Peirce's Abduction and Godel's Axioms of Infinity:

Philosophical Re ections on the Mathematics of Novelty

Geert-Jan M. Kruijff

Institute for Formal and Applied Linguistics Department of Mathematics & Physics Charles University Malostranske nam. 25, CZ-118 00 Prague 1 Czech Republic
hgj@ufal.mff.cuni.czi

-Draft manuscript, June 1997-

Table of Contents
1 2

Peirce's Abduction and Godel's Axioms of In nity

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peirce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Guessing Instinct . . . . . . . . . Godel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Godels Program for New Axioms 3.2 The Role of Intuition . . . . . . . 3.3 Formalization . . . . . . . . . . . The Trans nity of Thought . . . . . . . 4.1 Mathematics of Novelty . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 4 5

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3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14

Bibliography - Godel Bibliography

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Peirce's Abduction and Godel's Axioms of In nity

Philosophical Re ections on the Mathematics of Novelty
Geert-Jan M. Kruijff

Abstract. Charles Sanders Peirce and Kurt Godel both conceived of the limitedness of human thought as possible to be overcome by intuitively formed statements, which should be rich in veri able consequences in order to lead to justi able extensions. Peirce developed to this purpose a theory of abductive reasoning, whereas Godel theorized about axioms of in nity. Even though Godel largely concerned himself with mathematical thought only, as opposed to Peirce's much broader programme concerning all scienti c thought, we carry out a comparison between the views held by both in order to -hopefully- shed an interesting light on a (mathematical) conception of the trans nity of thought.

1 Introduction
"To in nity ... and beyond!" - the trans nity of thought.

Our knowledge, our theories, our thought, is necessarily incomplete. We have but limited means to understand a reality - our picture of that reality, phrased in terms of theories, will always be imperfect. The issue at the heart of the matters treated of here is whether, and if so: how, one is able to transcend that imperfectness. Is one able to arrive at a new theory, which is an improvement over the other in terms of explanatory power? Both the American logician Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) and the Austrian/American mathematician Kurt Godel (1906-1978) believed that one could transcend that imperfectness in a way that would be formally describable. Peirce eventually came to formulate his (mature) theory of abductive reasoning, a logical mode in which an explanation for a -thus far surprising- observation was inferred, thereby relying on a guessing instinct to provide the core of the explanation Fan70, Kru95]. Godel theorized about axioms of in nity, essentially giving rise to new (logical) theories building forth on, and thereby extending, previous theories, whereby axioms were to be found by mathematical intuition Fef96, Par95]. Given Godel's Collected Works it seems unlikely Godel was familiar with Peirce's work on abduction (Peirce being mentioned only once, in the con3
Paper presented at 11th Int. Symposium Logica'97, Liblice CR c 1997, Geert-Jan M. Kruij .

text of relational algebra)1 Surprisingly enough, though, there can be found striking similarities in the theories both developed. Here, a comparison between the two theories will be performed. Our aim thereby is to gain insight in the possibility for a mathematical/logic characterization of what I will term here the trans nity of thought. The justi cation for the e ort lies primarily in the fact that abductive reasoning, as found in Arti cial Intelligence, -as yet- still lacks a proper mathematical characterization of its process of generating explanatory hypotheses (cf. Kru95, Kru97b, Kru97a]). Furthermore, some cautious steps might be made into the following directions:
(a) From the viewpoint of philosophy of mathematics, Sandborg notes in San96] that there seems to have been little attention paid to the actual process of explanation, focusing primarily on justi catory aspects. (b) Finally, Kanamori Kan94] and Jensen Jen95] (for example) have renewed the interest in the epistemological value of (large) cardinals, and have recalled Godel's axioms of in nity in that context (cf. also Feferman's Fef96]).

Our discussion is then organized in the following way. First, Peirce's abduction and Godel's axioms of in nity are explained in sections 2 and 3, respectively. Already during the discussion of Godel's axioms of in nity, parallels with abduction will be pointed out. . . . The philosophical re ections indicated in the subtitle are hence really to be taken in the following way: "Philosophy should try to achieve some reasonable overview. There is more philosophical value in placing things in their right perspective than in solving speci c problems." (Hao Wang, quoted in Par96],p.65). It is only in the one but last section (4) that we will take in a logical perspective, and see which roads are actually open to us.

