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Peirce considers inferential any cognitive activity whatever, not only conscious
abstract thought; he also includes perceptual knowledge and subconscious
cognitive activity. For instance in subconscious mental activities visual
representations play an immediate role. 57
Many commentators always criticized the Peircian ambiguity in treating
abduction in the same time as inference and perception. It is important to clarify
this problem, because perception and imagery are kinds of that model-based
cognition which we are exploiting to explain abduction: in (Magnani 2006) I
conclude we can render consistent the two views, beyond Peirce, but perhaps also
within the Peircian texts, taking advantage of the concept of multimodal abduction,
which depicts hybrid aspects of abductive reasoning (Magnani 2006).
6. Constructing meaning through Mimetic and creative External Objects
6.1. Constructing Meaning through Manipulative Abduction
Manipulative abduction occurs when many external things, usually inert from the
semiotic point of view, can be transformed into what I have called “epistemic
mediators” (Magnani 2001a) that give rise - for instance in the case of scientific
reasoning - to new signs, new chances for interpretants, and new interpretations.
We can cognitively account for the process of disembodiment of mind we
have seen in the perspective of paleoanthropology taking advantage of the concept
pf manipulative abduction. It happens when we are thinking through doing and not
only, in a pragmatic sense, about doing. It happens, for instance, when we are
creating geometry constructing and manipulating an external, suitably realized,
57 Cf. Queiroz and Merrell, 2005.
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