessity involved (to Peirce's mind, in his earlier writings) in the Logik. -
     Peirce wrote, e.g., that he often had a sense of necessity about his bank
     account, about the money that simply has to be there !!! - with no avail.

KM: Peirce does have a very illuminating chapter on exceptions,
     leading way to from a not-so-good hypothesis to better ones,
     via a better theory, compassing both within the rule (or rules).

KM: Theories are not possible without abductive inferences. - As the saying goes
     (in some quarters): Theories are always under-determined by  established facts. -
     The main job theories have to do in the continuity of inquiry being that they
     have to provide coherent grounds for new hypotheses (to be tested).

KM: This, to my mind, was Peirce's view, too.

-- 

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