2 Peirce
The American logician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce worked on a theory of explanatory reasoning from 1868 until the end of his life in 1914. From 1890 on, these e orts became embedded in the e ort to formulate a theory of inquiry - the process of investigating the (nature of) truth. Logic was essentially to function as "method of methods" in this theory of inquiry, though we should note that Peirce's conception of logic was broader than what we commonly understand by it. Namely, it included not only critical
Namely, in Godel's 1944,p.126. | References to Godel's work take the form as in the Collected Works. Published works from 1929 until 1936 can be found in God86], publications from 1938 till 1974 in God90], and unpublished manuscripts (indicated with a *) in God95]. See also the separate list of references to Godel's works cited here, at the end of this manuscript.
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reasoning (roughly our notion of logic), but also a theory of signs (semeiotic) and a theory of proper methodology (Peirce's famous pragmatism). Consequently, logic being not just being purely formal and closed in character but closely related to experience, there was a close relation to Peirce's phenomenology. Abductive reasoning played a crucial role at the interface between Logic and phenomenology: it was to provide a logical hypothetical reason to a surprising (hence unreasoned, though mediated) observation, and as such stood at the beginning of the process of inquiry.

2.1 Abduction
Peirce's theory of abduction, as outlined in detail in Fan70] and Kru95], de nes a logical kind of reasoning which infers an explanatory hypothesis for a surprising phenomenon: The surprising fact C is observed, But if A were true, C would be a matter of course; Hence there is reason to believe to suspect that A is true. - (MS 315,1903); (CP 5.189)2 For a proper insight in what Peirce really meant here, we should have a closer look at what he meant by a 'surprising fact' and a 'hypothesis'. Concerning surprise, the following is most examplary: "A man cannot startle himself, by jumping up with an exclamation of Boo!." (MS 309,1903;(CP 5.58) Surprise is genuine - the fact was not known before, or at least not in the form as it presented itself, and a fortiori cannot be explained solely from the knowledge that we have. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been surprised in the rst place. So, we want to overcome the surprise (inducing a \state of doubt" about our own knowledge, as Peirce would call it), and therefore we have to form one or more explanatory hypotheses, select one of those, and continue our process of inquiry, testing the hypothesis. The next step would then be to deduce the consequences of the hypothesis. In fact,
Every hypothesis should be put to the test by forcing it to make veri able predictions. A hypothesis on which no veri able predictions can be based should never be accepted, except when some mark attached to it would show that it is regarded as a mere vehicle of thought, - a mere matter of form. (MS 475,1903) cited in Kru95],p.111.
Reference to Peirce's work is made by referring to the code of the relevant manuscript in Peirce's Nachlass, including the year in which it was written, and the place in the Collected Papers Cv 8] where the quote occurs. (CP 5.189) means volume 5 of the CP, paragraph 189.
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Obviously, the more consequences, the more veri able predictions - the better. Finally, these predictions are then to be tested by induction. A kind of experimentation is tried, with the aim "to form our nal estimate of the value of the hypothesis" (ibid.) - we try to nd out how much faith we can imbue upon the hypothesis as explanation. If we nd that the hypothesis indeed stands the test, then we have obtained knowledge that is genuinely new. Of course this is by far not all that can be said about abduction. But let us just investigate two questions that should be answered: If abduction is to be the generation and selection of explanatory hypotheses, then how is generation explained? And, how do we know that an explanatory hypothesis can be promising in the rst place?

2.2 Guessing Instinct

The answer to the rst question is rather simple. According to Peirce, we generate hypotheses by means of a \guessing instinct". This \guessing instinct" is like Galileo's \lumen naturale". Note that Peirce did not use the term \intuition". He reserved \intuition" primarily for the Cartesian notion of unmediated cognition - something against which Peirce vigorously argued in the 1860's. For Peirce, every cognition needs to be -at least partially- be mediated through the knowledge we have. As a consequence, whatever novelty will arise from abduction (and further inquiry) will always be novelty relative to a body of (undoubted) knowledge we have. There can not be \out of the blue" novelty (cf. especially Kru95] for a further discussion of this issue). There are, though, some relations between guessing instinct and other, modern notions of \intuition". With Hume's \intuition" guessing instinct has in common that it also relies upon reality as for what we conceive and perceive. As we mentioned above already, abduction has a close relation to perception. In fact, explanatory hypotheses are (almost?) indistinguishable from perceptual judgments, as Peirce frequently noted (cf. for example (MS 629,1901,p.6; CP 5.183)). A fundamental di erence with Hume's intuition is though that in Hume's notion ideas arise immediately, thus, are not mediated by existing knowledge. Guessing instinct di ers in an almost complementary way from Kant's Anschauung. Whereas in Kant's opinion the determination of 'ideas' rests entirely with the interpreter, via a synthesis of a priori Anschauungsformen, for Peirce the content is for an important part determined by reality. Rephrased, Peirce's guessing instinct is thus a particular disposition towards reality that enables us to guess what might be an explanatory hypothesis for a surprising observation. It \comes to us like a ash. It is an act of insight, although of extremely fallible insight." (ibid.) 6

