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Iddo Tavory and Stefan Timmermans Abductive Analysis: Theorizing Qualitative Research Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2014, 172 pp., incl. index.
Charles S. Peirce's conception of abductive reasoning became a hot topic in the philosophy of science after World War II, when N. R. Hanson suggested that abduction is a logic of discovery, Gilbert Harman argued that all types of inductive reasoning can be reduced to inference to the best explanation (IBE), and Howard Smokler suggested that abduction as inverse deduction is an important method of confirmation. Abduction has been a popular theme also in Artificial Intelligence. Illustrations and examples of abduction have been sought in everyday life, detective stories, and many scientific disciplines from astronomy to medicine.
Iddo Tavory and Stefan Timmermans have published a book on qualitative research which is a welcome addition to the growing literature on abduction. They are both professors of sociology with a solid background in cultural research: Tavory (from the New York University) has studied condom use in developing countries and religious identities among Jewish Orthodox neighborhoods, Timmermans (from the University of California, Los Angeles) postmortem examinations of suspicious deaths and newborn genetic screening.
The book consists of an Introduction, seven Chapters, a Conclusion, and a Synopsis of abductive analysis.
The basic thesis of Tavory and Timmermans, outlined in the Introduction, is that Peirce's pragmatism helps to understand the relationship among...