remix

Here are two other (and shorter) ways of making the point I tried to make below:

1. Jesus had a great imagination. He loved parables. And as we all know, when the disciples asked him what these parables "meant" he said:

"Quit harshin' my mellow with your abstract reasoning bra. I'm playin' with evocative images to stir you up, so stop trying to tie me down with your cold logical ways."

Right? Uhh... Wrong.

2. Or if Jesus doesn't work for you, here's the founder of (American) pragmatism's Charles Sanders Peirce on his use of "abductive," as oppose to deductive or inductive, logic:

"It must be remembered that abduction, although it is very little hampered by logical rules, nevertheless is logical inference, asserting its conclusion only problematically or conjecturally, it is true, but nevertheless having a perfectly definite logical form."
(Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, CP 5.188-189, 1903)

Fans of abductive logic - more power to ya, but please do keep that in mind.

Despite the recent turn of another intellectual season (i.e. modern to postmodern), the thinking cap is still in style.