Surely it is not very disputable that such an insight would be extremely fallible. But what does appear to be problematic is that it is not all that obvious why, out of a million or more possibilities, we should be able by virtue of this guessing instinct- to just \pick" a small set of promising hypothetical explanations. Peirce's argument went along two lines. For one, he argued that our knowledge is fallible, and thus that if we are ever to gain new knowledge, it must be via abduction. Because, abduction is the only form of reasoning that introduces a new idea (cf. (MS 314,1903,p.30; CP 5.171) and Kru97a]). And since we appear to be able to come up with genuinely new ideas, there must be something that accounts for that. Peirce therefore posed \guessing instinct" as a logical working hypothe3 . Guessing instinct, he posed, was to be conceived of as a human faculty sis epxressing our a nity to (mathematical) reality, thus enabling us to get to the right perceptual judgment if needed. Rephrased, the nature of our \guessing instinct" is such that we are able to get at useful hypothetical explanations. For a much more thorough discussion of Peirce's guessing instinct, see Ayim's Ayi72]. In Kru95] I discuss at length whether or not Peirce's guessing is really necessary; but this is not the point here.

3 Godel
Hilbert had been addressing the problems in the foundation of mathematics in the 1920's (brought about by the appearance of paradoxes in Cantor's set theory), and had proposed a two-fold program. First, a suitable chosen portion of the developed classical mathematics should be formalized, or embedded in a formal system S (cf. Kleene's introduction to 1931 ). Deductions of propositions in S should be done via purely symbolic manipulations, without relying on the intended meaning of the symbols. Secondly, Hilbert proposed that we only use the most secure methods (Ger. nit, \ nitary"), for which it should be possible to prove that S is (simply ) consistent. Godel is perhaps best known for his incompleteness theorems, published in 1931 - the theorems that shook the foundation for Hilbert's ideas. Godel's rst incompleteness theorem proved that S cannot be (simply) complete, in that we cannot say for every A in S whether A or :A is provable from S . Godel proved that there is an A for which we can neither say A nor :A. The second incompleteness theorem takes the idea of the rst theorem one step further, by proving that S cannot state its own consistency (unless it is inconsistent).
It is not a psychological hypothesis. Hence, one can argue that Peirce does not get trapped into a naturalistic fallacy.
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Although these incompleteness theorems do show the limitations of the (consistent) theories we can formulate, care should be excercised when trying to generalize the results. As Godel himself notes, for example in *1933o, a natural step is to create a cumulative hierarchy of types (instead of Russell's more restricted hierarchy of \pure" types), and extend that hierarchy into S trans nite levels S , with S = < S for limit (ordinal) alpha, and S +1 = S P (S ) for all . So,
We set out to nd a formal system for mathematics and instead of that found an in nity of systems, and whichever system you choose out of this in nity, there is one more comprehensive, i.e. one whose axioms are stronger. (*1933o,p.10)

What is more,
I]f the system under consideration (call it S ) is based on the theory of types, it turns out that exactly the next higher type not contained in S is necessary to prove this arithmetic proposition GJ: that is true but cannot be proven from a consistent S )], i.e., this proposition becomes a provable theorem if you add to the system S the next higher type and the axioms concerning it. (*1933o,p.11)

Thus, by moving up one step along the cumulative hierarchy, new propositions become provable - propositions that before were not provable. This is what Godel's program for axioms of in nity essentially all about: the new axioms needed to make this next step4 .

3.1 Godels Program for New Axioms

From 1931 until late in his life, Godel speculated about the possibility of deciding yet undecided number-theoretical and set-theoretical propositions by means of obtaining new axioms for mathematics ( Fef96]):
Let us consider, e.g., the concept of demonstrability. It is well known that, in whichever way you make it precise by means of a formalism, the contemplation of this very formalism gives rise to new axioms which are exactly as evident and justi ed as those with which you started, and this process of extension can be iterated into the trans nite. So there cannot exist any formalism which would embrace all these steps; but this does not exclude that all these steps (or at least all of them which give something new for the domain of propositions in which you are interested) could be described and collected together in some non-constructive way. (1946,p.151)

