Creativity Between Logic and Cosmology: Peirce’s Fundamental Abduction

The aim of the present paper is to explore the connection between Peirce’s theory of abduction and his cosmology, showing how his metaphysical and cosmological conceptions are required by his logical theory of abduction. Indeed, generally speaking many critical studies have tackled the topic of abduction, while the reception of Peirce’s cosmology is definitely controversial among his scholars. For this reason, the present work opens by asking whether abduction is fully understandable and acceptable without any reference to Peirce’s metaphysics, and in particular without any implication of his cosmology. Thus, this hypothesis of inquiry is assumed throughout the paper in order to reach a deeper understanding of what creativity is and what kind of philosophy can actually sustain and explain it. As a conclusion, I explain how this close connection between logic and metaphysics, abduction and cosmology, which only guarantees the real possibility of a genuine creativity, finds its reason in Peirce’s key-idea of Synechism.