Editing Abductive reasoning (section)

=== Anthropology ===
In [[anthropology]], [[Alfred Gell]] in his influential book ''Art and Agency'' defined abduction (after Eco<ref>{{cite book|last=Eco |first= Umberto |date=1976|title =A Theory of Semiotics|publisher = Indiana University Press|page= 131|isbn =9780253359551|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=BoXO4ItsuaMC&pg=PA131}}</ref>) as "a case of synthetic inference 'where we find some very curious circumstances, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of some general rule, and thereupon adopt that supposition{{'"}}.<ref name="Gell, A 1984, p 14">{{cite book|last=Gell|first= A.|date = 1998|title = Art and Agency|location = Oxford |publisher = Clarendon Press|page =14|isbn = 9780191037450}}</ref> Gell criticizes existing "anthropological" studies of art for being too preoccupied with aesthetic value and not preoccupied enough with the central anthropological concern of uncovering "social relationships", specifically the social contexts in which artworks are produced, circulated, and received.<ref>Bowden, R. (2004) A critique of Alfred Gell on Art and Agency. Retrieved Sept 2007 from: {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20050327073225/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3654/is_200406/ai_n9453295 Find Articles at BNET]}}</ref> Abduction is used as the mechanism for getting from art to agency. That is, abduction can explain how works of art inspire a ''sensus communis:'' the commonly held views shared by members that characterize a given society.<ref name="University of California, Berkeley">Whitney D. (2006) "Abduction the agency of art". Retrieved May 2009 from: [http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/davis/Gell.pdf University of California, Berkeley] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120152801/http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/davis/Gell.pdf |date=2008-11-20 }}</ref>

The question Gell asks in the book is, "how does it initially 'speak' to people?" He answers by saying that "No reasonable person could suppose that art-like relations between people and things do not involve at least some form of [[semiosis]]."<ref name="Gell, A 1984, p 14" /> However, he rejects any intimation that semiosis can be thought of as a language because then he would have to admit to some pre-established existence of the ''sensus communis'' that he wants to claim only emerges afterwards out of art. Abduction is the answer to this conundrum because the tentative nature of the abduction concept (Peirce likened it to guessing) means that not only can it operate outside of any pre-existing framework, but moreover, it can actually intimate the existence of a framework. As Gell reasons in his analysis, the physical existence of the artwork prompts the viewer to perform an abduction that imbues the artwork with intentionality. A statue of a goddess, for example, in some senses actually becomes the goddess in the mind of the beholder; and represents not only the form of the deity but also her intentions (which are adduced from the feeling of her very presence). Therefore, through abduction, Gell claims that art can have the kind of agency that plants the seeds that grow into cultural myths. The power of agency is the power to motivate actions and inspire ultimately the shared understanding that characterizes any given society.<ref name= "University of California, Berkeley" />