This is also known as Godel's search for 'axioms of in nity', by means of which " a]ny proof for a set-theoretic theorem in the next higher system
4 For our subsequent discussion of Godel's program we found our discussion on the insights of Feferman's Fef96] and Parsons' Par95], and the sources in Godel's work pointed out there as relevant.

above set theory (i.e., any proof involving the concept of truth)" could be replaced by a proof from that axiom of in nity ((ibid.)). Jensen, in Jen95], summerizes the e ort very neatly as follows:
The universe of sets is too large and varied to be fully captured by the human spirit. Over time, however, mathematical intuition improves and with it our ability to describe this universe. The steps of this approximation process are marked by the axioms that we recognize as true. The axiom of constructibility presents, modulo the ordinal numbers, a complete description of sets and is thus a limiting principle that would halt the approximation process. Instead, one should look for additional existence axioms, called strong axioms of in nity. (p.398)

An issue in which the program pops up is for example the Continuum Hypothesis (whether 2@0 = @1 , or generalized to 2@ = @ +1 ). Godel hoped that eventually, CH could be decided via (su cient) axioms of innity (1947 ).

3.2 The Role of Intuition

Godel remarks about the axioms that \probably there exist other axioms] based on hitherto unknown principles . . . which a more profound understanding of the concepts underlying logic and mathematics would enable us to recognize as implied by these concepts" (1946 ), and that they should be \so abundant in their veri able consequences . . . that quite irrespective of their intrinsic necessity they would have to be assumed" (ibid.). This already should sound familiar, given our previous discussion of Peirce. But what makes Godel's program even more fascinating is that Godel, in a similar vein, poses a \mathematical intuition" for the 'generation' of new axioms. Parsons discusses Godel's intuition at length in Par95], describing it as \a perceptual judgment, which may have a strong presumption of truth but which can in principle be false." (p.61)5 It has clear, strong ties to the Platonistic view of (mathematical) reality Godel held - and even though one might not agree with that view, let alone the posing of a faculty of 'intuition' (cf. Maddy's Mad96]), \there are genuine problems to which it responds, which no epistemology for a mathematics that includes higher set theory can altogether avoid." ( Par95],p.45) We will not discuss Godel's Platonism here, but only note some important features that show clearly how Godel's insights parallel Peirce's. One noteworthy feature is that Godel regards mathematical intuition as a source of knowledge, though that should not necessarily be interpreted as already having that knowledge:
The perceptual aspect can -arguably- be ascribed as an in uence of Husserl's work on phenomenology, with which Godel was well acquainted, as was Peirce, in fact.
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However, mathematical intuition in addition produces the conviction that, if these sentences express observable facts and were obtained by applying mathematics to veri ed physical laws (or if they express ascertainable mathematical facts), then these facts will be brought out by observation (or computation). (*1953/9,version III,p.340)

Moreover, it is impossible to leave out mathematical intuition, by reducing mathematics to mere syntax or convention (*1953/9 ). Mathematical intuition helps us to bring about new axioms; it is an indispensible epistemological factor. We can see the real need for that from a slightly different perspective, when in 1972a Godel argues that Turing committed a philosophical error, when claiming that mental processes cannot go beyond mechanical procedures:
However, this argument is inconclusive. What Turing disregards completely is the fact that mind, in its use, is not static, but constantly developing, i.e. that we understand abstract terms more and more precisely as we go on using them, and that more and more abstract terms enter the sphere of our understanding.(p.306)

As an example, Godel explicitly mentions the generation of new axioms of in nity in set theory - the kind of novelty similar to that brought about by Peirce's abduction.

3.3 Formalization
Over the last half century, various formalizations have been proposed for trans nite progressions of theories. Turing, in his 1939 paper on systems of ordinals Tur65], described a theory in which one can systematically extend a logic along the line of an e ective enumeration of ordinals into the trans nite, by associating with each step the adjunction of a re ection principle with the current system. One problem Feferman notes for Turing's ordinal logics, as well as for his own previous attempts, is the close binding to the ordinal notation. Various papers by Kreisel (in the late 60's) essentially moved past this problem by describing autonomous progressions, thereby still relying on the notions of ordinal and well-ordering, but without commitment to which ordinals ought to be accepted in the succession. In Fef96], Feferman presents a very general notion of the "unfolding" closure of schematically axiomatized formal systems S . \Unfolding" purportedly answers better to Godel's intend with the axioms of in nity. Namely, Godel's programme expressed the idea of expansion by "new axioms exactly as evident and justi ed as those with which you started," and unfolding echoes this. This can be further explained as follows. By using a schematically axiomatized system S , by accepting these schemata, we implicitly accept any meaningful substitution instances - without having to specify in 10

advance which instances these are. The operation of unfolding exploits this by expanding both the language and axioms (and hence theorems) of such systems S , thereby arriving at those concepts and principles which can be determined in successive steps explicitly or implicitly from S . Which are, henceforth, as meaningful, or as "evident and justi ed", as the concepts and principles we originally started with.

