The Stages of the Method (i): Experience and Hypothesis

This chapter describes the characteristics of the method which Charles Sanders Peirce judges most adapted to the needs of scientific inquiry. In particular, the chapter deals with the experience which precedes the formation of the explanatory hypothesis, and with the formation of that hypothesis. It treats Peirce's basic teaching on the formation of the hypothesis, some of the requirements for choosing a hypothesis, and certain relevant theoretical questions. The inquirer who follows the method of the sciences advocated by Peirce will look to nature for an answer to their questions. Here, experience becomes the occasion for wonder about nature, and nature herself will ultimately supply the answer to the scientist's wonder. The genuine person of science, however, must somehow go beyond experience; they must look for explanations, even unexperienced explanations of what they have experienced. The chapter then turns to the framing of the explanatory hypothesis, or abduction. This discussion is addressed on three considerations: Peirce's basic teaching on abduction, some requirements for choosing hypotheses, and some theoretical considerations.