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Peirce’s contributions to constructivism and personal construct psychology: II. Science, logic and inquiry.

Procter, H. G.

Keywords:
Peirce, Kelly, pragmatism, personal construct psychology, constructivism

Abstract:
Kelly suggested that it was useful to consider anyone as functioning as a scientist, in the business of applying theories, making hypotheses and predictions and testing them out in the practice of everyday life. One of Charles Peirce’s major contributions was to develop the disciplines of logic and the philosophy of science. We can deepen and enrich our understanding of Kelly’s vision by looking at what Peirce has to say about the process of science. For Peirce, the essence of science was the application of the laws of inference. He developed a much broader concept of logic, elaborating the processes of deduction and induction and adding to these the logic of hypothetical inference, or “abduction”, even as Kelly broadened it further in his “departure from classical logic”. Examining the implications of these three forms of inference allows us to elaborate the dynamics involved in the process of construing, ordinacy and the cycles of experience, creativity and decision making. This is the second of a three part series examining the relationship between the work of Peirce and Kelly. The third will include a look at phenomenology, bipolarity, the self, dialogical process and sociological considerations.