4 The Trans nity of Thought

Let us conceive the "trans nity of thought" as the idea that our knowledge (of whatever reality) is `fallible', but that there are ways to overcome that fallibility by `improving' our knowledge in a never-ending process of small steps (which are in themselves perfectly comprehensible). Although one might say that both Peirce and Godel subscribed to such an idea, and developed similar views on how fallibility could be overcome, one should -obviously- exert some caution, and not jump too rash to the conclusion "They are the same". Consider for example `fallibility'. For Peirce, this does not only mean incompleteness of knowledge, in the sense that an observed surprise always has to arise from the unability to predict the observation at all. Sometimes, we might be simply wrong in our ideas, not in that we were not making a prediction - we predicted something else. The rst case is that we wouldn't know A nor not-A, whereas the second case is simply points at an inconsistency in our knowledge6 . Yet, for Godel this does not really seem to hold. One might argue for this observation from the viewpoint of Godel's "robust realism" or Platonism: the idea could only be incomplete, not inconsistent. The latter would point to the kind of conventionalism that could lead to di erent ideas being held, something to which Godel certainly does not subscribe. Then, what about Peirce? Concerning mathematics, Peirce was of the opinion that
...] all the marked general characteristics of mathematics are consequences of its being a scienti c study of imaginary states of things. That it is so is implied by my father's Benjamin Peirce] de nition that mathematics is the science which draws necessary conclusions. For imaginary states of things are the only ones of which we can have completely and absolutely exact knowledge. Now without such knowledge no absolutely necessary conclusion can be drawn, since a necessary conclusion is one which not only holds good in the existing universe, but would hold good in any universe whatsoever.

These imaginary states of things had their own reality, nevertheless, of which we could sometimes have incomplete knowledge. Because, as Ketner pointed
We could, of course, think up more complex situations - but in my opinion we could easily reconstruct those in terms of composition of these two simple types.
6

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out, Peirce discerned two kinds of deduction: corollarial and theorematic deduction ( Ket88]). Corollarial deduction is the normal modus ponens-kind of deduction; theorematic deduction, on the other, requires additional hypotheses in order for the conclusion to follow - hypotheses that are abductively formed. Peirce and Godel thus seem to converge at least from the viewpoint of mathematics7 How could we explain the prominent role "mistakes" play, then, in logic - next to incompleteness? One might want to continue to argue for that along the lines of Peirce's notion of reality, but I do not consider that to be proper for the current discussion, nor without danger (Peirce's notion is unclear, and one could furthermore wonder whether one should stick so 'dogmatically' to his theory). We can explain the role via the following, natural question: Why would one be interested in mistakes in Logic? And this question is relatively easy to answer.
...] Mathematics is not Logic for the reason that the mathematician deals exclusively with assumptions for whose truth he in no wise makes himself responsible, while logic deals with positive truth. The mathematician's interest in reasoning is to get at the conclusion in the speediest way consistent with certainty. The logician, on the contrary, does not care particularly what the conclusion is. His interest lies in picking the reasoning to pieces and discovering the principles upon which its leading to truth depends. As far as necessary inference is concerned, the mathematician and the logician meet upon a common highway. But they face in contrary directions.

Rephrased, whereas mathematics is interested in extending theories with axioms "just as evident and justi ed as those you started with" (1946 ), logic (and particularly, Peirce's Logic as 'the method of methods in the process of inquiry') focuses on discovering what makes it that a particular argument has, or could possibly have, a true conclusion. What is convenient for our purposes here is that we can attempt to answer this question without getting too much into the metaphysical meddle of mathematics. We need to assume some kind of realism; but after that, the question is equally valid to consider in for example Maddy's set-theoretical naturalism Mad96], which "interest is in set theoretic methodology ... and in particular ... how those methods can be justi ed and extended by attending to the details of practice]." (p.503).

