Peirce's notion of abductive reasoning was derived from Aristotle's treatment of it in the ''Prior Analytics''. Aristotle's discussion begins with an example that may appear incidental, but the question and its analysis are echoes of an important investigation that was pursued in one of Plato's Dialogues, the ''Meno''. This inquiry is concerned with the possibility of knowledge and the relationship between knowledge and virtue, or between their objects, the true and the good. It is not just because it forms a recurring question in philosophy, but because it preserves a certain correspondence between its form and its content, that we shall find this example increasingly relevant to our study. | Peirce's notion of abductive reasoning was derived from Aristotle's treatment of it in the ''Prior Analytics''. Aristotle's discussion begins with an example that may appear incidental, but the question and its analysis are echoes of an important investigation that was pursued in one of Plato's Dialogues, the ''Meno''. This inquiry is concerned with the possibility of knowledge and the relationship between knowledge and virtue, or between their objects, the true and the good. It is not just because it forms a recurring question in philosophy, but because it preserves a certain correspondence between its form and its content, that we shall find this example increasingly relevant to our study. |