4.1 Mathematics of Novelty

Several logics of abduction have been proposed in the literature, for example Ali96, LCT91, Kon96, MP96, Zad93], and more algorithmically oriented, TBJ91, Gab96, JJ94, Kru95], but one can argue that all of them focus
7

I would even like to venture the hypothesis that Peirce anticipated the problem of incompleteness as was later to be proved by Godel. See MS 457, 1903.

12

on the validity-aspect rather than on novelty. This point has been argued for on "philosophical" grounds in Kru95], but is expressed better in Pirri's Pir95] where she points out that the aspect of generation is still in want of elaboration. Moreover, even when such a logic of abduction seemingly deals with novel explanations, that is, 2 whereas ; , the explanation is either obtained or formed from an external set of basic explanations, or the logic does not point out how exactly would have to be arrived at. Agreeing with Gabbay's view of a logical system as a pair of a consequence relation and its operational description (cf. Gab96]), the picture thus remains incomplete. What would a mathematics of novelty have to look like? From the point of view of abduction, one should make the move towards predicativity, as Feferman does in Fef96], since impredicativity (as the de nition of a proposition P by reference to the set of "all" proporties of a set of individuals, e.g. the integers) seems implausible in the light of doubt. Moreover, even though Godel speaks in 1946 of the "non-constructive way" in which new axioms would probably have to be formed, it seems reasonable to interpret the "non-constructivity" as not in the way of intuitionistic construction (prevalent at that time). For see for example the end of *1933o, where Godel expresses the hope that ". . . one may nd other and more satisfactory methods of construction beyond the limits of system A . . . "8 . And in fact, Kreisel's autonomous progressions of theories, and Feferman's own work, all are providing constructive foundations (thereby actually taking in a critical stance towards the Platonistic view of the foundations of mathematics. As already pointed to in the beginning, Feferman's unfolding presents a theory closest to Godel's intentions. It o ers an explanation of "everything that one ought to accept if one has accepted given concepts and principles " ( Fef96],p.8). How could this be useful for abduction? But unfolding makes a rather huge "jump". Given that unfolding makes use of explicit de nition and least xed point recursion, one might exploit this fact by de ning a stage comparison operator (as in Rathjen's Rat96]. ... Finally, note though that it is a mistake to fundamentally identify abduction with deduction9 . Logical arguments have been given by for example Mayer Caldea and Pirri MP96].
A being Brouwer's original system of intuitionism Note the "fundamentally": sometimes it is worthwhile to technically identify abduction with deduction, as is done in a computational approach to abduction called closure semantics.
8 9

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5 Conclusions
Consider Cohen and Nagel's paradox of inference (as discussed in Sun94]):
If in an inference the conclusion is not contained in the premise, it cannot be valid; and if the conclusion is not di erent from the premises, it is useless; but the conclusion cannot be contained in the premises and also possess novelty; hence inferences cannot be both valid and useful.

Obviously, the paradox concerns the tension between (the want for) validity and (the need for) novelty. Abduction, as an inference, attempts to balance between these two, by wanting on the one hand that we can embue some faith on a generated explanation, which, on the other hand, by necessity expresses a novelty. The relation between intuitionism, Godel, and constructivity certainly deserves to be investigated further. Part of the research discussed here was done while the author was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism, Texas Tech University, where copies of Peirce's original manuscripts were accessible. Mentioned manuscript MS ... was studied at Houghton Library, Harvard University. I would like to thank Ken Ketner for the many discussions we have had, as well as for his hospitality during my stay. Finally, I am grateful to Helen Lauer who sent me a copy of the volume in which Fef96] appeared, thereby initiating the stream of thought briefed of here.

Acknowledgements

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Bibliography - Godel
The bibliographical references to Godel's writings are those used by the editors of the Collected Works God86, God90, God95].
1931

Uber formal unentscheidbare Satze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I, reprint in God86], translation by Jean van Heijenoort, pp.144-195

*1933o

The present situation in the foundations of mathematics, lecture to the Mathematics Association of America, 1933, God95], pp.45-53 *1938a Vortrag bei Zilsel, 1938, transcription of shorthand draft, with a translation by Charles Parsons, God95], pp.86-113 1944 Russell's mathematical logic, reprint in God90], pp.119-141 1946 Remarks before the Princeton bicentennial conference on problems in mathematics, reprint in God90], pp.150-153 1947 What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?, reprint in God90], pp.176-187 *1953/9 Is mathematics syntax of language?, God95], pages 334-362 1972a Some remarks on the undecidability results, reprint in God90], pp.305306

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Kru97a]

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Pir95] Rat96] San96]

Sun94]

TBJ91] Tur65]

Zad93]

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